Policy for Sustainable Low-Volume Rural Roads in Costa Rica

Author(s):  
Maria Lorena Lopez

The main issues that have been addressed in the Costa Rican government’s policy for low-volume rural roads are discussed. As in most developing countries, providing good roads to support the growing demand for agricultural and tourism activities has been a great challenge, especially in times of important budget limitations. The Costa Rican experience is shared in the hope that it can prove useful in other countries, because its impact has not been limited to just providing better roads; it is also helping to motivate widespread citizen participation and to improve technical and organizational capabilities of the local governments. Because the majority of the rural roads are managed by local governments, whose administrative and technical capacity has been limited in the past, the central government, through the Ministry of Public Works and Transportation, has developed a comprehensive policy based on simple technology transfer programs and regulations for these organizations, while at the same time inducing a method of investment planning that requires organized citizen participation. The program, called Participative Road Conservation, has become the center of the government’s policy. Some of the highlights of the program are presented. The strategy of the program has been to give straightforward guidelines in organizational issues of road maintenance at the local government level (including the local road committees), basic technical standards to be followed, and planning methodologies. One of the fundamental principles of the program is the sharing of responsibilities for adequate road maintenance, including financial contributions, among the communities, the local government, and the central government. This policy for sustainable rural roads is making a change in the road maintenance culture of the country. It has required educational programs concerning the importance of roads, the correct way to build and maintain them, adequate control of the work, and so forth. Once the community is involved in planning and rehabilitating a road, it is more likely that the road will not be allowed to deteriorate again. Even children are involved in a program of school patrols. The financial reforms that have been made in Costa Rica to attend to the needs of the national and municipal road systems are also addressed.

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Takudzwa Madzimure

The issue of decentralization in Zimbabwe’s local government system has been topical since the colonial era. In the post-independence epoch the expectation was that the new majority government would address the centralization of governance which was motivated by racial imbalances. However, decentralization was not achieved as local government was not recognized in the Lancaster House Constitution adopted at independence in 1980. For years this allowed the central government to control all the local government structures in the country. The relationship between local governments and the central government became bitter and tense after the formation of a formidable opposition, MDC, which has been controlling most urban local authorities since its formation. The 2013 Constitution has not improved things either as the central government has not been willing to implement the new law to its latter and spirit. In all this it is the citizens who have been bearing the brunt as there has been poor service delivery owing to the bad relationship between the center and local structures. The study found out that if decentralization is fully implemented in Zimbabwe it has the potential of bringing efficient and effective service delivery, citizen participation, democracy and accountability in the local government system. The paper also makes recommendations on what needs to be done to achieve decentralization in the country’s local government system.


2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. Sunitha ◽  
A. Veeraragavan ◽  
Karthik K. Srinivasan ◽  
Samson Mathew

The management of low-volume rural roads in developing countries presents a range of challenges to road designers and managers. Rural roads comprise over 85 percent of the road network in India. The present study aims at development of deterioration models for the optimum maintenance management of the rural roads under a rural road programme namely Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) in India. Visual condition survey along the selected low-volume rural roads considers parameters like condition of shoulders, drainage features, cross-drainage structures, and camber, and pavement distresses, namely, potholes, crack area, and edge break, are collected for a period of three years. The deterioration models have a significant role in the pavement maintenance management system. However, the performance of a pavement depends on several factors. Cluster analysis can be used to group the pavement sections so that the performance of pavements in different clusters can be studied. Nonhierarchical clustering technique of k-means clustering was considered. Separate deterioration models have been developed for each of the clusters. A comparison of the models developed with and without clustered sections reveals that the clustering of pavement sections are preferred for the efficient rural road maintenance management.


2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 18
Author(s):  
Alma Golgota ◽  
Diana Bardhi

This paper examines the effects of Territorial Reform on the maintenance of national and rural roads and makes recommendations regarding the implementation of maintenance under the new organisational structure. The background and logic behind those recommendations is elaborated in the body of the paper through summarising the principal actions and policies required to be adopted in order to achieve a proper standards of road maintenance under the new territorial strategy system of local government. It is important to recognise that the roads which will fall under the responsibility of the new bodies are just a part of the overall road system. They should not be considered in isolation and in some respects it is desirable that national policies and standards be adopted which will cover the whole of the road system. In these areas it is important that policy development take place in the context of cooperation between the various responsible institutions, primarily Ministry of Transport, Ministry of Local Issues, Albanian Roads Authority( ARA), Albanian Development Fund (ADF) and the new local government authorities, the LGA s.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Antung Deddy Radiansyah

