OIDA International Journal of Sustainable Development
Open access peer-reviewed journal
Classification of Taleghan Rangelands for Medical Plants Use and Sustainable Development
Arzani a, Gh. Azhdari b, A.R. Mousavi c
a Faculty of Natural Resources, University of Tehran, Karaj, I.R. Iran
b Faculty of Natural Resources, University of Tehran, Karaj, I.R. Iran
c Faculty of Natural Resources, Isfahan University of Technology, Iran.
Volume 04, Issue 05, Pg. 11-18, 2012
Abstract: Rangeland suitability is usually determined for recognition and assessment of its potential for apt utilization of this resource. This research performed to determine the capability of Taleghan rangelands for medical plants use in a sustainable utilization manner and to prepare the model of rangelands’ suitability for medical plants. This model is based on the methodology introduced by FAO [1], considering the effective factors on each land use. Sampling process was done by stochastic-systematic method with four transects parallel with local slope and two transects perpendicular with the slope and using one square meter plots along with the transects in each vegetation type. All of the data had prepared by field surveys. Results show that in the medical plants sub-model, 28.9 percent of lands are located in the suitability class of S1, 33.5 percent in S2 class, 36.9 percent in S3 class and 0.7 percent in non-suitable class. These results could be used in land use planning, which may decrease the utilization risk, make the utilization units economic, increase the income of beneficiaries, and improve rangelands’ condition.
Keywords: Range suitability model, Medical Plants, FAO, GIS, Taleghan
Biomass Conversion Technologies
Emberga T.T. a, Uhiara F.E. b, Nwigwe C. c, Amadi R.O d
a, b. c. d Physics and Electronics Department, Federal Polytechnic Nekede-Owerri, Nigeria.
Volume 04, Issue 05, Pg. 19-24, 2012
Abstract: The dominant biomass conversion technology consists of the combustion of biomass as fuel wood, and forest residues, or as process residues, such as biogases and black liquor. Many of the combustion processes in use today have poor environmental characteristics and low efficiency e.g cook stoves in developing countries; they are a major cause of respiratory disease and also contribute to greenhouse gas production.. Environmental technologies, especially those based on anaerobic digestion, are moving into commercialization following the large scale success of using landfill gas for power generation. Charcoal and ethanol (which are the leading biofuels), advances in the production of liquid fuels from lignocellulosics, and high efficiency integrated gasification combined cycles for electricity production are described.
Keywords: Biomass, Combustion, Conversion, Environment, Efficiency
Get Your Schmooze on: Tensions, Perspectives, and Apradoxes in US-Latin America NGO Funding Relationships
Meghan Kallman a
a Department of Sociology, Brown University, Maxcy Hall, George Street, Providence RI, USA.
Volume 04, Issue 05, Pg. 25-44, 2012
Abstract: Social problems, in development and otherwise, are increasingly being allocated to the third sector. This paper posits, however, that the third sector is fraught with processes that may themselves be socially problematic: the intent of this article is to look at these processes, and how they may impact our ability to solve problems via NGOs and other third sector organizations. This study looks at the relationship between grantors and non-governmental grantee organizations in the implementation of sustainable development programs in the United States and Latin America. The intent was to see if and how the process of securing funding and operating under structured financial conditions shapes or reshapes NGO energies. I was interested explicitly in the interface between nonprofit grantees and their private funders: in what the relationship looks like from each perspective, in how both sides make sense of it, and what the implications of such a relationship are for nonprofit work in general. Through a comparative ethnographic case study of funding relationships, including six grantor-grantee dyads, I find that the grantor-grantee interactions are highly subjective and complex, and that its nuances are disguised through different frames. I also find evidence of friction between discourses of activism and discourses of professionalism, and that foundation staff deal with these conflicts through a strategy of deliberate ambiguity. I theorize that the quality of these funding relationships could have strong impacts on the quality, success, and perceptions of success of sustainable development projects.
