Background: The degree of Maternal and Child Health (MCH) is still a major problem in health development in Indonesia. One factor that may be an obstacle in solving this problem is the limited cost. In this context, planning and cost utilization are essential to improve so that they can produce a great impact for the improvement of MCH. Therefore, in-depth information about the MCH financing situation in regions as an input to develop efficient activities in improving MCH status is needed. Objective: To analyze health financing situation of MCH program in 2010 which sourced from government and to make policy recommendations related to the program in Sabu Raijua District, East Nusa Tenggara Province. The situation in question is availability, budget planning process, expenditure accuracy, and fund flow rate. Method: This was a descriptive research with a case study strategy. Result: The total cost of MCH program was IDR 450,787,500. It was not sufficient to provide basic health services for pregnant women from early pregnancy until postpartum period. The budget proportion from the central, provincial, and district governments amounted to 79.63%, 3.56%, and 16.78%, respectively. Cost allocation of the district budget was 0.80%. Planning activities of MCH program was from the district budget through the development planning meeting (Musrenbang). Proposed activities in Musrenbang were dominated by physical activities. The cost of MCH program was spent more on direct activities and operational cost in villages and sub districts. The implementation of the activities was not supported by facilities and adequate human resources. The MCH fund disbursement from the central government was conducted in October- November while from the provincial and district governments were in July to August. Conclusion: The government’s commitment was still low in financing MCH program as a priority program due to budget decentralization. Musrenbang activities had not demonstrated significant impacts on quality activities improvement and budget allocations from the district budget. Availability of personnel and health facilities greatly affected the performance of MCH program. Delays in funds disbursement disrupted the implementation of activities and provided opportunities for corruption. Therefore, the supervision function must be improved both internal and external. Keywords: financing, maternal and child health program, health account, budget, government.
The main goal of this paper is to establish grounds for a more efficient development of local communities taking into consideration their entire former development characterized by a pronounced polarization and territorial inequality of development exhibited among them in extreme proportions. In view of the insufficient and inadequate decentralization performed without a specific concept in the past, the authors aim to analyze the state of the local infrastructure within the framework of territorial organization offered by the latest regulations, as well as estimate the goals set in the last couple of years by the support programs related to the development of local infrastructure provided by the international institutions. The authors have a similar goal in that sense to provide sufficient argumentation for a quality distribution of local infrastructure and, accordingly, more efficient local development as a prerequisite for a more uniform regional development, especially in rural areas.
Modern engineering and social systems are often too complex to be managed by a centralized agent. Instead, such systems are commonly structured with multiple decentralized agents each responsible for managing a subset of the system, but the resulting system performance depends on the aggregate of the decisions made by decentralized agents. Local agents' decision makings often exhibit selfish behavior as they seek to optimize their own objectives under their localized models, which if left uncoordinated can lead to substantial loss of efficiency compared with the system that can be optimized by a single (hypothetical) centralized agent. In this dissertation, we seek to study the fundamental issues of how to efficiently manage large-scale and multi-agent stochastic dynamic systems, especially on how to device efficient coordination mechanisms that would optimize system performance under various constraints that are unique to decentralized systems.In the first part of this dissertation we study decentralized control of a general class of stochastic dynamic resource allocation problems that have many applications. We consider a stochastic system in which multiple decentralized agents allocate shared system resources in response to customer requests that arrive stochastically over time. Each agent is responsible for a subset of the allocation decisions which it makes according to a dynamic allocation policy obtained by maximizing his own expected profit subject to a potentially mis-specified model of the way in which shared resources are consumed by other agents. We introduce the notion of a transfer contract which specifies how agents compensate one another whenever resources are consumed and establish the existence of contracts under which the decentralized system has no efficiency loss relative to centralized optimality. We also show that this property is insensitive to mis-specification by each agent of the dynamics of resource consumption by others in the system. An explicit characterization of the optimal transfer contract and an iterative decentralized algorithm for computing it is also provided. In the language of duality, contracts are analogous to shadow prices and the iterative algorithm has the favor of a dual update method, but strong duality and convergence of the iterative algorithm to the set of optimal contracts are guaranteed without assumptions of convexity.In the second part of this dissertation we study a class of related decentralized control problems but specialize to portfolio and risk management. Many financial institutions typically trade in multiple correlated markets. While centralized portfolio optimization over all trading decisions is ideal, it is generally not possible due to the complexity of each market, and firms typically adopt a decentralized setup in which trading in each market the responsibility of a particular desk. Decentralized portfolio optimization, however, is complicated by the fact that different agents are commonly only well informed about their own investment universe (proprietary research and forecasts, etc) and prefer to keep this private, and have their own incentives which they optimize on the basis of their limited models. It is well known, however, that the aggregate performance of such a system can be extremely inefficient due to the loss of diversification. In this dissertation, we formulate a multi-agent dynamic portfolio choice problem and study how to improve its efficiency. We show that an internal system of swap contracts, which define internal cash transfers between agents, can be used to facilitate risk sharing and induce agents to choose portfolios that as a collection are optimal for the firm. Conceptually using swap contracts is similar to performance benchmarking that is often employed in the finance literature for decentralized portfolio management, but our new approach offers a significant advantage in that the swap contracts can be constructed in decentralized manner without requiring an all-knowing central agent. We provide an explicit characterization of the optimal swap contracts and an iterative algorithm for computing them that can be implemented without compromising proprietary agent level data.Throughout this dissertation, we also discuss various important issues surrounding decentralized control of stochastic dynamic systems, including but not limited to approximation methods, performance attribution, sensitivity analysis, and fairness issues, etc.
