World, Volume 3, Issue 4 (December 2022) – 20 articles

Small-scale fisheries (SSF) make a critical contribution in terms of employment and food security to coastal communities. Fish serves multiple purposes, mainly as a cheap source of protein and minerals for lower-income families. In order to help sustain this demand and to protect fishing resources, the closed season policy, temporal closure, and spatial closure were adopted to protect fish stocks and avoid fishery collapse. To assess the agreement and compliance of the three municipalities (Cortes, Lanuza, and Lianga) in Surigao del Sur to this policy, we surveyed their responses regarding this policy. We used focus group discussions, two focus groups per municipality (N = 80), followed by member checking to gather and clarify the data from six barangays with small-scale fishers (N = 192). The findings indicate that each community in the three municipalities studied have a different method of implementing the fishery closure or closed fishing season policy which resulted in a limited conservation impact on fish stocks. In the municipality of Cortes, 92% agreed with the policy, provided there would be enough money to comply with the policy. In Lanuza, 60% agreed to implement the policy, provided there would be alternative jobs available. In contrast, the municipality of Lianga, which did not implement this policy, had only 4% that agreed to impose the policy to restore depleted fish stocks. Other reasons for not implementing a closed season policy include lack of community organization, poor fishery management, and lack of strong government support for the policy. Moreover, fishers were only willing to stop fishing if they were given a subsidy of PHP 15,000 per month. In the long term, fishers who provide fish protein needs for the nation also need help and attention from policy and decision makers to realize sustainable fisheries. Full article

The community plays a significant role in everyday life in rural African contexts, particularly in terms of coping and in times of crisis. In the East African region, rural communities are diverse and complex, yet most share similar vulnerabilities such as widespread poverty, lack of infrastructure and basic services, and exclusion from broader economic and political developments. They are also highly affected by processes of modernization, globalization, and rural-urban migration. Social work as a profession that deals with social problems is deemed suitable to support rural communities in their struggle for survival. In order to understand the link between community-based forms of problem solving and social work practice, a qualitative study was conducted in five countries (Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda). A total of 155 qualitative interviews and 55 focus group discussions with key informants were conducted. The research revealed a variety of indigenous knowledge systems and innovative coping mechanisms. For rural social work to be relevant and effective, such models should be thoroughly analyzed and integrated into its professional concepts and practice. In this article, some case examples are presented and critically discussed against the background of the African philosophical concept of ubuntu, which is regarded as the ethical backbone of communal life. Full article

The ability of smallholder dairy farming systems (SHDFS) to achieve desirable lactation-curve characteristics is constrained or reduced by environmental stresses. Under stressful production environments in the tropics, the better lactation-curve characteristics in smallholder dairy farms are a result of improved dairy genetics and husbandry practices. Better husbandry practices improve animal health and welfare status, which is important to sustain SHDFS in the tropics where dairy cattle are constantly exposed to multiple environmental stresses of feed scarcity, disease infections and heat load. In this case, lactating cows in smallholder dairy farms labelled positive deviants are expected to express lactation curve characteristics differently from typical farms, regardless of the stress levels confronted. Thus, this study tested this hypothesis with Holstein–Friesian and Ayrshire cows in two milksheds in Tanzania classified them into low-and high-stress environments. A two-factor nested research design was used, with farm (positive deviant and typical) nested within the environment. Positive deviant farms were farms that performed above the population average, attaining ≥0.35 Mcal NE_L/d energy balance, ≥6.32 L/cow/day milk yield, ≤1153.28 days age at first calving, ≤633.68 days calving interval and ≤12.75 per 100 animal-years at risk disease-incidence density. In this study, a total of 3262 test-day milk production records from 524 complete lactations of 397 cows in 332 farms were fitted to the Jenkins and Ferrell model to estimate lactation curve parameters. In turn, the outcome parameters a and k were used to estimate lactation curve characteristics. The lactation curve characteristic estimates proved the study hypothesis. Regardless of the stress levels, cows in positive deviant farms expressed lactation curve characteristics differently from cows managed in typical farms. The scale (a) and shape (k) parameters together with peak yield and time to peak yield indicated higher lactation performance in positive deviant farms than in typical farms under low- and high-stress environments (p < 0.05). Lactation persistency was higher in positive deviants than typical farms by 14.37 g/day and 2.33 g/day for Holstein–Friesian cows and by 9.91 g/day and 2.16 g/day for Ayrshire cows in low- and high-stress environments. Compared to cows managed in typical farms, cows in positive deviant farms attained higher lactation performance under low- and high-stress; Holstein–Friesian produced 50.2% and 36.2% more milk, respectively, while Ayrshire produced 52.4% and 46.0% more milk, respectively. The higher milk productivity in positive deviant farms can be associated with the deployment of husbandry practices that more effectively ameliorated feed scarcity, heat load and disease infections stresses, which are prevalent in tropical smallholder dairy farms. Full article