Keywords: Five words in alphabetical order: Foundations, Grantmaking, NGOs, North-South Partnerships, Social Movements
Health Care Utilisation In Kedah: A Microeconometric Analysis
Shamzaeffa Samsudin a, Norzita Jamil b, Nur Hikmah Zulhaid c
a, b, c College of Business, School of Economics, Finance and Banking
Universiti Utara Malaysia, Sintok, Kedah, Malaysia
Volume 04, Issue 05, Pg. 45-52, 2012
Abstract: While the government has made various efforts to upgrade health care facilities in Malaysia, these advances will only benefit the people if the facilities or services are utilised by those in need. This issue has highlighted the importance of the equity concept in health care utilisation. This study aims to identify the existence of income-related inequity and determine the effect of the availability of health facilities in determining health care utilisation in the state of Kedah. A microeconometric analysis is used in this study, specifically the probit and count data models. We use multistage cluster sampling in selecting the sample for the study. All individuals aged 18 and above from selected households are interviewed. From the analysis it suggests that, beside health status, some socioeconomic factors are significant in determining health care use. However, there is no evidence of income-related inequity in health care utilisation in the area of study. The results also suggests that those live in the less developed district are less likely to utilise health care compared to those from developed district. This indicates that the availability of health facilities may somewhat induce the likelihood or frequency of health care use. Findings from this study may provide some information for policy analyst in designing an equitable health and health care policy for the well-being of the rakyat (people).
Keywords: income-related inequity; count data model, health care; microeconometric; well-being
The Role of Institutions in Sustainable Development: The Experience of Sudan Economy
Dirar Elmahi Elobeid a
a The Islamic Centre for Research & Studies of Sustainable Development, University of Gezira, Sudan
Volume 04, Issue 05, Pg. 53-68, 2012
Abstract: Sustainable development involves many things. More appropriate technologies, supportive policies, different ethics, and changes in individual behaviour are among the more obvious factors. One contributing factor that deserves more attention is the element of institutions. Hence, recently, researchers, planners, policy makers and practitioners have paid a considerable attention to the role of adequate and effective institutions for development. In addition, it can be argued that institutions and the institutional arrangements and mechanisms for development provide the missing link that can explain the differences in growth rates and development trends across developing countries. It is, therefore, important to address the questions of how particular institutions work efficiently in developing countries and how to overcome existing institutional bottlenecks. The objective of this research paper is to highlight the importance of institutions with regard to economic development and in achieving sustainable development. It also examines the development plans carried out and investment programmes announced in Sudan since its Independence. This research paper constitutes five major sections in addition to the introduction and conclusion. Section one provides numerous definitions to what is meant by sustainable development and institutions and their classifications. Section two highlights the empirical links between institutions and development and the prevailing literature supporting that link. Section three discusses roles and functions played by institutions and the importance of effective legal systems and good governance in development. Section four illustrates functions of institutions in economic development. The research concludes that the experience of the Sudanese economy in building institutions provides a key reason for differences in development performance. It is not the quantity but the quality of government institutions and government intervention in the provision of quality institutions. This outcome invariably lies in politics and quality of the government. Those with stable politics and strong disciplined, honest and capable people in government will do much better than those without. Thus, in order to grow, Sudan needs to have not only a good set of institutions but the capacity to change those institutions overtime.
Keywords: development, institutions, link, Sudan, sustainable
Agile Supply Chain for Container Terminal
Kasypi a, MZ. Shah b
a Department of Maritime Management, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, Malaysia
b Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia
Volume 04, Issue 05, Pg. 69-82, 2012
Abstract: Growth and survival of an organisation are depended on the systematic planning and execution. A model is needed as it is a description of a system. This paper provides a container terminal for understanding the Supply chain process within terminal compound. Container terminal systems and functions are similar with manufacturing and material handling. The skeleton of the process in mapping using IDEF0 function as a powerful business process reengineering tool to model the operational process of container terminal. This model emphasise on the supply chain agility of container terminal from IDEF technique. It is a foresight idea in designing a supply chain of container terminal model based on processes from practical and theoretical feedback to ensure the practicability.
Keywords: Agility, Container terminal, IDEF0, Supply chain
The Choice of Sustainable Housing towards Sustainable Development: A Case Study in Malaysia
Zuroni Md Jusoh a, Husniyah Abd Rahim b, Elistina Abu Bakar c, Askiah Jamaluddin d, Roziah Mohd Rasdi e, Zalika Md Zaini f
a, b, c, d, e, f Department of Resource Management and Consumer Studies, Faculty of Human Ecology,
Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia.
