Academic literature on the topic 'World Bank ;Office of Environmental Affairs'

In the modern world, there is a tendency to digitalise all spheres of society; this process has also affected the supervisory activities of the prosecutor's office. Due to the specifics of the intradepartmental structure, the first attempts to digitalise its activities to some extent were made by the Volga Interregional Environmental Prosecutor's Office, created according to the basin principle. With time, the experience of this prosecutor's office was the basis for the widespread digital transformation of the prosecutor's office. The article reveals the content of the concept of digital transformation of the prosecutor's office, the current state of affairs in this area; it provides foreign experience of prosecutors, highlights the advantages and disadvantages in the work of Russian system of digitalisation of the prosecutor's office; we make suggestions. The authors concluded that, despite the complexity of the digitalisation process of the prosecutor's office, automated programmes, electronic document management, the introduction of artificial intelligence capabilities into the work, would only increase the speed, quality, accuracy, work, raise the level of law enforcement agencies to a completely different level with undoubted contribution to strengthening the rule of law and order in Russia.

Abstract Between 1877 and 1885, a Southern Cheyenne chief named Stone Calf gathered a coalition of Southern Cheyenne women and men, cultural intermediaries, ranchers, missionaries, and U.S. soldiers together in northwestern Indian Territory. Bound by kinship, gendered labor, economic opportunity, and political necessity, this alliance negotiated the transnational cattle industry’s access to the environmental resources of the Southern Great Plains. Using these powerful ties, Stone Calf’s coalition successfully shaped both the cattle industry’s expansion and displaced the Office of Indian Affairs’ influence in the region. By recognizing Stone Calf’s coalition as a powerful transnational force, this article illuminates both the weight of kinship and Indigenous participation in a globally interconnected world.

This contribution of the Social Change Indicators forms the eleventh part of the series. Over the last three segments, we have been focussing on the social and economic challenges arising out of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns. The topics previously covered were on the themes of vulnerable households across social classes, poverty and migration and living conditions for social distancing. In this part, we highlight the spread of the social protection network in various states of India. Aspects such as the percentage of households having a below poverty line (BPL) card, percentage of households having a health scheme or health insurance, percentage of households having a bank or post office account, Aadhaar card saturation, percentage of families/persons covered under the targetted Public Distribution System, percentage of Aadhaar-seeded ration cards, allocation of work under MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) and the number of fair price shops per thousand population in 2021 have been examined. The required data has been collected from the Aadhaar Saturation Report provided by the Unique Identification Authority of India, the Food Grain Bulletin of the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Ration Card Dashboard of the National Food Security Act, the public data portal of MGNREGA and the Fourth Round of the National Family Health Survey’s state volumes.

Subject. The article addresses conditions for sustainable development of the Russian economy. Objectives. The purpose is to link the limit of sustainability of the Russian economy with required conditions. Methods. The study draws on the systems approach, using the methods of statistical, neural network, and cluster analysis. Results. I describe scientific ideas about sustainable development of economy, which have been developed in theoretical and practical activities. The World Bank data on environment, social affairs and governance on 17 key sustainable development topics, covering environmental, social and management categories, are used to determine conditions for sustainability of the Russian economy. The neural network analysis of the importance of indicators’ rate of increment shows a hierarchy of priorities. The cluster analysis of indicators’ rate of increment identifies significant clusters. The analysis of key priorities of sustainable development of the Russian economy enables to reveal significant deviations in political stability and in access to electricity. Conclusions. Conditions for sustainable development of the Russian economy are determined by their proximity to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Identifying these conditions in the globalizing world creates an understanding of the real limit and opportunities of the country's development.