Reflections on research can take many forms. They inevitably contain positive memories of research that advanced our knowledge on issues of the day. They can also reflect dead ends and disappointments. Although research in rural development is generally a public endeavor (government, university and NGO supported projects), the effects felt by the researcher are often personal. Meeting peasants in the field, listening to abused farm women, and tracing livelihood transitions are all challenging for the researcher. Above all, making sense of research results for policy development is a daunting task, as there are many layers of dilution and deflection between researcher and policy maker. With these impediments and opportunities in mind, I offer some of my own reflections, in the form of an opinion piece, on rural development research over the past 50 years. The paper is organized into three parts: macro and micro level observations about the evolution and prevailing trends in rural development, and a third section on contemporary and future issues. Full article

Academia and government often ignore or deny the impact of population growth on the environment. However, key scientific institutions and reports confirm that population growth is a major driver of climate disruption and other environmental crises. We review the environmental science of population growth. Issues that block dialogue are discussed, such as growthism, anthropocentrism, denial, religious and cultural taboos, fear of being called a racist, the issue of rights claims, seeking political power through numbers, the framing of social justice issues, and sophistical claims regarding ‘racism’. We examine examples of denial about population in academia and government. We explore ways forward to gain dialogue, and we also consider success stories. We conclude that population growth, like overconsumption, must be foregrounded to create ecologocally sustainable economies and a sustainable future. Full article

The purpose of this study is to investigate the differences between developed countries in terms of corporate governance outcomes at aggregate and granular levels. The population of companies was collected from the database curated by Refinitiv. The sample was selected according to two criteria: the existence of governance scores for the financial year 2021 and the registration of a company in any of the G20 countries or the European Union. The results are presented by ranking the G20 countries based on four aggregate indicators and four granular indicators of corporate governance quality. While the differences regarding the aggregate indicators are not statistically strong, the intercountry differences on board independence, board gender diversity, board skills, and auditor tenure are especially relevant. The present article opens an avenue of research on international corporate governance linked to cultural dimensions, comparative legal systems, national approach to corporate social responsibility, and corporate governance principles. Full article

Afghanistan is a vulnerable country, and various challenges have led to widespread poverty. This study measured the different dimensions of poverty in rural and urban areas to help policymakers with poverty alleviation in the Kunduz province of Afghanistan. The data were collected from 360 rural and urban households. According to the findings, the MPI index in the Kunduz province’s rural and urban areas was found to be 0.483 and 0.445, respectively. The results indicate that Kunduz faces both rural and urban poverty, but that rural poverty is more severe than urban poverty. The intensity and headcount ratio of poverty in rural areas is more significant than in urban areas. It also is clear that all dimensions of poverty in Kunduz are very serious. Thus, it is necessary to establish a comprehensive program to reduce all aspects of poverty. Full article

Economic crises and instability during the COVID pandemic have led to a significant additional workload and uncertainty for women. The COVID virus has spread extremely rapidly, and mobility and migration are severely limited, at least in the short term. The virus has a significant impact on the health of people from those considered to be migrants and refugees and their access to the labor market. According to Eurostat, 1.4 million people who previously resided in an EU Member State migrated to another Member State, and almost half of this population are women. Migrating women are particularly exposed to a number of specific consequences of the pandemic. Migrant women are disproportionately the first to be laid off and the last to be rehired. This is due to gender discrimination and precarious working conditions, such as low wages, the greater burden of care work, and alternative employment costs, especially given the gender wage gap and the difficulty of accessing the formal economy. This study examines the challenges many migrant women experienced in accessing the Eurozone labor market during the COVID pandemic. Based on this primary objective, the theoretical perspective of this research relies on the segmented labor market theory. Within the framework of documentary research, this work has chosen the path of descriptive analysis to achieve the study’s objectives. The findings presented in an intersectional framework suggest that the impact on migrant women workers during the COVID pandemic is exacerbated by a segmented labor market rooted in a capitalist context and by gendered structures of racism in the European labor market. In a capitalist context, migrant women would be over-represented in the informal economy due to segmented labor market policies and the effects of gendered racism. As a result, they would be at the forefront of redundancies during the pandemic because of their difficulty accessing the European labor market. Full article