Volume 04, Issue 05, Pg. 83-98, 2012
Abstract: In Malaysia, sustainable housing concept has been introduced since year 2005. Recently, Malaysian government is trying to focus more on this concept of sustainable housing. This concept is consistent with the increasing awareness in Malaysian society towards the importance of sustainable development. Nevertheless, there is the need to balance the environmental conservation with economic development (Shafii, 2007). Generally, the objective of this study is to conduct an economic study on the household demand for sustainable housing in Malaysia. Specifically, this study intends to rank the attributes of carbon dioxide (CO2) emission, rainwater harvesting system, natural air ventilation and greeneries area according to its importance to consumers, to elicit consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for different options, to estimate the implicit price for each attribute and the tradeoffs among the attributes. Two Choice Set formats – generic and labeled formats, have been used to estimate the implicit price for the attributes. Self-administered questionnaires were used to obtain necessary data from 800 respondents among urban households of terrace houses in urban areas. Four zones consist of the North, Middle, East and South of Peninsular Malaysia was selected through multi-stage random sampling. One state has been chosen to represent each zone. The lists of the Municipal Councils were gathered from the government website and two of them were selected to represent the chosen states. Each of the selected Municipal Council was contacted to get the list of residential areas. Consequently, one hundred respondents who stayed in these residential areas had participated in this study. The choice model technique was applied to estimate the non market values for this study. This technique begins with the assignment of the product or service attributes to levels, followed by selection of the experimental design, construction of the choice sets, measurement of preferences, and estimation (Hanley et al., 2001). SAS 9.0 and LIMDEP 8.0 NLogit 3.0 software were utilized to analyze the choice model while SPSS for Windows version 18.0 program were used for descriptive and inferential analyses. Implicit prices for environmental attributes such as natural air ventilation, greeneries area, carbon dioxide (CO2) emission and rainwater harvesting system were estimated. The estimated implicit values for – sustainable housing attributes based on Multinomial Logit regression shows that natural air ventilation is the most important attribute. This is followed by greeneries area, carbon dioxide (CO2) emission and rainwater harvesting system. Compensating surplus (CpS) estimation shows that the respondents were willing to pay (WTP) a 30 percent premium to obtain all the modeled attributes of sustainable housing and to attain an improvement for a number of generic and technology-specific label choice sets. Nevertheless, the results estimated were higher for generic options. The findings also reveal that Malaysian society preferred sustainable housing as compared to conventional housing. Finally, the study discusses several policy implications and incentive scheme such as tax rebate for households or developers to stimulate the development of sustainable housing industry in Malaysia.
Keywords: Choice model, compensating surplus, implicit price, sustainable development, sustainable housing
Construction Skilled Labour Shortage –The Challenges in Malaysian Construction Sector
Shazwani binti Ahmad Zaki a, Sarajul Fikri Mohamed b, Zakaria Mohd Yusof c
a, b, c Department of Quantity Surveying, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia
Volume 04, Issue 05, Pg. 99-108, 2012
Abstract: Construction skilled shortage workers have become worldwide issue. It also becomes the greatest challenge facing Malaysian construction industry. Moreover, participation by local workforce is not very encouraging and there’s understood that skilled workers produced from vocational training were not meeting industry’s needs. Some of them left construction sector even after undergo training from construction training institutions. Malaysian construction has problems in the ability to get the source of labour as well as retained skill people and has to depend on foreign worker to respond to the high demand of skilled workers due to rapid development in Malaysia and poor participation from local people. This paper explores on construction skilled shortage issue in Malaysia and how serious it is. Discussion of the paperwill be on initiatives taken to overcome this issue by introduced technical and vocational skills training and education in Malaysia such as National Occupational Skills Standards (NOSS) and National Dual Training System (NDTS). Those initiatives will be discussed and compared. Moreover, success factor of dual system will also be discussed which are based from other country that successfully implement dual system. Last but not least, reasons of local reluctant to join or work in construction sector will be explained. Some strategy to attract local’s participant to join construction industry will be discussed
Keywords: construction sector, dual system, skilled labour, skills training
Our Common Future and Climatic Change Policy: Whose Security?