The Nordic countries are small, unitary, and have largely homogeneous populations. Municipalities are the most important agents in the decentralized public sector and the middle tier (the county level) is losing importance. The expenditure of Nordic local authorities exceeds that in Canada by 10 percent of GDP. The difference represents the effect of local income taxes. Large local expenditures are for kindergartens, primary schools, social welfare, care for the elderly, and culture. These welfare functions are not, however, local public goods; local governments serve mostly as agents for the delivery of national public services. This situation creates complicated problems of control. Amalgamations in several Nordic countries have been carried out to improve the capacity of local authorities to deliver services. Other approaches include joint production and contracting out. The local income tax is a big revenue-raiser, but has some undesirable side effects. Some Nordic countries have a company tax, but this tax raises questions of accountability and fairness, and has been phased out in several places. Nordic countries use methods of tax base equalization which transfer contributions from wealthy jurisdictions to poorer ones. Equalization also involves complicated efforts to deal with the special expenditure needs of cities.
Nowadays, global economy has to face some difficulties, especially since the financial crisis is still a present factor in our economy. This research paper emphasizes the importance of adopting, especially during instability periods, coherent measures by all those who have the power of decision in terms of local budgetary revenue collection and expenditure destination. It is necessary that the regional development dimensions to be conceived according to the diversity of nations, their historical background, but also the cultural, economic and social development discrepancies. We have also underlined the connection between regional development, local autonomy and decentralization, mainly the administrative decentralization, as these concepts define the transfer of responsibilities for the planning, financing and management of certain public functions from the central Government to subordinate units or regional and local authorities. The article focuses on the Global Index of Development and its specific indicators which reveal region’s social-economic and financial performance.
Since the 1980s, decision-making and managerial power has gradually been handed over to higher education institutions in China. This has helped to reduce the government’s financial burden and improve the administrative efficiency of universities. A particular reform involves the establishment of autonomous experimental units within 36 universities. These decentralized units are more highly dependent on market forces than other parts of the university. This thesis examines the development of one such academic unit within one of China’s major universities. The particular academic unit, heretofore referred to as a “school” is studied through a detailed examination of its teaching, research and administration. It is granted a high degree of autonomy to manage itself and its finance. Therefore, it is encouraged to be innovative in its organizational structure and working procedures. This helps drive it to cooperate with industry and adopt a market mechanism in management.\n\nThe research demonstrates the changing relationships of this school with its parent university, with governments at different levels, and with industry and the wider society. The results indicate that a major shift is taking place in Chinese higher education, as China responds with increased marketization and decentralization. \n\nBorrowing theories developed by Clark and Oliver in the fields of higher education and organizational theory, this thesis not only provides a deeper understating of the triangular relationship among universities, state authority and the market, but also refines these theories to suit the Chinese context. This investigation reveals that thus a particular academic unit, unlike most university units in China, must respond to external pressures and expectations in order to survive in a new context of decentralization and commodification. The thesis identifies and analyzes the critical factors affecting the school’s development and its coping strategies within an altered environment of operation.\n\nEmploying a qualitative research methodology, this work views the selected unit of a major Chinese university as an open organizational system, and analyzes the external and internal forces that influence the school’s development. The data collection approach is comprised of semi-structured and unstructured interviews to elicit views and perceptions from the respondents regarding the decision-making, policy implementation and the development of the unit. A focus group interview method is used to question current undergraduate and postgraduate students about perceptions and attitudes towards the development of the unit. Documents are used to obtain background information and to support and triangulate the data collected from individual and group interviews. \n\nAlthough the school failed to make radical changes to the existing university structure and institutions, it has demonstrated the ability to sustain itself, innovate, and gain legitimacy through continuing negotiation and compromise with university authority, government and market. Based on the results of this research, I would argue that if units similar to this one within Chinese universities are granted more administrative autonomy and orient themselves to market forces, Chinese universities will be able to integrate themselves into the increasingly marketized economy and contribute to national development without sacrificing the core academic missions of teaching, research and service.
This paper explores school finance management in the context of two different organizational models, rather decentralized Norwegian school management and highly centralized school management in Ukraine. Based on the both cases, the paper analyzes the experience of the school leaders in Norway and Ukraine regarding their budget efforts, and challenges they have met within the framework of the national contexts. It is argued that greater budget autonomy in schools in Ukraine might provide resource and time efficiency. It is discussed that formula-based allocation of money might increase accountability and transparency to the Ukrainian customers of educational services. The study involves deliberations on the possibility to apply greater school autonomy on budget matters in socio-economic context of Ukraine, and a series of policies is proposed, aimed at decentralization of the educational sector.