The European Commission’s Long-term Vision for Rural Areas, published in June 2021 and building on a previous report on the Impact of Demographic Change and a Green Paper on Ageing, underlines the importance of population trends as a key issue for EU rural policy. The increasing concern about demographic issues, especially in rural Europe, has been accompanied, and in some cases preceded, by the publication of national population strategies. This renewed interest within the European policy community probably has roots in politics rather than new research or fresh evidence. Rural depopulation is not a new phenomenon, nor is it a new research topic. Nevertheless, to better understand this renewed interest, it is instructive to review recent scholarship and consider whether there is any evidence that the processes and systems of rural and regional (demographic) development are delivering new kinds of challenges, requiring refreshed policy approaches. Having established this context, we present a comparative review of a selection of national strategies, identifying shifting perspectives on goals, the instruments proposed, and implied intervention logics. Arguably, cumulative evidence points to an incremental shift of the policy discourse away from neoliberal, Lisbon-inspired visions of rural competitiveness and cost-effectiveness and towards a quest for rural well-being, rights to basic services, and more (spatially) inclusive rural development. This increasing emphasis on qualitative change may be symptomatic of a wider shift in the zeitgeist of rural policy, reflecting a number of globalised trends, including an awareness of the potentials and limitations associated with changing patterns of inter and intra-regional mobility. Full article

This study aimed to assess the association between food worry and self-rated anxiety and depression during the early phase of COVID-19. We recruited a cross-sectional proportional quota sample of 415 respondents from 15 May through July 2020 in New York State. A validated food access survey instrument was administered to the respondents, capturing demographic information and data on food access issues and self-rated mental health. Multiple logistic regression models were fitted to examine the relationship between food worry, anxiety, and depressive symptoms. Of the respondents included in the study, 43.4% were male, and 55.4% were female. Forty-three percent reported high food worry, and 39.5% and 41.2% reported symptoms suggestive of anxiety and depression, respectively. Respondents with high food worry were more likely than respondents with low or no food worry to experience anxiety symptoms (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 4.80; 95% CI: 3.02, 7.62). Likewise, respondents with high food worry had higher odds of reporting depressive symptoms than respondents with low or no food worry (aOR = 3.89; 95% CI: 2.45, 6.18). Identifying the personal and contextual drivers of food worry and mental health outcomes would guide public mental health intervention efforts. Full article

Cities operate in a competitive social environment requiring local authorities to adopt marketing strategies with significant economic ratings. City marketing that is related to the meaning of a city’s name encourages activities in the city or region. The present study adopted a quantitative survey on a sample of 152 employees in companies to explore how important marketing is perceived for a city’s development. The research was done in Trikala, a city in Greece. The key conclusion was that the more critical the participants consider the interventions in the city’s natural environment, the more they believe that the city can benefit from corporate sponsorships. Subsequently, it appeared that the more they support the interventions in the structured environment of the city, the less they consider that corporate sponsorships can benefit it. It was explained that structured interventions usually involve very high investments that require funding from the central government, as sponsorships are not enough. The most substantial positive relationship was found between the importance of interventions in employment, entrepreneurship and tourism, and the importance of business sponsorships. Full article

This paper aims to present aspects related to corporate governance, organisational resilience and sustainable practices developed by Brazilian companies during the COVID-19 pandemic. The methodological strategy included documentary research to identify sustainability reports published by companies listed on the Ibovespa index, which were examined through the content analysis technique. The results allowed light to be shed on opportunities for improvement concerning sustainability and corporate governance. Regarding organisational resilience, risk management is central for the development of sustainability practices by organisations. The support to society related to the COVID-19 pandemic was evidenced mainly through the donation of financial resources, equipment and hospital supplies. Practices related to reducing energy consumption and minimising waste generation were those most associated with environmental aspects. The actions identified were mapped according to their relations with the SDGs. Managers can benefit from the information presented in this study to enhance organisational sustainability and resilience, while researchers can use it as a starting point for future studies. Full article