David Ross Olanya a
a Department of Public Administration and Management, Gulu University, Uganda
Volume 04, Issue 05, Pg. 109-124, 2012
Abstract: The expansion of first generation biofuels as an alternative energy creates conflicting policy of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. While leading industrial economies are being urged to reduce industrial carbon emissions substantially by 2020, the expansion of first generation biofuels is influencing deforestation of pristine forests, being driven by the demand to respond to energy crisis and profitable frontier, which is characterized by the growing interest between transnational corporations and governments. The deforestation poises even more degradation of vulnerable ecosystems and livelihoods of vulnerable peoples in Sub Saharan Africa. African pristine forests are being deforested in favor of foreign interests mainly in forest-rich countries with potential fertile land and water resources. Consumer countries are willing to accept biofuels without sustainability and respect to areas of high biodiversity. This does not answer the concept of sustainability as traditional tree species having more carbon stocks are being destroyed. Cutting down pristine forests contradicts the misleading idea that first generation biofuels is grown on marginal lands. Studies revealed that biofuels produced in tropical and a sub-tropical climate averagely yields higher productivity than biofuels grown in temperate climate regions. Africa location in a warmer climate and lower latitudes signifying comparative advantage in biofuels production and degraded land yields a much lower productivity as compared to the production on surplus agricultural land. These findings contradict assumptions that biofuels must be grown on marginal lands to protect untouched areas, biodiversity and avoid competing land uses. Whereas economic incentives to grow biofuels should concentrate on degraded, abandoned, or marginal lands, the potential use of degradable lands in Africa depends mainly on the suitability and availability. What is called ‘marginal’, ‘idle’, or ‘abandoned’ lands are owned and used by indigenous and local communities. The ‘first generation’ biofuels is more costly to our environment and generates more greenhouse gas emissions. It is less beneficial to Sub Saharan Africa because carbon-rich tropical forests are being cleared to create “biofuels carbon debt”. It is associated with water scarcity and deforestation of native vegetation for monoculture in coastal areas and forestlands. Our common future echoes the need to understand human security by asking at least these fundamental questions of security for whom and security for what values when answering the expansion of biofuels to meet foreign demand in Africa. This paper proposes the need for climatic policy that limits the probability of damage to one’s acquired values of human security. The concept of human security is fundamental for achieving Millennium Development Goal of environmental sustainability. The security of indigenous and local communities in the era of climatic change is only realized when they can manage their own needs, resource rights and values. It is the African environment as the prime values; not the profit motives of investors, energy demand of foreigners and the addition revenues, employment, infrastructure and income. African needs security from deforestation, which leads to increased green house emissions. The rural poor in Africa will bear the burden. They have carbon rights as form of property right. The vulnerability of the local populations to climatic change depends on the extent to which they depend on the natural resources and ecosystems, the sensitivity of the resources they depend on to climatic change, and their capacity to adapt to changes. They are vulnerable to climatic change because of low adaptive capacity. Forest resources play a critical role in achieving their environmental security being sources of food, medicine, cooking fuel, and ecosystem benefits such as climatic regulation. African can get its clean energy through hydro-power generations. It is blessed with the water resources. It is the first generation biofuels that is being commercialized, but negatively affects the environment. Because of inadequate deforestation data linked to first generation biofuels expansion, this article reviews existing literature, documentation and case studies. It examines the hotspots of landscapes where first generation biofuels development has been linked to direct land use change, especially in government aided deforestation of pristine forests. The article explores the misconception of biofuels being grown on marginal lands and the deforestation of pristine forests in the era of climatic change, how consumer countries are willing to accept the products without sustainability and respect to biodiversity, and lastly discuss the concept of human security in the African context.
Keywords: Africa, biofuels, climatic change, deforestation and sustainability
Assessing Space Utilisation for Teaching and Learning Facilities at the Higher Education Institution: A Case Study of G3 Building, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia
Rozilah Kasim a, Haris Md Nor b, Mohd Idrus Mohd Masirin c
a, b, c Faculty of Technology Management, Business,
University Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, Parit Raja, Batu Pahat, Darul Ta’zim, Johor, Malaysia
Volume 04, Issue 05, Pg. 125-134, 2012
Abstract: This paper investigates space utilization for teaching and learning facilities at the higher education institutions (HEIs) in Malaysia. It explores the space utilization rate (U%), space frequency rate (F%) and space occupancy rate (O%) of teaching and learning facilities provisions which lead to the space requirements and improvement. The paper applies a qualitative research approach with interviews and document reviews as main source of data collection techniques. A G3 Building was chosen as a main case study for this research work as the building is a centralized teaching and learning facilities comprises of main lecture theatre, lecture rooms and tutorial rooms at Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM). Rigorous data analysis using qualitative data analysis software was employed. Findings from the case study revealed that level of space utilization rate for teaching and learning at G3 Building, UTHM at a ‘satisfied’ level. This paper generates new knowledge about level of space utilizations for teaching and learning facilities provisions at HEIs in Malaysia. It can also lead to provide guidelines for future physical and infrastructure improvement and development in providing for teaching and learning facilities at HEIs in Malaysia.
Keywords: Facilities, Space utilization, Teaching and Learning, UTHM