After 1990, Hungary took steps toward decentralizing public administration and decision-making power. Administrative decentralization, however, was not matched by the same level of fiscal decentralization, creating tension and disparities among Hungarian municipalities. The revenue-raising ability of local governments in Hungary—especially after the economic downturn in 2008—is very low. The debt service of municipalities is also considerably higher than before 2008, a situation that can be explained in part by the change in the value of Hungarian forint relative to the Euro and the Swiss franc, the currencies in which half of Hungarian local debt is denominated. This situation is sharpened by unhealthy municipal financing practices, such as financing operating expenses from investment revenues or from loans. The indebtedness of the municipal sector increased 12.6 times from 2001 to 2007, and in 2007 about 83 percent of municipal borrowing was not backed by immobile assets or any revenue stream. This paper examines the system of municipal finance in Hungary with special attention to the current changes in the regulation and finance of Hungarian municipalities and the change in central control over municipal finances in general after 2008 (in part precipitated by the failure of borrowing rules created during the transitional period to prevent the current crisis in municipal finance), and suggests possible reforms to solve the financing problems of Hungarian municipalities.
Open access
Regional Development and Policy
Hungarian Social, Economic and Educational Studies
Hans Okkels Birk, Karsten Vrangbæk, Andreas Rudkjøbing, Allan Krasnik · 7 authors
Denmark has a tradition of a decentralized health system. However, during recent years, reforms and policy initiatives have gradually centralized the health system in different ways. The structural reform of 2007 merged the old counties into fewer bigger regions, and the old municipalities likewise. The hospital structure is undergoing similar reforms, with fewer, bigger and more specialized hospitals. Furthermore, a more centralized approach to planning and regulation has been taking place over recent years. This is evident in the new national planning of medical specialties as well as the establishment of a nationwide accreditation system, the Danish Healthcare Quality Programme, which sets national standards for health system providers in Denmark. Efforts have also been made to ensure coherent patient pathways - at the moment for cancer and heart disease - that are similar nationwide. These efforts also aim at improving intersectoral cooperation. Financially, recent years have seen the introduction of a higher degree of activity-based financing in the public health sector, combined with the traditional global budgeting.A number of challenges remain in the Danish health care system. The consequences of the recent reforms and centralization initiatives are yet to be fully evaluated. Before this happens, a full overview of what future reforms should target is not possible. Denmark continues to lag behind the other Nordic countries in regards to some health indicators, such as life expectancy. A number of risk factors may be the cause of this: alcohol intake and obesity continue to be problems, whereas smoking habits are improving. The level of socioeconomic inequalities in health also continues to be a challenge. The organization of the Danish health care system will have to take a number of challenges into account in the future. These include changes in disease patterns, with an ageing population with chronic and long-term diseases; ensuring sufficient staffing; and deciding how to improve public health initiatives that target prevention of diseases and favour health improvements.
Žan Jan Oplotnik, Boštjan Brezovnik, Borut Vojinović
This research paper focuses on the compliance of the actual system of financing local selfgovernment in Slovenia with the basic principles of the theory of decentralization and guidelines of the European Charter of Local Self-Government. It addresses the level of costs coverage within the municipal competence by using the allocated appropriate expenditure resources calculated according to the Law of Financing Municipality Act. The purpose of the paper is, therefore, to look for an answer to the question whether and to what extent the obtained funds correspond to the actual workload that municipalities have for performing statutory tasks and for exercising their competences. Analysis shows that, on an aggregate level, these actual systems ensure enough resources for local governments to cover their actual costs and current expenditures; some groups of municipalities, e.g. larger urban municipalities, municipalities with large proportions of elderly people etc. are faced with lack of funding, according to the actual costs data available, while other groups of municipalities receive more funds than they need.
A “good” tax system for developing countries was once considered one based on progressive income taxes. More recently, the emphasis has been placed on securing revenues from broader bases at lower rates from consumption as well as income taxes. A framework for evaluating public finance structures and institutions in terms of revenue and spending as well as the fiscal balance is set out, and some key areas such as VAT, earmarking, tax evasion, and administration, and non-tax revenues are discussed. Increased globalization challenges national tax bases and makes it even more important to improve local fiscal expertise and institutions in developing countries. Finally, if local governments are sufficiently reliant on own revenue to promote fiscal discipline, decentralization may produce gains in both efficiency and local accountability that may outweigh any costs that might arise from the loss of some macroeconomic control and altered investment priorities.