Paul A. Volcker has spent most of his life in public service, at the Treasury under President Kennedy (1962–1965) and then as Undersecretary for Monetary Affairs under President Nixon (1969–1974), as President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (1975–1979), and finally as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System under both President Carter and President Reagan (1979–1987). Born in 1927, his world view was formed by childhood experience of the Great Depression and World War II, times of great national trial that led ultimately to recommitment and reconstruction. He went into public service in order to be a part of the rebuilding effort, but it was his fate instead to be involved mainly in managing pressures that would ultimately lead to the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system internationally and the Glass–Steagall banking system domestically. Consequently, there is some sadness today when he looks back on his career, but there is also a sense of accomplishment. In spite of everything, there was no depression and there was no world war. The possibility and hope for progress in years to come remains alive.The interview took place in Volcker's office at Rockefeller Center in New York City. His fourth-floor windows look out over the sunken plaza to the gold-leafed statue of Prometheus stealing fire from the gods, and then on farther to the elegant GE building, which is familiar to anyone who has visited New York. Over the front entrance it is just possible to see the inscription adapted from Isaiah 33:6, “Wisdom and Knowledge shall be the stability of thy times.” It strikes me as an appropriate inscription for the building, reminding one that this most beautiful complex was built in the years of the Great Depression. Today, with the forthcoming interview in mind, it reminds me also of the stakes involved in the conduct of monetary policy.

Green banking or sustainable banking is one of the issues of the concern of all stakeholders of the world. Following this concern, this study has investigated the status of green banking practices of the non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs) and commercial banks of Bangladesh. Analyzing the contents of annual reports as well as websites of banks and NBFIs, the study finds that 44 out of 57 banks and 13 out of 33 NBFIs, to a varying degree, have exposures in direct or indirect green financing. But only 45 banks and 25 NBFIs conducted environmental risk rating. Most of the banks and NBFIs practice green banking only in a limited scale and volume and disclose green banking information in a semi structured manner in both the annual reports and corporate websites. However, except one, all the 56 scheduled banks and all the 33 non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs) have their own green banking policy guidelines. They also have green office guide for conducting in-house green activities. The study finds that green banking disclosures in their annual reports exceed that in their websites. It is also found that both private commercial banks (PCBs), and foreign commercial banks (FCBs) have surpassed state-owned commercial banks (SCBs) and state-owned specialized development banks (SDBs) in terms of the green financing.

This paper interrogates the implementation of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) in Malawi, with a focus on its impacts on the livelihoods of the working class and poor people. The SAP was superimposed by the World Bank (WB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF), since 1981, to recover an ailing economy through economic austerity measures and to promote sustainable development. This paper critically discusses the key effects of the SAP in the long run, looking in particular at the effects on the unemployment rate, falling real wages, Malawians’ poor living standards and food insecurity. The analysis is based on data from the National Statistical Office for the period 1981 to 2022 and a review of the literature on SAPs in Malawi. The paper argues that the implementation of the SAPs in Malawi has not protected wage labourers and poor people’s livelihoods, but rather it has exacerbated the downward spiral of Malawi’s economy and citizens’ living standards. And it posits that development policy guidelines should not conceal power relations that compound social and economic ills, but should be transparent and targeted to solve economic problems of developing countries, protect the working class, and improve the livelihoods of poor people.

The author, Co-Chair, Urban Sustainability Task Force of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, and Special Advisor to the Mayor of the City of Ottawa, is a former senior public servant and international consultant with extensive experience in public administration, policy formulation and program management relating to economic and regional growth, infrastructure development, social development as well as urban planning and conservation. With degrees in International Affairs from Carleton College in Minnesota and Political Science and Economics from Columbia University, he also holds Certificates in Russian Studies from Columbia University and in Military and Strategic Studies from the National Defense College in Kingston, Ontario. Mr Aquilina had a long career in the federal public service which included appointments to the Civil Service Commission, the Prime Minister's Office and the Privy Council Office. He served as Assistant-Deputy Minister in the Departments of Regional Economic Expansion, Secretary of State and Finance. He also occupied the positions of Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Board, General Manager of the National Capital Commission and Chair of the Task Force on Decentralization of Government Operations. As a consultant, he provided senior advice to the governmentof Lebanon on public service reform and headed a task force in Ethiopia on public finance reform. He was also a senior member of two missions from Canada to the governments of Benin and Haiti. The text that follows is an edited version of a paper presented at the international symposion on "The Natural City, " Toronto, 23-25 June, 2004, sponsored by the University of Toronto's Division of the Environment, Institute for Environmental Studies, and the World Society for Ekistics.

