albertmartinez/OSDG huggingface dataset:
Key factors contributing to the perception that EE investments are riskier than other investments include (i) the intangible nature of energy efficiency, as its 'output' cannot be directly measured, (ii) the added complexity that energy efficiency sometimes brings to operations in buildings or factories, and (iii) costs associated with additional details of preparation and implementation, plus the scale of EE projects relative to other investments. Contrary to other investments, energy efficiency cannot be directly measured in terms of incremental physical production. Rather, it is measured as a savings or decrement against a baseline of consumption or expense.
(Sustainable Development Goal: sdg7)
Continuous Medical Education (CME) and continuous professional development are the most well-known mechanisms but OECD countries have also introduced different forms of professional assessment, peer review and re-licensing. The extent to which CME, CPD, peer review, professional assessment and relicensing are mandatory differs from country to countiy and varies from a mandatory amount of accredited CME courses over a certain period of time to a relicensing system based on a thorough individual assessment of performance over, for example, the past four years. Standards for medical specialty training do not seem harmonised over the various specialties and CME structures are voluntary and differ between specialties.
(Sustainable Development Goal: sdg3)
The paper addresses the dilemmas of civil-secular tribunals when formulating a position toward decisions of religious tribunals with regard to the custody of children. The paper examines the approach of the Israeli Supreme Court toward rulings of Sharia and rabbinical courts, comparing them with similar tensions in the US, Canada, and the UK. Civil courts appear to be entirely committed to civil, non-religious law. Religious tribunals, however, although committed to act in accordance with the fundamental principles of state civil law, are also obligated to act in accordance with religious law. The paper argues that the extent of the above tension is much more limited than it appears at first glance. There is an attempt to reconcile the need to protect women and children on one hand with freedom of religion, multiculturalism, and the rights of ethnic minorities and immigrants, on the other.
(Sustainable Development Goal: sdg16)
Altogether, 7,000 participants from 473 partners have undertaken a course run by the Academy. Formal education courses on offer to tourism are now more relevant than was the case in 2010. Close continuous contact with the national tourism organisations and industry organisations have proved decisive in creating relevance, ownership and popularity. There has been a change of attitude towards greater recognition that continuing education is an investment that pays dividends in terms of both job satisfaction and the bottom line for the business.
(Sustainable Development Goal: sdg8)
Even if financing is available, the transaction costs per megaw att are much higher for smaller projects because many of the same financing and development steps must be followed regardless of facility size. Furthermore, as the IPCC (2011) discusses, this smaller project scale may lead to disproportionately higher transaction costs and lower gross returns (although the rates of returns may still be well w'ithin attractive market standards). Beside the small size of many companies entering the renew'ables market, banks and investors are reluctant to support projects also because of the lack of institutional track record.8 Therefore, big incumbent companies with proven track record (RWE or E.ON, for instance) will have a clear advantage over new small firms and households entering the market.
(Sustainable Development Goal: sdg7)
The multi-year Ford Foundation funded research project that gave rise to this book grew out of an ever-expanding collection of anecdotes and findings that pointed to the need to address the issue of accountability in international economic development consulting. At issue is the imbalance between the rising numbers, leeway, autonomy, influence, reach, and purview of consultants on the one hand, and the diminishing or inadequate means that donor and recipient governments (especially of less developed and transitional countries) and wider publics have of ensuring the accountability of consultants on the other. We take “accountability” to encompass ethical and responsible practice and the range of incentives and mechanisms that encourage such practice in each part of the consulting process. It should not be reduced simply to a system for punishing bad behavior by means such as sanctions imposed after the fact and often after damage has been done.
(Sustainable Development Goal: sdg16)
It begins by outlining the complex structures of current national urban policy frameworks. A distinctive element of Viet Nam's approach to urban policy is a heavy emphasis on city classification, and this too will be considered. The chapter will then give attention to key urban policy areas: urban transport, housing, land management and the quality of the urban environment. As highlighted in Chapter 1, Viet Nam has made impressive economic and social achievements and powerful imperative towards immediate economic development carries obvious weight as a public policy goal.
(Sustainable Development Goal: sdg11)
A further refinement is proposed by the UK HM Treasury model, which distinguishes between the use of acute and long-term care. The “dynamic equilibrium” is assumed in the solid progress scenario, whereas the “expansion of morbidity” hypothesis is assumed for both acute and long-term care in a pessimistic scenario. Using a microsimulation approach, individuals’ current and future health status can be projected conditional on their background characteristics, such as ethnicity and socio-economic status, as well as their exposure to risk factors, such as obesity and smoking, and their current and past health status and chronic health conditions (see Annex A 1.7 and A 1.23). As an example, the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs in Sweden (see Annex A 1.17) forecasted the potential impact on health and elderly care expenditures under different scenarios of the future health status of the population.