Vertical decentralization, either at the deconcentration, delegation or, more rarely, the devolution level, has been instituted in most countries of Sub-Saharan Africa. It usually has the effect of increasing the quantity as well as the quality, in terms of health and education, of public goods. More neglected in the literature is the issue of horizontal decentralization, shifting the decision-making power from the central ministry of finance to the ministries of education and health, as well as strengthening the legislative and judicial branches of government. We examine the relationship between horizontal decentralization with its important ethnic dimension and vertical decentralization. Local governments are accountable to the center under vertical and to democratic forces and civil society under horizontal decentralization. Smaller local units are more likely to be more homogeneous ethnically, leading to a larger quantity and higher quality of public goods.
Pablo Simón, Santiago Lago Peñas, Alberto Vaquero García
This paper studies the effect of political variables on the gains obtained by Spanish regions in periodical bargaining of the intergovernmental financing agreements and on the regional distribution of discretional earmarked grants over the period 1987-2008. First, we find that the relationship between gains in transferred revenues and on regional public debt stocks depends on the period and the specific issues discussed in the corresponding negotiation, aside from political affinity. Second, we show that the most discretional program of earmarked grants is strongly driven by electoral strategy. National incumbents tend to allocate intergovernmental transfers where there are competitive regional elections. Moreover, we show that earmarked grants are allocated in those regions where the incumbent performs better in national elections and, especially, in those where there are more seats to be won. Hence we prove that both strategies are complementary rather than exclusive.
2010 represented the moment when the reform was applied in the health field by decentralizing the management ofthe health units with beds (hospitals). This analysis points out the way hospital financing was carried out after that and the main problems the health care system of Romania has to deal with. In the end there are presented a few personal considerations on the main challenges for the future.
Jan Klavus, Ilkka Vohlonen, Juha Kinnunen, Veli Koistinen · 5 authors
The Finnish health care system is financed in a highly decentralized manner. In the tax-financed Beveridge model each municipality is responseble for financing and organizing health care services for its residents. This paper examined the annual incidence and treatment costs of three cost-intensive DRG-groups, and all DRG-groups together. The objective was to estimate municipal level predictions on the incidence of new illness cases and their associated costs, and to analyze whether there was greater uncertainty in anticipated specialized health care costs in municipalities with smaller populations. The dataset comprised of longitudinal hospital utilization and discharge data from Hospital Discharge Registers. The expected annual variation of illness cases and costs was assessed with respect to 95% confidence intervals estimated for each morbidity group and municipality. The results indicated that the costs of the selected morbidity groups fluctuated in a completely uncontrollable manner in municipalities with small populations. As the median size of Finnish municipalities is less than 6000, the inability to anticipate periodic health care costs constitutes an extensive financial problem and calls for the establishment of larger regional units and funding pools.
Based on the results of our questionnaire survey, our study presents the major operational features of LEADER LAGs established in Hungary in the second half of 2007. Our national survey indicated that most of the partnerships established do not have experience in the implementation of community-based rural development programmes and there are no traditions and practices for development cooperation, which may cause problems as the success of programme implementation highly depends on the preparedness of local society, on the cooperation of local people. The survey indicates that the development of areas covered by LAGs is hindered by so-called soft factors characterizing human resources (rural people and communities). Therefore human resources are not only factors of the rural economy but areas for development as well. Having examined the tasks of LAGs,it can be established that they deem it to be their principal task to grant support funds.Inouropinion, performance of this task is obviously necessary but far from sufficient to fulfil their catalyst role expected in local developments. For this purpose, it is essential for action groups to play a proactive role in organizing and thereby increase the capacity of local communities, a prerequisite for implementing a LEADER programme. In accordance with the basic principle of subsidiarity, rural development should be implemented locally, managed by local communities, and decisions should be made at local levels in a decentralized manner. At the same time, the survey points out that LAGs operate under strong government influence and control, leading to the conclusion that the Hungarian practice of the LEADER programme is characterized by decentralization without subsidiarity. In the present structure, the activities of LAGs are predominantly financed from central resources.Administration is the primary goal of their financing, which restricts their effective and efficient operations, thereby the successful implementation of the LEADER programme. It is unquestionable that LAGs need to be centrally financed since their operation is fundamental for programme implementation, but this requires more than acting in their present role of distributing resources. In order for action groups to fulfil their real roles to boost local developments, they need to recognize their mission; and from the financing and regulatory side, they must be enabled to complete the tasks expected from them and their function.