This review aims to evaluate the existing literature on Vaccine Supply Chain Management (VSCM). All relevant articles between 2002 and 2022 were systematically collected. The retrieved articles were further analyzed using bibliometric data analysis techniques. The unit of analysis is research papers published from 2002 to 2022. Vaccine Supply Chain Management (VSCM) literature has gained prominence since early 2000 and has now become voluminous. A review is the first endeavor to provide a unified body of literature. This study contributes to the existing research through insights from the bibliometric analysis and critical measurement of the literature. The results show 4288 papers on VSCM in the last 20 years. The top five countries contributing to VSCM literature are the USA, France, China, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland. Supply chain, vaccine, immunization, and Vaccine Supply Chain Management are the high-frequency keywords in the area of VSCM. The research hotspots mainly focus on healthcare, drugs, and manufacturers. In light of the COVID-19 era, this review paper indicates the area of VSCM is diversified. This study is useful for policymakers and other stakeholders to understand the existing issues in VSCM. The research trends and patterns from the literature review of VSCM will help in designing AAA (agile, adaptive, and aligned) VSCM in the future from the viewpoint of public health. This study attempts to analyze existing works, trends, developments, and potential research directions. Full article

Women’s socioeconomic position has a significant effect on health services use. With the nature of the socioeconomic empowerment process in relation to improvements in sexual and reproductive health, population-based contraceptive use is key to determining the growth in the human development index of every country. We looked into the effects of women’s socioeconomic position on modern approaches to birth control in sub-Saharan African (SSA) women of childbearing age. A sample of 496,082 respondents was analyzed from 2006–2021 Demographic and Health Surveys data. From the analysis, Southern SSA (46.0%), Eastern SSA (27.0%), Central SSA (16.0%), and Western SSA (15.0%) have decreasing prevalence of any modern methods of contraceptive uptake among all women. Similarly, Southern SSA (57.0%), Eastern SSA (37.0%), Western SSA (16.0%), and Central SSA (14.0%) have decreasing prevalence of married women currently using any modern methods of contraception. Furthermore, Southern SSA (76.0%), Eastern SSA (56.0%), Western SSA (36.0%), and Central SSA (26.0%) have decreasing prevalence of demand for family planning satisfied by modern contraceptives. While Southern SSA reported a total fertility rate of 3.0%, other sub-regions have a pooled rate of 5.0%. Our results indicated that increasing women’s socioeconomic position can increase contraceptive use and, thus, maternal healthcare service utilization. Full article

UN peacekeepers face new conditions of conflict today, which call for expanded peacekeeping strategies. Among these new conditions is the increasing localization of violent conflict, especially among extra-state forces that are mobilized by ideological and religious passions. Responding to such challenges, the UN and its multinational partners attend increasingly to regional and local settings of intergroup tension and conflict. Among the consequences are greater emphasis on relations between UN peacekeeping and local police forces and on community policing. In this essay, we argue that these new peacekeeping directions are promising but lack one key dimension: attention to unique behavioral features of local, religion-on-religion conflict. Because such conflict plays an increasing role in location-specific tension and violence, it is increasingly important for peacekeepers to learn how to identify and analyze these unique features in real time and then reshape peacekeeping strategies accordingly. To illustrate how it is possible to do so, we introduce a detailed case study of successful community policing of religion-on-religion conflict: Muslim-Hindu intergroup conflict in Madhya Pradesh India. Full article

This study characterized breeding, housing, feeding and health management practices in positive deviants and typical average performing smallholder dairy farms in Tanzania. The objective was to distinguish management practices that positive deviant farms deploy differently from typical farms to ameliorate local prevalent environmental stresses. In a sample of 794 farms, positive deviants were classified on criteria of consistently outperforming typical farms (p < 0.05) in five production performance indicators: energy balance ≥ 0.35 Mcal NEL/d; disease-incidence density ≤ 12.75 per 100 animal-years at risk; daily milk yield ≥ 6.32 L/cow/day; age at first calving ≤ 1153.28 days; and calving interval ≤ 633.68 days. The study was a two-factor nested research design, with farms nested within the production environment, classified into low- and high-stress. Compared to typical farms, positive deviant farms had larger landholdings, as well as larger herds comprising more high-grade cattle housed in better quality zero-grazing stall units with larger floor spacing per animal. Positive deviants spent more on purchased fodder and water, and sourced professional veterinary services (p < 0.001) more frequently. These results show that management practices distinguishing positive deviants from typical farms were cattle upgrading, provision of larger animal floor spacing and investing more in cattle housing, fodder, watering, and professional veterinary services. These distinguishing practices can be associated with amelioration of feed scarcity, heat load stresses, and disease infections, as well as better animal welfare in positive deviant farms. Nutritional quality of the diet was not analyzed, for which research is recommended to ascertain whether the investments made by positive deviants are in quality of feeds. Full article