Gaps in biodiversity conservation management within the Conservation Area that are the responsibility of the central government and outside the Conservation Areas or as the Essential Ecosystems Area (EEA) which are the authority of the Regional Government, have caused various spatial conflicts between wildlife /wild plants and land management activities. Several obstacles faced by the Local Government to conduct its authority to manage (EEA), caused the number and area of EEA determined by the Local Government to be still low. At present only 703,000 ha are determined from the 67 million ha indicated by EEA. This study aims to overview biodiversity conservation policies by local governments and company perceptions in implementing conservation policies and formulate strategies for optimizing the role of Local Governments. From the results of this study, there has not been found any legal umbrella for the implementation of Law number 23/ 2014 related to the conservation of important ecosystems in the regions. This regulatory vacuum leaves the local government in a dilemma for continuing various conservation programs. By using a SWOT to the internal strategic environment and external stratetegic environment of the Environment and Forestry Service, Bengkulu Province , as well as using an analysis of company perceptions of the conservation policies regulatary , this study has been formulated a “survival strategy” through collaboration between the Central Government, Local Governments and the Private Sector to optimize the role of Local Government’s to establish EEA in the regions.Keywords: Management gaps, Essential Ecosystems Area (EEA), Conservation Areas, SWOT analysis and perception analysis


Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 389
Author(s):  
Caihua Zhou

The participation of a third party of the environmental service enterprise theoretically increases the level and efficiency of soil pollution control in China. However, Chinese-style fiscal decentralization may have a negative impact on the behaviors of participants, especially the local government. First, this paper conducts a positioning analysis on participants of the third-party soil pollution control in China and discusses the behavioral dissimilation of the local government under fiscal decentralization. Second, taking the government’s third-party soil pollution control as a case, a two-party game model of the central government and the local government is established around the principal-agent relationship, and a tripartite game model of the central government, the local government, and the third-party enterprise is designed around the collusion between the local government and the third-party enterprise. The results show that Chinese-style fiscal decentralization may lead to the behavioral dissimilation of local governments, that is, they may choose not to implement or passively implement the third-party control, and choose to conspire with third-party enterprises. Improving the benefits from implementing the third-party control of local governments and third-party enterprises, enhancing the central government’s supervision probability and capacity, and strengthening the central government’s punishment for behavioral dissimilation are conducive to the implementation of the third-party soil pollution control. Finally, this study puts forward policy suggestions on dividing the administrative powers between the central and local government in third-party control, building appraisal systems for the local government’s environmental protection performance, constructing environmental regulation mechanisms involving the government, market and society, and formulating the incentive and restraint policies for the participants in the third-party soil pollution control.


2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (83) ◽  
pp. 580-599
Author(s):  
Pedro Luiz Costa Cavalcante

Abstract The 1988 federal Constitution introduced a complex and innovative institutional arrangement that not only reestablished political rights and democratic procedures, but also reinforced decentralization as a fundamental guideline for policy implementation in Brazil. As a result, municipalities have become pivotal actors in the policymaking process. Scholars of Latin American politics have given much emphasis to the causes and determinants of decentralization, but not much has been done toward a more general understanding of how this increased decentralization has affected policymaker behavior and policy outcomes. This paper aims to do exactly that. Specifically, it investigates how institutional arrangements and electoral competition affect local government performance. The theoretical basis is the electoral democratic theory that broadly highlights elections as instruments of citizen control in retrospective and prospective voting approaches. The research employs a large-N cross sub-national analysis based on a dataset of electoral, partisan, socioeconomic and public financial information collected from over 5500 municipalities. Local governments’ performance, our dependent variables, are synthetic indicators formulated from 2009 nationwide surveys on public education, health, housing and welfare services. The OLS regression results confirm the hypothesis that politics variables do matter in how politicians make decisions and implement policy under the new Brazilian democratic Era. The empirical evidences suggest that electoral competition does not present a direct effect on government performance, however, ideology and citizen participation do. Therefore, this paper helps to expand our understanding of a political system’s impact on public policy outputs, which is extremely important not only for academic purpose but also to support policymakers’ decisions.