Open access
Rural development and sustainability
Hungarian Social, Economic and Educational Studies
In its first decade, the International Competition Network has prospered, contributed to the development of widely accepted international policy norms, and come to exemplify the form of voluntary multinational collaboration that commentators have identified as a promising way to facilitate international ordering amid the global decentralization and diversification of economic regulations. This article takes stock of ICN’s achievements, considers why it has succeeded in many of its aims, and asks a number of questions regarding what comes next. It seeks to inform the ICN’s future by offering a way to think of its institutional characteristics to assess its relative advantages.The ICN’s paramount goal is to facilitate convergence - the broad acceptance of standards concerning the substantive doctrine and analytical methods of competition law, the procedures for applying substantive commands, and the methods for administering a competition agency - on superior approaches concerning the substance, procedure, and administration of competition law with the expectation that if competition systems around the world opt in to superior techniques, they will achieve greater progress toward dismantling competitive restraints. The article begins by examining the convergence methods, specifically the four elements of ICN’s convergence strategy. It then discusses the context of the ICN within the major international competition networks that have played important roles in the development of international competition policy standards - OECD, UNCTAD, and the WTO. Finally, it looks at the ICC’s interaction with other multinational networks and considers how much the ICN’s convergence-related initiatives will reduce conflicts among jurisdictions with respect to the treatment of specific matters and whether ICN inspired convergence will suffice to eliminate transnational conflicts.The authors see three major focal points for the ICN in the coming decade. The first is to build on its past successes and continue to pursue the identification and adoption of best practices with respect to substantive standards, procedures and the administration of competitive agencies. The second is for future ICN efforts to identify and make use of complementarities with the OECD and UNCTAD to provide a basis for the networks to identify areas in which collaboration will improve their collective effectiveness. The third is to examine and refine the ICN’s operational framework and determine whether its structure and operational forms are adequate to supports its current and future programs. Finally, the authors see major and administrative challenges ahead with problems of resources, financing, and management that must be resolved for the ICC to have a successful second decade.
Welcome to the special issue of Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience (CCPE) journal. This special issue compiles a number of excellent technical contributions that significantly advance the state-of-the-art in autonomic cloud computing. Cloud computing 1, 2 is an emerging utility computing model that allows users to dynamically access, select, and configure a large pool of IT resources (virtual machine templates, storage, and networking elements) and deliver them as ‘computing utilities’ to consumers in a pay-as-you-go manner. Several vendors have emerged in this space including IBM, VMware, Microsoft, Manjrasoft, and Yahoo. This model of computing is quite attractive, especially for small and medium sized enterprises, as it allows them to focus on consuming or offering services on top of cloud infrastructure. At high-level, cloud computing might not seem radically different from the existing paradigms: World Wide Web, grid computing, and cluster computing. However, key differentiators of cloud computing are its technical characteristics such as on-demand resource pooling or rapid elasticity, self-service, almost infinite scalability, end-to-end virtualization support, and robust support of resource usage metering and billing. Additionally, nontechnical differentiators include services that are offered under pay-as-you-go-model, guaranteed Service Level Agreement (SLA), faster time to deployments, lower upfront costs, little or no maintenance overhead, and environment friendliness. Unpredictability is a fact in a distributed computing environment, and the Cloud is no exception. Performance unpredictability 3 in the Cloud is in fact a major issue for many users and it is coined as one of the major obstacles for cloud computing. For instance, researchers (biologists, physicists, finance analysts, etc.) expect guaranteed performance for their experiments, independent of the current workload and state 4 of IT resources of the Cloud, because this is key to repeatability of results. Other examples are small and medium sized enterprises (gaming company, web application providers) that want strict assurance on SLA; for example, an end-user request for a web page or multimedia content has to be served within the agreed time-limit. Hence, it is highly important for Cloud vendors that they have the ability to offer guaranteed SLAs based on performance metrics — such as response time and throughput. Interestingly, vendors seem to base their SLAs on availability of their offering, while completely ignoring response time and throughput. Hence, it is clear that dealing with performance unpredictability is critical to exploiting the full potential of clouds. In this special issue, we have tried to compile some high quality papers that exhaustively deal with some of the aforementioned issues. Next, we briefly describe the technical contributions, which were selected for publication in this special issue. All of the selected papers underwent a rigorous peer-review process. The end-to-end QoS negotiation for SLA establishment for composite services involves compound multiparty negotiations in which the composite service provider concurrently negotiates with multiple candidates for each atomic service, selecting the one that best satisfies the atomic service QoS preferences while ensuring that the end-to-end QoS requirements are also fulfilled. It is necessary to derive the atomic utility boundaries from the global utility boundary to be able to negotiate with potential candidates. Additionally, there has to be a mechanism for updating these boundaries in subsequent negotiation rounds based upon the individual negotiation outcomes. To counter these complexities, in paper 5 titled ‘Establishing Composite SLAs