Objective:Seasonal variance and climatic factors interrelated in incidence of psychiatric disorders and suicide have been attracting attention of resarchers for centuries. Still there are known just a few studies on the topic, once accomplished in remote times and parts of the world, which results might be found just controversial.This pilot study analyses correlations in one year data on acute psychiatric admissions and suicides along with many objective physical parameters.Method:Used data are collected from two main psychiatric hospitals in Prague (1.5 mil. inhabitants), scientific institutes of Czech Academy of Science and Czech statistical office. Daily numbers of acutely admitted psychiatric patients during the year of 2005 (N = 3304) and suicides (N = 152) include persons of productive age, both gender, 18-65 years old. The daily admission rates, suicides and their distribution during the year and many climatic objective variables are treated with contemporary statistical methods.Results:Acute daily psychiatric admission rate seems to be significantly correlated with maximal daily temperature (x2, p= 0.05), quarters of the year (anova, p=0.003; x2, p=0.034), days of week (anova, p=0.001), weekends (t-test, p=0.0001), bank holidays (t-test, p=0.048).Daily numbers of suicide do not significantly correspond with the variables meant above.The strongest finding seems to be high risk of suicide in low air humidity condition: ODDS = 1.76.Conclusion:Daily incidence of suicidality and acute psychiatric disorders differ in seasonal distribution and supposed relations to climatic factors. The study in wider complexity to be continued.

The purpose of the article is to explain the use of cryptocurrency as a terrorist financing tool. This article has emphasized the ways, which terrorists appraise for being a reliable fundraising means and their adoption. Methodology. For the purposes of the study, the methods of scientific abstraction, synthesis, observation, generalization, as well as the method of induction of literature and legal documents were used to determine the features of bitcoin, promoting and preventing its use for terrorism financing. Results. The development of the Internet and electronic devices has radically changed all spheres of human life, including criminal activity. Digitalization has led to the improvement of ordinary crimes and the emergence of new types of crime, which, in principle, cannot exist without special digital electronic devices. Among the first implementers of new technologies were terrorists, who took advantage of digitalization to increase profitability. Thus, terrorists have now significantly increased their attention to cryptocurrency as a digital means of payment, namely Bitcoin. Bitcoin has a number of features that have attracted the attention of criminals as a way to evade responsibility for a crime. In particular, decentralization avoids the need for confirmation by a central authority, and pseudo-anonymity provides a certain level of anonymity. In addition, terrorists are aware that Bitcoin's confidentiality is extremely fragile and needs to be enhanced. The paper analyzes several ways to enhance anonymity, such as software that anonymizes traffic and prevents IP identification, peer-to-peer mixers, centralized mixing services (tumbler), and other approaches. It is worth emphasizing that for the fight against crime, the main issue is the de-anonymization of the Bitcoin owner/user, which allows the identification of the criminal. Currently, law enforcement agencies use direct and indirect de-anonymization, proliferation analysis, quantitative analysis, time analysis, and transactional network analysis, among others, to achieve the above goal, which are discussed in detail in this article. In addition, agencies around the world investigated and uncovered terrorist groups and their financial facilitators. Specifically, on August 13, 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Public Affairs announced "the largest cryptocurrency seizure in the context of terrorism in history." To investigate the agenda, the legal documents of those investigations that contain information about the terrorist fund-raising mechanism were examined and analyzed. The legal documents revealed that these investigations used the aforementioned de-anonymization approaches.

