In: Nonprofit and voluntary sector quarterly: journal of the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action, Volume 40, Issue 3, p. 566-582
In: Nonprofit and voluntary sector quarterly: journal of the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action, Volume 40, Issue 3, p. 566-582
This article analyzes the empirical relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and social capital. The focus is on a specific kind of nonprofit organizations: the social cooperatives. With respect to the previous studies on the relationship between participation in nonprofit organizations and social capital creation, this article reveals a main reason of interest. The article points out the operational characteristics of nonprofit organizations and shows the importance of the adoption of CSR good practices in fostering the creation of workers' social capital intended as cooperative social network, generalized trust, and relational skills.
The Multi-tier Framework (MTF) was developed to address the specifics of energy-access needs outlined in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations and the Sustainable Energy for All (SEforAll) initiative launched by the Secretary-General of the United Nations. The Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP) in the World Bank, in consultation with multiple development partners, has developed the Global Tracking Framework (GTF) to measure and monitor energy access using the MTF in terms of attributes and tiers. As part of the stock-taking exercise on measuring access via the MTF, ESMAP has launched detailed data collection activities in seventeen countries. One of those is Nepal, a country in South Asia committed to achieving the Sustainable Development Goal on Energy Access (SDG 7.1). With the government of Nepal, the World Bank carried out a nationally representative household survey in 2017 to determine a baseline for Nepal's access to energy. The findings of this report are based on the data from that survey.
São Tomé and Príncipe (STP) is one of the smallest economies in Africa, a lower-middle-income, developing small-island state with a fragile economy, and it is therefore highly vulnerable to exogenous shocks. The World Bank, with support from the energy sector management assistance program (ESMAP), has launched the global survey on energy access, using the multi-tier framework (MTF) approach. The survey's objective is to provide more nuanced data on energy access, including access to electricity and cooking solutions. The MTF approach goes beyond the traditional binary measurement of energy access to capture the multidimensional nature of energy access and the vast range of technologies and sources that can provide energy access, while accounting for the wide differences in user experience. The importance and wide-ranging impact of energy access is recognized by the United Nations under sustainable development goal 7.1, which seeks universal access to affordable, reliable, and modern energy services. The government of STP has been committed to achieving sustainable development goal 7 to benefit its people, and has thus collaborated with the World Bank to realize the MTF survey to obtain guidance on setting targets, policies, and investment strategies for enhancing energy access.
The reduction of GHG emissions is one of the most important policy objectives worldwide. Nonetheless, concrete and effective measures to reduce them are hardly implemented. One of the main reasons for this deadlock is the fear that unilateral actions will reduce a country's competitiveness, and will benefit those countries where no GHG mitigation measures are implemented. This kind of argument is also often used to explain why some governments and many business leaders are not in favour of the EU 30% GHG mitigation target that has been proposed to replace the previous 20% GHG emission reduction objective approved by the EU within the well-known 20-20-20 climate and energy package. By developing and applying a recursive, dynamic, very detailed CGE model with energy generation from both fossil fuel and renewable sources, we address this issue by estimating the cost for different EU countries and industries of the EU climate and energy package under a set of alternative international scenarios on global GHG mitigation efforts. Results show that, thanks to the EU economic recession, achieving a 20% GHG emission reduction entails a moderate cost for the European Union - about 0.5% of EU GDP - even in the case of EU unilateral action. This cost could be reduced to almost zero if not only the European Union, but also the other major world economies, comply with the low pledge Copenhagen Accord. A 30% GHG emission reduction target would certainly be more costly: the total loss in the European Union would be 1.26% of EU GDP in the case of EU unilateral action, whereas the total cost would be 0.55% of EU GDP if all major economies reduce their own GHG emissions according to the low pledge Copenhagen Accord. Both border tax adjustments and free allocation of carbon permits are shown to be successful in reducing some adverse competitiveness effects of the EU GHG mitigation policy into energy intensive sectors, but at the expenses of the other economic sectors.
With a population of 15.8 million, Cambodia is one of Asia's fastest growing economies; its growth has averaged 7.6% a year over the past decade (higher than the regional average of 5.1%). Upon halving its poverty rate in 2009, Cambodia achieved Millennium Development Goal 1. Moreover, in 2015, after 20 years of steady economic growth, Cambodia secured lower-middle-income status. Despite this notable achievement, 4.5 million people in Cambodia are still considered near-poor, with the country ranking 143rd on the United Nations Development Programme's 2016 Human Development Index. The Cambodian government is committed to expanding energy access throughout the country. With close to 79% of the Cambodian population residing in rural areas, through its surveys, the Multi-Tier Framework (MTF) team collected compelling data on energy access in urban and rural areas. Highlights of these abundant findings can be found in MTF's comprehensive Energy Access Country Diagnostic Report, which can be accessed on MTF's country webpage: https://energydata.info/dataset/cambodia-multi-tier-framework-mtf-survey-2018
A small but densely populated country, Rwanda has one of the fastest growing economies in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Rwandan government is dedicated to expanding access to electricity and aims to increase its electrification rate, first to 70 percent by 2018, and subsequently to 100 percent by 2020 – an ambitious target considering that approximately 86 percent of the country's population resides in rural areas. It's focus on expanding energy access also applies to increasing access to improved cookstoves (ICSs). Rwanda has gained support from multiple development partners to help it reach its energy access goals. Click here for Rwanda's energy access profile and to read the comprehensive Energy Access Country Diagnostic Report.https://energydata.info/dataset/rwanda---multi-tier-framework--mtf--survey--2018-
Located in the Horn of Africa, Ethiopia is the second most populous country in Sub-Saharan Africa, home to more than 100 million people. Over 80 percent of Ethiopia's population live in rural areas, with agriculture functioning as the backbone of the country's economy. In the past decade, Ethiopia has become one of the world's fastest growing economies, with a 10.9 percent growth rate that represents twice the region's average growth rate of 5 percent. This growth positively impacted the country's extreme poverty rate, which fell 24 percentage points between 2000 and 2011.The Ethiopian government has made universal access to electricity a goal that it aims to reach by 2025; it aims to achieve this by including off-grid technologies — inclusive of mini-grids and off-grid solar solutions — in its universal electrification strategy. The government has also made access to modern energy cooking solutions a priority, which is significant in a country that traditionally uses biomass as its primary fuel (evident in more than 90 percent of the country's households). To learn more about these facts and the Multi-Tier Framework (MTF) results and analysis on Ethiopia's energy access rates, please visit MTF's country web page, engage with dynamic data, and download MTF's comprehensive Energy Access Country Diagnostic Report: https://energydata.info/dataset/ethiopia---multi-tier-framework--mtf--survey--2018-.