through Concurrent QoS Negotiation with Surplus Redistribution’, Richter et al. propose an algorithm for the decomposition of global utility boundary into atomic service utility boundaries, and the surplus redistribution from successful negotiation outcomes among the remaining negotiations. The proposed mechanism is a practical approach to efficiently coordinate concurrent service negotiations within complex workflows, enabling the iterative and interactive adjustment of the negotiation boundaries for each atomic service in a composition based on the performance of other atomic negotiations. They demonstrate the feasibility of our approach by evaluating it with some popular negotiation strategies using the Specialised Property Search Scenario. Many scientific workflows are data intensive where large volumes of intermediate data are generated during their execution. Some valuable intermediate data need to be stored for sharing or reuse. Traditionally, they are selectively stored according to the system storage capacity determined manually. As doing science in the Cloud has become popular nowadays, more intermediate data can be stored in scientific cloud workflows based on a pay-for-use model. In the paper in 6 titled ‘A data dependency based strategy for intermediate data storage in scientific cloud workflow systems’, Yuan et al. build an intermediate data dependency graph (IDG) from the data provenance in scientific workflows. With the IDG, deleted intermediate data can be regenerated, and as such they develop a novel intermediate data storage strategy that can reduce the cost of scientific cloud workflow systems by automatically storing appropriate intermediate data sets with one Cloud service provider. The strategy has significant research merits, that is, it achieves a cost-effective trade-off of computation cost and storage cost and is not strongly impacted by the forecasting inaccuracy of data sets’ usages. Meanwhile, the strategy also takes the users’ tolerance of data accessing delay into consideration. Authors utilize Amazon's cost model and apply the strategy to general random and specific astrophysics pulsar searching scientific workflows for evaluation. The results show that our strategy can reduce the overall cost of scientific cloud workflow execution significantly. Recall that, one of the biggest premises of cloud computing is the flexibility of delivering IT resources and virtual appliances as an utility such as phone, electricity, gas, and water services. It enables users to have access to computing infrastructure, platform, and software as services over the Internet. To be competitive, however, Cloud providers need to be able to adapt to the dynamic loads from users, not only optimizing the local usage and costs but also engaging into agreements with other clouds to complement local capacity. The infrastructure in which competing clouds are able to cooperate to maximize their benefits is called a Federated Cloud. Just as clouds enable users to cope with unexpected demand loads, a Federated Cloud will enable individual clouds to cope with unforeseen variations of demand. The definition of the mechanism to ensure mutual benefits for the individual clouds composing the federation, however, is one of its main challenges. Gomes et al. in their paper 7 ‘Pure exchange markets for resource sharing in federated clouds’ propose and investigate the application of market-oriented mechanisms based on the General Equilibrium Theory of Microeconomics to coordinate the sharing of resources between the clouds in a Federated Cloud. Several research institutions and universities own computational capacity that is not effectively utilized, thereby providing an opportunity for such institutions to use such capacity to offer Cloud services (to both internal and external users). However, the unreliability and unpredictability of these resources mean that their use in the context of an SLA is high risk, leading to a reduction in reputation and economic penalties in case of SLA violation. To overcome these challenges, in the paper 8 titled ‘Towards autonomic management for Cloud services based upon volunteered resources’, Caton and Rana propose a methodology that addresses the issues of unreliability and unpredictability such that Cloud software services could be hosted upon volunteered resources. To enable the harnessing of these resources, they rely on autonomic fault management techniques that allow such systems to independently adapt to the resources they use based upon their perception of individual resource reliability. Using the proposed approach they were able to scale out the backend infrastructure of the Cloud service elastically (minimum 30 s per worker), opportunistically, and autonomically. To summarize, the authors address two key questions in their paper: Can a campus volunteer infrastructure be used in Cloud provisioning? and What measures are necessary to ensure reliability at the resource level? To improve the hosting and delivery of applications through cloud-based IT resources, Champrasert et al. in the paper 9 titled ‘Exploring self-optimization and self-stabilization properties in bio-inspired autonomic cloud computing’, describe architecture to build self-optimizable and self-stabilizable applications. The design of the proposed architecture, SymbioticSphere, is inspired by key biological principles such as decentralization, evolution, and symbiosis. In SymbioticSphere, each cloud application consists of application services and middleware platforms. Each service and platform is designed as a biological entity, and implements biological behaviors such as energy exchange, migration, reproduction, and death. Each service/platform possesses behavior policies, as genes, each of which defines when and how to invoke a particular behavior. SymbioticSphere allows services and platforms to autonomously adapt to dynamic network conditions by optimizing their behavior policies with a multi-objective genetic algorithm. Moreover, SymbioticSphere allows services and platforms to autonomously seek stable adaptation decisions as equilibria (or symbiosis) between them with a game theoretic algorithm. This symbiosis augments evolutionary optimization to expedite the adaptation of agents and platforms. It also contributes to stable performance that contains a very limited amount of fluctuations. Simulation results demonstrate that agents and platforms successfully attain self-optimization and self-stabilization properties in their adaptation processes. We hope that the readers will find the articles of this special issue to be informative and useful.