Many developing countries depend on the World Bank for development assistance, which the Bank often provides with policy reform conditions. Resistance to World Bank’s conditionality caused the Bank to posit “ownership” as a country’s real assent to its development policies. The combination of ownership and conditionality invalidates the neocolonial, false-paradigm and dualism theses in explaining the international dependence development model. This study explains this model by investigating how the relationship between conditionality and ownership in the context of this model impacts forest management in Cameroon. Integrating theoretical and methodological insights mainly from political science, economics, geosciences, and sociology, the study finds that in this model, conditionality and ownership have a hybrid relationship that fosters and hinders effective forest management in Cameroon. This finding positions policy hybridity within this model. It proposes a nouvelle way to understand international development policies’ interactions, and the effects of the interactions on natural resource management.

This thesis draws on David Harvey’s concept of “accumulation by dispossession” and an international political economy (IPE) approach centred on the institutional arrangements and power structures that privilege certain actors and values, in order to critique current capitalist practices of primitive accumulation by the global corporate extractive industry. The thesis examines how accumulation by dispossession by the global extractive industry is facilitated by the “free entry” or “free mining” principle. It does so by focusing on Canada as a leader in the global extractive industry and the spread of this country’s mining laws to other countries – in other words, the transnationalisation of norms in the global extractive industry – so as to maintain a consistent and familiar operating environment for Canadian extractive companies. The transnationalisation of norms is further promoted by key international institutions such as the World Bank, which is also the world’s largest development lender and also plays a key role in shaping the regulations that govern natural resource extraction. The thesis briefly investigates some Canadian examples of resource extraction projects, in order to demonstrate the weaknesses of Canadian mining laws, particularly the lack of protection of landowners’ rights under the free entry system and the subsequent need for “free, prior and informed consent” (FPIC). The thesis also considers some of the challenges to the adoption and implementation of the right to FPIC. These challenges include embedded institutional structures like the free entry mining system, international political economy (IPE) as shaped by international institutions and powerful corporations, as well as concerns regarding ‘local’ power structures or the legitimacy of representatives of communities affected by extractive projects. The thesis concludes that in order for Canada to be truly recognized as a leader in the global extractive industry, it must establish legal norms domestically to ensure that Canadian mining companies and residents can be held accountable when there is evidence of environmental and/or human rights violations associated with the activities of Canadian mining companies abroad. The thesis also concludes that Canada needs to address underlying structural issues such as the free entry mining system and implement FPIC, in order to curb “accumulation by dispossession” by the extractive industry, both domestically and abroad.

Developing countries such as Peru are not strangers in promoting sustainability in buildings through local certification programs such as My Green House funded by international organizations; or architectural design competitions for houses such as “Build to Grow”; compliance standards such as the one published in March 2018, “Climate Change Law”; in addition to other optional legal standards such as “EM.110 Thermal and Light Comfort with Energy Efficiency”: a technical code of voluntary sustainable construction; and the entry of international environmental certifications such as EDGE and LEED, which are currently very welcomed by real estate developers due to the incentives. One of them is the height bonus, which is promoted by some municipal ordinances, mostly located in the capital city of Lima as a product of a project developed and promoted by the IFC and World Bank. On the other hand, in the retail or office sector, they are promoted by green corporate policies; however, there is a long way to go.

