Suchergebnisse

The Cases of Iceland, Faroe Islands and Åland Islands. This report is a comparative study of the leadership responses to the structural challenges facing the municipalities of one small Nordic country, Iceland, and two small self-governing areas, the Faroe Islands and the Åland Islands, as they are perceived by a representative number of political and administrative leaders in each. The conclusions arrived at will be relevant to anyone preoccupied with the future of small and peripheral communities across Norden.

This paper will attempt to explain in detail how Osgoode Township located in the city of Ottawa developed public-private partnerships to enhance economic viability. It will explain why this alternative was chosen, describe the two partnerships now in place, how they work, and their principal strengths and weaknesses. From the lessons learned the paper will then provide a policy framework for those communities wishing to consider pursuing similar partnerships as a method to sustain economic well-being and to provide innovative solutions to the business of local government in the future.Keywords: public private partnership, policy, municipal government, Township of Osgoode

The paper aims to understand the experience in preparing a training strategy linked to knowledge management, learning and organizational change done at a private institution of higher education. More specifically, it seeks to detail the stages of development, analyzing the difficulties faced and provide indicators of change throughout the process. A feature of the strategic process in the researched organization led the search for a theoretical discussion could involve strategy, knowledge and change. This association was fully viable when considering events that are mobilized by people interacting in a defined context. It uses a methodology of action research in which the investigative process includes a cycle of planning, action, observation and reflection. As a result, we defined four general indicators of the actions and influencers nine indicators of knowledge management should be promoted in the strategic process.

A characteristic of the Nordic states is their ambition to provide their citizens with a variety of good quality welfare services. A significant part of the responsibility for arranging reliable local solutions is devoted to the municipal level irrespective of the size of the municipality. This means a great variation in local capacity to meet different types of requirements. Especially small municipalities, which also face depopulation and an ageing population, are increasingly challenged to find renewal strategies and action plans to secure both municipal service obligations at reasonable cost per capita and competent staff. Besides rearranged internal steering, organizational frameworks, and working instructions, new solutions may be launched based on resource mobilization and a striving for improved performance in a wider spatial context. This paper explores how three municipalities in the north of Sweden have developed a voluntary intermunicipal collaboration and how it relates to alternative collaborative options in the regional context. The strengths and weaknesses of the chosen approach and its outcome are discussed based on interviews with the local government commissioners and their executive civil servants in different positions. The strength of the achieved collaborative profile is that it meets needs for higher cost efficiency and competence among staff within some municipal sectors. Further is noted that the chosen collaborative profile is not challenging the democratic accountability in each municipality. However, a weakness is that the collaborative results achieved after ten years of collaborative intentions are of marginal importance for all involved municipalities. These experiences are reflected upon with advantages and disadvantages of a merge alternative in mind.

A characteristic of the Nordic states is their ambition to provide their citizens with a variety of good quality welfare services. A significant part of the responsibility for arranging reliable local solutions is devoted to the municipal level irrespective of the size of the municipality. This means a great variation in local capacity to meet different types of requirements. Especially small municipalities, which also face depopulation and an ageing population, are increasingly challenged to find renewal strategies and action plans to secure both municipal service obligations at reasonable cost per capita and competent staff. Besides rearranged internal steering, organizational frameworks, and working instructions, new solutions may be launched based on resource mobilization and a striving for improved performance in a wider spatial context. This paper explores how three municipalities in the north of Sweden have developed a voluntary intermunicipal collaboration and how it relates to alternative collaborative options in the regional context. The strengths and weaknesses of the chosen approach and its outcome are discussed based on interviews with the local government commissioners and their executive civil servants in different positions. The strength of the achieved collaborative profile is that it meets needs for higher cost efficiency and competence among staff within some municipal sectors. Further is noted that the chosen collaborative profile is not challenging the democratic accountability in each municipality. However, a weakness is that the collaborative results achieved after ten years of collaborative intentions are of marginal importance for all involved municipalities. These experiences are reflected upon with advantages and disadvantages of a merge alternative in mind.

A characteristic of the Nordic states is their ambition to provide their citizens with a variety of good quality welfare services. A significant part of the responsibility for arranging reliable local solutions is devoted to the municipal level irrespective of the size of the municipality. This means a great variation in local capacity to meet different types of requirements. Especially small municipalities, which also face depopulation and an ageing population, are increasingly challenged to find renewal strategies and action plans to secure both municipal service obligations at reasonable cost per capita and competent staff. Besides rearranged internal steering, organizational frameworks, and working instructions, new solutions may be launched based on resource mobilization and a striving for improved performance in a wider spatial context. This paper explores how three municipalities in the north of Sweden have developed a voluntary intermunicipal collaboration and how it relates to alternative collaborative options in the regional context. The strengths and weaknesses of the chosen approach and its outcome are discussed based on interviews with the local government commissioners and their executive civil servants in different positions. The strength of the achieved collaborative profile is that it meets needs for higher cost efficiency and competence among staff within some municipal sectors. Further is noted that the chosen collaborative profile is not challenging the democratic accountability in each municipality. However, a weakness is that the collaborative results achieved after ten years of collaborative intentions are of marginal importance for all involved municipalities. These experiences are reflected upon with advantages and disadvantages of a merge alternative in mind.

The problem of municipalities under 200 inhabitants is discussed. There are 1,500 such municipalities (24%) in the Czech Republic. Many of them came to existence after 1989 when the independence of communes was considered part of the democratisation process regardless of the population number. This paper aims at a statistical evaluation of municipalities with fewer than 200 inhabitants and presents their geographical distribution, demographic development and analysis of their aging. In general, 70% of these very small municipalities have been growing since 2001. The smallest of them have the highest percentage of the population decline and are the most endangered by aging. Very small municipalities with the highest population growth are situated mainly in the vicinity of larger towns, the ones with the highest population decline are located mainly in peripheral areas at the border of regions.

Sustainability indicators are among the tools used to help towns and cities inform and evaluate their sustainable development strategies. Research into sustainability indicators has mostly targeted large cities and developed countries. Little is known of the role of sustainability indicators in pursuing sustainability by smaller towns, notably in developing countries. Nevertheless, small towns are home to a majority of the population in most developing countries. Their governments, in the meantime, are typically highly constrained when it comes to available staff and resources, also when it comes to using sustainability indicators. This study into seven Thai municipalities investigates how the Thailand Sustainable Cities Indicators' (TSCI) is prioritized, used, and translated into local impact. While explicitly connecting to the TSCI, the investigation ends with some key considerations upon its use, coping strategies, and how improvement may be pursued. The results show that the TSCI is making an impact, albeit not necessarily as structured or clear as the UN might have envisioned. The study illustrates empirical evidence of problems and limitations small municipalities are facing and reveals the creative efforts of small municipalities in coping with such issues. Small municipalities are found to be limited in terms of instrumental uses, while a much more nuanced picture emerges when it comes to conceptual use. Furthermore, some general clues to improve how it might be used locally are also suggested.

The key objective of this case study is to demonstrate the affect of projected climate change impacts on the local water supply of a small town and the related financial consequences in terms of water pricing and access. While the delivery of basic water services, free for the first 6kl per household per month, is driven by a national development goal, it is incumbent on local government to ensure this right. For this, the local municipality needs to ensure that water supplies meet the consumption demand, present and future. Technical and financial planning are therefore required to ensure that an undisrupted services is provided. The impact of climate change needs to be included in this planning.