(Sustainable Development Goal: sdg3)
This update focuses on smart cities, discussing in particular challenges for smart city strategies and addressing environmental risks in Emerging Asian cities in light of rising urbanisation, increasing economic activity and climate change. High levels of air pollution have serious health consequences, especially among lower-income households, and can curtail economic growth prospects. Policy makers in the region would need to strengthen the enforcement of existing rules and work towards clearer and targeted policy frameworks with the participation of all levels of government. Co-operation between countries in the region is just as crucial since environmental hazards are often transborder issues.
(Sustainable Development Goal: sdg11)
The judicial review of non-statutory executive powers in relation to questions of jurisdiction, justiciability, grounds of review and remedies. The fundamental role of the court in judicial review proceedings is to identify and enforce limits on executive power, whether derived from statute, prerogative or the common law.
(Sustainable Development Goal: sdg16)
It is also part of the nature of risk that the unexpected can happen. It is thus safe to say that security of supply risks will continue to manifest themselves even in the context of the best-designed policies. This, however, means that governments need to put in place appropriate crisis management mechanisms for different supply risks, whether they pertain to political dissensions between trading partners or technical accidents. Such reserves have a double function.
(Sustainable Development Goal: sdg7)
Human rights approaches also call for the establishment and strengthening of independent national human rights accountability systems. Adolescents and youth, particularly poor, rural and indigenous girls, lack adequate access to the sexual and reproductive health information and services needed to avoid unintended pregnancies, unsafe abortions and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV. Unmet need for contraception remains high, and demand is rising.
(Sustainable Development Goal: sdg5)
The social and economic benefits of urban green spaces are equally important, and should be viewed in the context of global issues such as climate change, as well as other priorities set out in the SDGs, including sustainable cities, public health and nature conservation. Thus, reducing socioeconomic disparities in the availability of urban green spaces can help to reduce inequalities in health related to income, minority status, disability and other socioeconomic and demographic factors.’ Air pollution contributes to rising temperatures and heat wave episodes, leading to increased rates of mortality from heart attacks or stroke as a result of heat stress, particularly in people with pre-existing NCDs." Parks and green spaces provide people with the opportunity to walk and cycle more often and engage in leisure-time physical activity. Therefore, investments in city parks, green spaces, and waterways are an effective and economical way to both promote health and mitigate climate change. Cities should use this information to make decisions that will promote health, mitigate climate change and enhance the quality of life for residents.
(Sustainable Development Goal: sdg11)
A wide range of species are fanned including fish, crustaceans and molluscs, bivalves and aquatic plants (seaweed). In 2011, OECD countries produced about 6.85 million tonnes including aquatic plants of which diadromous fish (e.g. salmon) contributed 36.6% followed by molluscs (27.8%), aquatic plants (19.8%), marine fishes (8.8%), freshwater fishes (4.2%), and crustaceans (2.5%) (Source: Fisheries and Aquaculture Information and Statistics Service, FAO) (Table 3.1). The OECD/FAO Agriculture Outlook 2013 expects world fisheries production to expand to a total of 181 million tonnes by 2022 (which includes 15,6 million tonnes of fish for reduction to meal and oil), of which 85 million tonnes will come from aquaculture. These projections seem to be rather conservative compared to the increases that have taken place over the past two decades.
(Sustainable Development Goal: sdg14)
The more diversified a country is (number of products exported with a RCA>1) and the more exclusive the goods it exports, the more complex the productive structure is and the higher its growth prospects (Hidalgo and Hausmann, 2009). Export diversification, which evaluates the level of changes in the composition of a country’s export mix, is often used as a measure of economic diversification because several empirical studies have shown it to be a key explanatory variable of economic growth in a large panel of economies (Al-Marhubi, 2000, and Berthelemy and Soderling, 2001). The size of the public sector has further increased during the last three years, along with an increase in the amount of wages and subsidies (OECD, 2014).
(Sustainable Development Goal: sdg8)
For example, given the crucial role of MOC in urban green growth, MOC could be added to one of the vice-heads of the ICB. As outlined in the previous section, out of VGGAP’s 42 actions which are relevant to urban areas, only five actions have been allocated to MOC to lead on. Currently, while green growth is assigned to DPI and climate change is assigned to DONRE, no inter-sectoral co-ordination mechanisms are institutionalised.
(Sustainable Development Goal: sdg11)
The expanding kelp forests in Helgeland give hope for the future. Estimated numbers of coastal cod show that populations are close to a critical limit, and their decline significantly linked to poor recruitment (Bakketeig, Gjasaeter, Hauge, Sunnset, & Toft, 2015). The index includes the offshore seafloor (dark blue) and open waters (light blue), along with the coastal specific seafloor (dark green) and waters (light green).