R. Lilian E. Painter, Alejandra Alfonso Durán, E. MIRO
One of the central conservation debates over the last quarter of a century has been the effect of conservation initiatives on local livelihoods. Most recently, numerous negative evaluations have been made of both coercive top-down approaches to management of protected areas, which were dominant before the 1980s and focused on enforcement of protection, and efforts to decentralize governance and increase local participation in resource-management initiatives linked to markets. These critiques are subsets of the general criticism of neoliberal conservation, which is characterized by a lesser role for the public sector, privatization of natural resources, and a greater role for market forces (McCarthy & Prudham 2004; Igoe & Brockington 2007). When natural resources are treated as commodities and state control over them is reduced, local stakeholders in remote rural areas, in particular indigenous peoples, can lose access to critical resources for their livelihoods to economic elites with greater resources to respond to economic opportunities. In this essay, we discuss what conservation means for the indigenous peoples living next to Madidi and Pilon Lajas protected areas in the Bolivian Amazon, a region of high species diversity and levels of endemism, where the state, local stakeholders, and several nongovernmental organizations have implemented numerous projects focused on maintaining biological diversity and improving local livelihoods. These conservation initiatives have strengthened management of protected areas and buffer zones, promoted sustainable natural-resource-use projects, and strengthened mechanisms for local participation in management of natural resources and protected areas. In addition, governance conditions have enabled alliances between conservation organizations and indigenous peoples. Of particular importance, a strong indigenous political movement has established partnerships with conservation practitioners. These partnerships are based on the recognition of rights of indigenous peoples to develop their own representative organizations and secure legal property rights over their ancestral lands. In 1990, before most of the protected areas in Central and South America were established (UNEP-WCMC 2010), the indigenous peoples in the Bolivian Amazon mobilized to obtain legal recognition of their territorial rights. Hence, the importance of indigenous territories for the cultural survival and livelihoods of Amazonian groups, as well as their entitlement to maintain or develop organizational and representation structures and promote traditional practices of natural resource use, has been recognized since the creation of the national protected-area system in Bolivia. The majority of protected areas in Latin America were established after constitutional reforms recognized the multiple cultural and ethnic characteristics of their countries (Van Cott 2010). The principal focus of these reforms was the design and consolidation of democratic institutions, but indigenous movements capitalized on the reforms to demand political inclusion and minimization of the negative effects of development in their traditional lands. The reforms built on the global indigenous mobilization to obtain recognition of their rights through the International Labor Organization No. 169 Convention on Indigenous and Tribal People in 1989. Bolivia is in the heart of South America where the Andes, Amazon, and Chaco come together; thus, it is one of the most species-rich countries in the world (Ibisch & Merida 2003). This high species richness is accompanied by a high cultural diversity. The 30 different indigenous groups present in the country represent 66% of the population, the highest percentage in Latin America (Del Popolo & Oyarce 2005). Forty-four indigenous lands are linked to protected areas in Bolivia, 30 are in the buffer zones; 5 are entirely within a protected area, and 9 overlap partially with a protected area (Salinas 2007). The relation between biological and cultural diversity is exemplified in northwestern Bolivia, a region of exceptional species richness resulting from topographical and climatic diversity and where the Bolivian government established three protected areas: Madidi National Park and Natural Area of Integrated Management (1895750 ha), Apolobamba Natural Area of Integrated Management (483744 ha), and Pilon Lajas Biosphere Reserve and Indigenous Territory (400000 ha). Seven indigenous lands overlap or border these protected areas: the Lecos Apolo, Lecos Larecaja, San Jose de Uchupiamonas, Mosetene, Takana I, Takana II, and Pilon Lajas (T’simane Mosetene). The meaning of conservation, as used by contemporary conservation practitioners, in relation to these seven indigenous groups has evolved as a result of threats to biological diversity that also threaten indigenous lands and livelihoods, in particular illegal timber extraction, new settlements, and, more recently, large energy and infrastructure projects. These shared threats have brought together conservation and indigenous organizations in efforts to preserve biological diversity and develop sustainable economic activities, based in natural resource extraction and ecotourism, to improve indigenous livelihoods. There has been increasing consensus among Bolivian conservation practitioners that empowering local communities through the consolidation of their territorial rights establishes a strong constituency for maintaining protected areas. The Amazonian Bolivian indigenous movement worked for land reforms to establish indigenous lands as collective property which cannot be sold or divided. This has prevented land titling from opening up these areas to private markets and has led to strengthening access by indigenous communities to their traditional indigenous lands, including those overlapping protected areas. Under this approach the Bolivian Protected Area Service (SERNAP) and Wildlife Conservation Society have worked to support effective participation of the indigenous communities and their representative organizations in the land-titling process by developing their capacity to use spatial analyses to guide internal consensus and negotiations with nonindigenous neighbors. As a result, legal titles have been obtained for over 672941 ha of Takana, Lecos Apolo, and Lecos Larecaja indigenous lands. The Bolivian government has also recognized the San Jose de Uchupiamonas and T’simane Mosetene indigenous lands, which completely overlap with Madidi and Pilon Lajas protected areas. Parallel to the process of land titling, the indigenous organizations have received support from the Bolivian government and international and Bolivian nongovernmental organizations to develop and implement indigenous territorial plans (CIPTA 2002; CRTM-SERNAP 2007; CIPLA 2010; PILCOL 2010). Indigenous communities have received support to control illegal timber extraction, wildlife hunting, and forest clearance by outside settlers. As a result, deforestation rates within the indigenous lands are similar