Using the SCOPUS database and VOSviewer, this paper aims to analyze the bibliographic information on three keywords (entrepreneurial intention (EI), human flourishing (HF), and unicorns) to identify relevant areas for current and future research on entrepreneurship by applying a bibliometric and content review approach to 2434 documents for the BMA (business, management, and accounting) and EEF (economics, econometrics, and finance) subject areas to construct and visualize bibliometric networks on the basis of co-citation and co-authorship relations in these items. The main findings of this study are as follows: (1) the number of documents published in the European Union on EI (600) almost doubles those published on this topic in the United States (354); the United States leads the number of papers (113) published on HF, and the number of documents published on Unicorns by BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) countries (22) almost equals the number of documents published on this issue in the United States (25); (2) research on EI during the core years of the COVID-19 pandemic (2019–2022) is of growing interest linked to entrepreneurship education and psychological traits; (3) ethics-related entrepreneurial behavior has historically supported current HF-related research; (4) entrepreneurial ecosystems, leadership, and innovation are critical success factors for born globals to be unicorns; (5) there is a geographic disparity (Spain, India, and the US) in the most cited authors for EI, HF, and unicorns, respectively. Full article

Universities play a crucial role in building the economic development capacity for their communities and regions. Their capacity building role is typically defined by contributions to the economic bottom line of the community and region where a university is located. This kind of capacity building may find itself in conflict with the long-term sustainable development needs of the region and with the responsibility of the university itself. Sustainable capacity building may require strategies that focus on the specific social, cultural, environmental, and physical context of a university’s location beyond purely economic capacity goals. To achieve sustainable development outcomes, universities must advance an understanding of the context conditions within which they are located. At least three context systems are relevant to this view of development: the economy, society and culture, and the environment with its physical, biological, and ecological context conditions. Each of these context systems is characterized by distinct time frames, spatial configurations, rules, and success measures. A focus on economic development outcomes reflects only one subsystem’s rules, behaviors, and success measures. By analyzing two case study examples from the United States and South Africa, we offer a framework for universities to advance sustainability objectives that correspond to their broader responsibilities. We argue that in order to meet these broader responsibilities, universities must first commit to giving expression to their own local context through the voices and lived realities of students and residents. Since universities build the brain trust of communities and regions around the world, they play an essential role in strengthening global sustainability goals by building the local capacity of their communities and regions. Full article

This paper discusses the effectiveness of EU economic measures towards the pandemic crisis in the case of Greece. As the pandemic crisis was an exogenous and symmetric crisis, EU member states decided to take supply and demand side measures to tackle economic recession. Not only the Recovery plan for Europe (NGEU), but also the Escape Clause, as well as non-standard monetary measures, were implemented in order to achieve growth. Furthermore, fiscal expansion, as well as common debt extraction, using green and social bonds led to higher government spending and sovereign debt. The paper’s research question is “Could fiscal expansion mitigate the economic consequences of pandemic crisis?” In other worlds, the research gap which this paper tries to fill is that for the contemporary EU response to two different crises, the economic and the pandemic. Our analysis, by using a comparative approach, shows that government spending and fiscal expansion is effective in the short-run, as the temporary measures led to higher GDP growth rates and lower unemployment rates, but in the long-run demand side measures led to higher inflation and higher sovereign debt. Full article

This study analyzes the municipal agriculture eco-efficiency in the Amazon biome and the influence of exogenous factors. We use a two-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) method with bootstrap. The results indicate that: (i) the density curve of the corrected eco-efficiency indices is statistically different from the deterministic score curves, suggesting the presence of bias in the latter; (ii) there is evidence of constant returns, demonstrating that small, medium and large municipalities can be equally eco-efficient; (iii) there are relevant eco-inefficient behaviors, showing that it is possible to increase the products (gross revenue and preserved area) and simultaneously reduce environmental damage (impact on biodiversity and greenhouse gas emission indices) with the same inputs, by replicating the best practices; and (iv) eco-efficiency scores are also substantially affected by exogenous factors. Based on the results, strategies can be defined by decision-makers to harmonize economic growth and environmental preservation; in addition, adaptive policies and actions can be adopted to optimize the sustainability of regional agriculture. Full article