2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Juli Juli Juli

This study examined differences in the local government's financial performance before and after the transition from central tax BPHTB be local taxes? In general, this study aims to determine the contribution BPHTB to the PAD as a source of funding for the survival of each region in order to achieve local autonomy system. The samples used in this study is the district/city that has existed since autonomy BPHTB not be treated as 114 cities/districts. The realization of the study observation period is the period before the transition budget BPHTB (Year 2010) and after the transition BPHTB (Year 2011). The research data were statistically tested with a different test of two paired samples. The results show that the performance of local government in Java have differences before and after the transition BPHTB from the central government to local governments. This research can provide empirical evidence of the differences in the financial performance of the post-transition region from the center to the regions BPHTB especially Java. The results of this study can also be used as a reference in future studies with similar themes to consider several things. First, the use of samples that are not confined to the local government but the entire Indonesian island of Java. Second, adding the growth rate ie performance measurement. Third, review the compatibility ratio because in addition to operational expenditure and capital expenditure is no longer heading in the budget expenditure is financing and transfer.     Keywords: Bea Perolehan Hak atas Tanah dan Bangunan, Financial Performance, Autonomous Region.


Author(s):  
Shuang Ling ◽  
Shan Gao ◽  
Wenhui Liu

Despite the expectation that social media use in the public sector contributes to enhancing government's transparency, few studies have been investigated whether social media use actually leads to more disclosure during environmental incidents in practice and how social media influence local governments and their officials' information disclosure. In this article, we model information disclosure during environmental incidents as an evolutionary game process between the central government and local government in social media context, and examine the internal mechanism that how social media influence the progress of information disclosure during environmental incidents. The findings indicate that social media plays an active constructive role in central-local government game relations. Specific- ally, social media can provides an efficient information channels for the central government supervise regional officials in environmental incidents, and thus improves its supervision efficiency, and it also provides an important means for internet mobilization and online-offline interaction by encouraging the public exchange information and express their views, and in turn forces local governments and their officials tend to disclosure ahead.


2021 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 29-33
Author(s):  
Dang Phuc Vu ◽  
◽  
Thi Thanh Nga Nguyen ◽  

Control of local governments in countries around the world is very diverse,but mainly divided into two categories: 1) control of state agencies (central government control, court control, control of local power representations); 2) control of social institutions including political party control over local government, control of organizations and public associations, control of the media, and control of the people. The paper focuses on analysing the controlling local governments in some countries, thereby giving reference values for Vietnam.


Yurispruden ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 208
Author(s):  
Fahrul Abrori

 ABSTRAKPandemi Covid-19 yang terjadi di Indonesia membuat pemerintah membuat kebijakan-kebijakan sebagai stimulus untuk menjaga kestabilan masyarakat dan perekonomian. Pemerintah pusat memberikan kewenangan kepada pemerintah daerah untuk mengelola keuangan daerah untuk menangani covid-19 di daerah masing-masing. Hal ini disebabkan karena pemerintah daerah lebih memahami kebutuhan daerahnya. Permasalahan yang diangkat Pertama, bagaimana hubungan Pemerintah Pusat dan Pemerintah Daerah dalam pengelolaan keuangan untuk penanganan pandemi Covid-19? Kedua, Apa peran Pemerintah Daerah dalam pengelolaan keuangan daerah untuk penanganan pandemi Covid-19? Menggunakan metode penelitian yuridis normatif dengan pendekatan perundang-undangan dan pendekatan konsep. Hubungan Pemerintah Pusat dan Pemerintah Daerah dalam Pengelolaan Keuangan untuk Penanganan Pandemi Covid-19 yaitu desentralisasi fiskal yang mana. Peran Pemerintah Daerah dalam Pengelolaan Keuangan Daerah untuk Penanganan Pandemi Covid-19 yaitu dengan melakukan refocusing kegiatan, realokasi anggaran, dan Penggunaan Anggaran Pendapatan dan Belanja Daerah.Kata kunci: Pemerintah Daerah, Pengelolaan Keuangan Daerah, Pandemi Covid-19 ABSTRACTThe Covid-19 pandemic in Indonesia led the government to make policies as a stimulus to maintain the stability of society and the economy. The central government authorizes local governments to manage local finances to deal with covid-19 in their respective regions. This is because the local government better understands the needs of the region. The issue raised first, how is the relationship between the Central Government and Local Government in financial management for the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic? Second, What is the role of local governments in regional financial management for the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic? Using normative juridical research methods with statutory approaches and concept approaches. The relationship between the Central Government and Local Government in Financial Management for the Handling of the Covid-19 Pandemic is fiscal decentralization. The role of local governments in regional financial management for the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic is by refocusing activities, reallocating budgets, and using regional budgets.Keywords: Local Government, Regional Financial Management, Covid-19 Pandemic


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