to those in neighboring protected areas and are much lower than in unprotected areas in the region (Forrest et al. 2008). Monitoring of wild animals has shown that current hunting levels are sustainable, connectivity for movements of these animals between the protected areas and surrounding indigenous land is being maintained, and illegal hunting is being prevented (Chumacero et al. 2010; R. Wallace, private communication). Several community-based tourism, cacao, handicraft, coffee, and palm-management initiatives have been established with support from the protected-area service and nongovernmental organizations, and these provide increased family incomes and greater control of the land by indigenous peoples. For example, in 1992, no indigenous forestry-management organizations existed in this region and indigenous peoples were engaged in forestry as contract laborers under unfair terms. Today, there are over 20 indigenous, community-level forestry associations. Hence, conservation programs have favored devolution of natural resource management to the indigenous organizations and promoted both social justice and conservation. Democratization of decision making has replaced a system in which decisions were made by local nonindigenous elites. Indigenous communities have established internal consensus, developed their technical capacity, and then engaged other organizations from a position of strength. The last 25 years have marked a transition period for the valuation of indigenous culture and for indigenous peoples’ leadership in the establishment of protected areas that are integrated with indigenous lands in landscapes managed for both improved indigenous livelihoods and conservation. The support of conservation organizations has been critical to the development of indigenous capacity to manage their land and resources and has avoided the problems associated with devolution of regulatory responsibility to local organizations without the necessary skills (McCarthy & Prudham 2004). The Bolivian experience supports the hypothesis that when indigenous peoples have recognized land rights, autonomy, and establish clear regulations about access to and use of natural resources, relatively large forest areas are less likely to be intensively exploited (Chhatre & Agrawal 2009). Indigenous organizations in Bolivia have exclusive land rights, and consolidating their organizational and technical capacity is critical to ensure they continue to protect the ecological integrity of their territories from expanding extraction of natural resources. In the next quarter century, indigenous organizations need to monitor the effectiveness of their territorial management plans and develop sustainable finance strategies to implement the plans that include the contributions of community natural resource management to the collective costs of territorial defense. They also need to develop incentives for maintaining vulnerable areas without human extractive uses (e.g., valuing environmental services). The external challenge to meeting indigenous demands for greater political and administrative autonomy is state development of road, mining, and energy projects throughout the Amazon. Conflicts with gold miners, loggers, and large development projects are intensifying and conservation professionals and indigenous peoples are allied to improve practices and governance of these projects. Traditionally, Amazonian indigenous institutions base decisions on consensus and encourage widespread participation. Accordingly, strengthening their capacity for conflict resolution could also help increase transparency and broaden citizen participation during the consultation processes associated with these projects. Two aspects have facilitated the alliance between conservation organizations and indigenous organizations in Bolivia. First, the political strength of indigenous organizations established a favorable legal framework for recognition of their territorial rights. Second, human population densities within Amazonian indigenous territories are relatively low, so there is still opportunity to achieve goals for improved livelihoods through natural resource use and conservation and to reconcile these two purposes. Indigenous peoples in Amazonia use a wide range of forest products that require sustainable management of large areas. Their capacity to articulate and defend their traditional rights on the basis of these requirements will determine the future of much of the Amazon. Conservation professionals have important roles to play in identifying critical connectivity requirements between strict protection cores and the surrounding matrix; identifying the area of indirect effect of development projects by modeling land use resulting from changes in economic drivers, political and regulatory conditions, and local topography; guiding implementation of actions to achieve no net loss of biological diversity and local livelihoods, as represented in indigenous territorial plans; and documenting the importance of territorial rights over natural areas for indigenous livelihoods and cultural survival. Lilian Painter is a Bolivian wildlife ecologist who has worked with the Wildlife Conservation Society in northern La Paz since 2001. She supports Takana, Lecos, T’simane, and Mosetene indigenous communities in land-use planning. Angel Duran is a Leco indigenous leader and ex Vice-President of the Lecos Apolo organization. He has led the land-titling and land-planning processes of the Leco communities and successful negotiations with nonindigenous neighbors, local authorities, and the protected-area service. Edwin Miro is the past president of the T’simane Mosetene Regional Council and has led the land-titling and land-planning processes of the communities in the Pilon Lajas Biosphere Reserve and Indigenous Territory. As a result Pilon Lajas is jointly managed by the indigenous organization and the Bolivian protected-area service. We thank K. Redford and E. Fleishman for their valuable comments on this essay.
Open access
Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management
In this article, we compare and contrast the design and performance of China and India’s intergovernmental fiscal systems. We find that there are remarkable similarities in the design and performance of China and India’s intergovernmental fiscal systems. More specifically, both countries have highly decentralized expenditures assignments and highly centralized revenue assignments. As a result, sub-national governments in both countries must rely on fiscal transfers to finance their assigned functions. Finally, there is considerable off the books and hidden borrowing by sub-national governments in both countries. We also find that there are considerable and growing disparities in the rate of expenditure decentralization among sub-national governments within each country. Lack fiscal discipline and growing fiscal disparities among sub-national governments create risks to future economic growth and to social cohesion, absent policy reforms to address these issues.