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Poorer Areas (poorer + area)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting	50%

Selected Abstracts

The Rise of Supermarkets in Africa: Implications for Agrifood Systems and the Rural Poor

DEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 3 2003
Dave D. Weatherspoon
The rise of supermarkets in Africa since the mid-1990s is transforming the food retail sector. Supermarkets have spread fast in Southern and Eastern Africa, already proliferating beyond middle-class big-city markets into smaller towns and poorer areas. Supplying supermarkets presents both potentially large opportunities and big challenges for producers. Supermarkets' procurement systems involve purchase consolidation, a shift to specialised wholesalers, and tough quality and safety standards. To meet these requirements, producers have to make investments and adopt new practices. This is hardest for small producers, who risk exclusion from dynamic urban markets increasingly dominated by supermarkets. There is thus an urgent need for development programmes and policies to assist them in adopting the new practices that these procurement systems demand. [source]

Getting the Smaller Picture: Small-Area Analysis of Public Expenditure Incidence and Deprivation in Three English Cities

FISCAL STUDIES, Issue 2 2000
Glen Bramley
Abstract This paper examines public expenditure incidence at small-area level in cities. The motivations for such research are briefly reviewed. The article reports on an attempt at measuring public expenditure across the majority of programmes down to the level of Census wards and the actual results obtained for three urban local authorities in England. The relationship between spending, income and deprivation is examined overall and for particular spending programmes, using a number of approaches including regression-based expenditure models. The conclusions suggest that spending is indeed targetted on poorer areas but raise questions about both the strength of this relationship and how best to measure deprivation and the need to spend. [source]

Provision and financial burden of TB services in a financially decentralized system: a case study from Shandong, China

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HEALTH PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT, Issue S1 2004
Qingyue Meng
Abstract Both challenges and opportunities have been created by health sector reforms for TB control programmes in developing countries. China has initiated radical economic and health reforms since the late 1970s and is among the highest TB endemic countries in the world. This paper examines the operation of TB control programmes in a decentralized financial system. A case study was conducted in four counties of Shandong Province and data were collected from document reviews, and key informant and TB patient interviews. The main findings include: direct government support to TB control weakened in poorer counties after its decentralization to township and county governments; DOTS programmes in poorer counties was not implemented as well as in more affluent ones; and TB patients, especially the low-income patients, suffered heavy financial burdens. Financial decentralization negatively affects the public health programmes and may have contributed to the more rapid increase in the number of TB cases seen over the past decade in the poorer areas of China compared with the richer ones. Establishing a financial transfer system at central and provincial levels, correcting financial incentives for health providers, and initiating pro-poor projects for the TB patients, are recommended. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Making sense of accountability: Conceptual perspectives for northern and southern nonprofits

NONPROFIT MANAGEMENT & LEADERSHIP, Issue 2 2003
Alnoor Ebrahim
This article examines the concept of accountability from various disciplinary lenses in order to develop an integrated understanding of the term. Special attention is devoted to principal,agent perspectives from political science and economics. An integrated framework is developed, based on four central observations. (1) Accountability is relational in nature and is constructed through inter- and intraorganizational relationships. (2) Accountability is complicated by the dual role of nonprofits as both principals and agents in their relationships with other actors. (3) Characteristics of accountability necessarily vary with the type of nonprofit organization being examined. (4) Accountability operates through external as well as internal processes, such that an emphasis on external oversight and control misses other dimensions of accountability essential to nonprofit organizations. The analysis draws from the experiences of both Northern and Southern nonprofits, that is, organizations based in wealthy industrialized regions of the world (the global North) and those in economically poorer areas (the South). [source]