Gender equality and information and communication technology are important in the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in policy, planning, and practice. The 2000 Millennium Declaration of the United Nations (UN) formed an international agreement among member states to work toward the reduction of poverty and its effects by 2015 through eight Millennium Development Goals: 1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger 2. Achieve universal primary education 3. Promote gender equality and the empowerment of women 4. Reduce child and maternal mortality 5. Improve maternal health care 6. Combat HIV and AIDS, malaria, and other major diseases 7. Ensure environmental sustainability 8. Develop global partnership for development Progress toward gender equality and the empowerment of women is one goal that is important to achieving the others. Poverty, hunger, illiteracy, environmental threats, HIV and AIDS, and other health threats disproportionately affect the lives of women and their dependent children. Gender-sensitive ICT applications to education, health care, and local economies have helped communities progress toward the MDGs. ICT applications facilitate rural health-care workers’ access to medical expertise through phones and the Internet. Teachers expand learning resources through the Internet and satellite services, providing a greater knowledge base for learners. Small entrepreneurs with ICT access and training move their local business into world markets. ICT diffusion into world communication systems has been pervasive. Even some of the poorest economies in Africa show the fastest cell-phone growth, though Internet access and landline numbers are still low (International Telecommunications Union [ITU], 2003b). ICT access or a lack of it impacts participation, voice, and decision making in local, regional, and international communities. ICTs impact the systems that move or inhibit MDG progress. UN secretary general Kofi Annan explained the role of the MDGs in global affairs: Millennium Development Goals are too important to fail. For the international political system, they are the fulcrum on which development policy is based. For the billion-plus people living in extreme poverty, they represent the means to a productive life. For everyone on Earth, they are a linchpin to the quest for a more secure and peaceful world. (UN, 2005, p. 28) Annan also stressed the critical need for partnerships to facilitate technology training to enable information exchange and analysis (UN, 2005). ICT facilitates sharing lessons of success and failure, and progress evaluation of work in all the MDG target areas. Targets and indicators measuring progress were selected for all the MDGs. Gender equality and women’s empowerment are critical to the achievement of each other goal. Inadequate access to the basic human needs of clean water, food, education, health services, and environmental sustainability and the support of global partnership impacts great numbers of women. Therefore, the targets and indicators for Goal 3 address females in education, employment, and political participation. Progress toward the Goal 3 target to eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015, will be measured by the following indicators. • Ratio of girls to boys in primary, secondary, and tertiary education • Ratio of literate females to males who are 15- to 24-year-olds • Share of women in wage employment in the nonagricultural sector • Proportion of seats held by women in national parliaments (World Bank, 2003) Education is positively related to improved maternal and infant health, economic empowerment, and political participation (United Nations Development Program [UNDP], 2004; World Bank, 2003). Education systems in developing countries are beginning to offer or seek ways to provide ICT training as a basic skill and knowledge base. Proactive policy for gender equality in ICT access has not always accompanied the unprecedented ICT growth trend. Many civil-society representatives to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) argue for ICT access to be considered a basic human right (Girard & Ó Soichrú, 2004; UN, 1948). ICT capability is considered a basic skill for education curriculum at tertiary, secondary, and even primary levels in developed regions. In developing regions, ICT access and capability are more limited but are still tightly woven into economic communication systems. ICTs minimize time and geography barriers. Two thirds of the world’s poor and illiterate are women (World Bank, 2003). Infant and maternal health are in chronic crisis for poor women. Where poverty is highest, HIV and AIDS are the largest and fastest growing health threat. Ninety-five percent of people living with HIV and AIDS are in developing countries, partly because of poor dissemination of information and medical treatment. Women are more vulnerable to infection than men. Culturally reinforced sexual practices have led to higher rates of HIV infection for women. Gender equality and the empowerment of women, starting with education, can help fight the spread of HIV, AIDS, and other major diseases. ICT can enhance health education through schools (World Bank). Some ICT developers, practitioners, and distributors have identified ways to incorporate gender inclusiveness into their policies and practice for problem-solving ICT applications toward each MDG target area. Yet ICT research, development, education, training, applications, and businesses remain male-dominated fields, with only the lesser skilled and salaried ICT labor force approaching gender equality. Successful integration of gender equality and ICT development policy has contributed to MDG progress through several projects in the developing regions. Notable examples are the South-African-based SchoolNet Africa and Bangladesh-based Grameen Bank Village Pay Phone. Both projects benefit from international public-private partnerships. These and similar models suggest the value and importance of linking gender equality and empowerment with global partnership for development, particularly in ICT. This article reports on developing efforts to coordinate the achievement of the MDGs with policy, plans, and practice for gender equality beyond the universal educational target, and with the expansion of ICT access and participation for women and men. The article examines the background and trends of MDG 3, to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women, with particular consideration of MDG 8, to develop global partnership for development, in ICT access and participation.