(Sustainable Development Goal: sdg15)
And yet, the pace of transformation has been slow and the business landscape is dominated by microenterprises. Entrepreneurs either struggle to think about the next level of their businesses or face a number of disincentives to its expansion - e.g. structural barriers such as the disincentives created by KRUS (as discussed in the previous section), distance to markets, regulatory barriers. Further, rural entrepreneurs report difficulties in finding employees for both low and higher skills occupations - this is despite high rates of official and hidden forms of unemployment in many rural areas. Many have remarked upon a lack of entrepreneurial attitudes among the rural population as one explanation of the slow pace of economic transformation (see, for example, Biczkowski and Biczkowska [2016]).
(Sustainable Development Goal: sdg9)
At a project level, prevailing wind speed/insolation will determine how much wind/solar electricity is produced by a specific renewable energy system, composition of household waste will influence the maximum levels of landfill gas production, which will affect how much can be captured/flared. Performance between interventions could differ due to existing policy frameworks and enabling environments or national circumstances such as geographic remoteness and limited intervention sizes (e.g. in Small Island Developing States (SIDS)) that can inhibit achieving economies of scale. For instance, certain interventions intended to prove the viability of specific technologies in given circumstances or penetrate new markets might lead to lower short-term climate benefits for the same financial input directed towards established technologies, but could still be effective over longer time horizons beyond the lifetime of the project itself.
(Sustainable Development Goal: sdg13)
In the Netherlands, inpatient services are also free of charge once the annual general deductible has been met. When treated as a private patient in a public or a private hospital, Medicare covers a reduced proportion of costs and the remaining cost is often paid by private health insurance, or otherwise out of pocket. In 2011-2012, public patients accounted for 51% of hospital admissions and patients covered by private health insurance 39%4 (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2013).
(Sustainable Development Goal: sdg3)
The frameworks differ in their geographic focus, the intervention level, and the policy or programmatic orientation (Bours, McGinn and Pringle, 2013). To various degrees, the frameworks embody a theory of what successful adaptation entails and steps that can inform an assessment of whether agreed objectives have been achieved. Dedicated green and climate funds (e.g. the Adaptation Fund [2011], the Global Environmental Facility [2012], and the Climate Investment Funds [2012]) have also formulated monitoring and evaluation frameworks to assess the impact of their portfolio of activities.
(Sustainable Development Goal: sdg13)
The section also explores how responsibilities for assessment are distributed in different countries and how different levels of governance interact to form a coherent assessment system. This includes the scope of assessment, i.e. the areas of learning that are covered by the assessment as well as the key procedural features of student assessment across countries, i.e. the mix of instruments used in specific student assessment systems, the format of assessments, and the use of ICT in assessment. It also reviews ways in which the design of assessments can enhance or threaten fairness and equity in education. It includes issues such as: the capacities students need to engage in and leam from their assessment, the assessment competencies that teachers acquire in initial teacher education, professional development and moderation arrangements, and the expertise of the agencies involved in student assessment. It describes standards of quality and reporting formats used in different contexts, reviews the legal frameworks in place to regulate reporting of results and discusses the ways in which assessment results are used in different contexts to record information, provide feedback to students and make decisions about their further educational trajectory.
(Sustainable Development Goal: sdg4)
These apply to all ODA, and since 2010 also to other official non-concessional development flows (excluding export credits). The organisation AidData has also been compiling data from “emerging” donors and working with non-DAC development agencies to organise and standardise their data. Estimating finance mobilised by individual countries through multilateral public finance channels is challenging because there are data gaps and it is difficult to accurately attribute mobilised finance back to each country involved.20 Collective reporting in this area could therefore be considered (OECD, 2015). However, quantifying the indirect mobilisation effects of policy-related interventions is technically challenging.
(Sustainable Development Goal: sdg13)
Disqualified athletes and their nationalistic supporters tend to be highly critical of the regime of sanctions for violations of the international law of sports, and specifically of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). The author maintains that CAS promotes public policy and favours fair competition, not the opposite, and that those who condemn CAS tend to be unacquainted with the facts and irresponsible in failing to explain how they would propose to remedy the chaos which would ensue if CAS were suddenly to disappear.
(Sustainable Development Goal: sdg16)
In its current form, the CDM does not address risk perception or actual risks of EE projects. The small size and scattered nature of end-use EE projects, and potentially low generated income from CERs, often does not even cover the transaction costs -should the project be accepted. Current methodologies prevent the crediting of capacity building, training or education, all essential elements to the creation of an enabling environment for private-sector financing of the EE end-use sector.
(Sustainable Development Goal: sdg7)
The poverty rate is defined with respect to the Eurostat poverty threshold in 2005. Assume, for example, average housing equity for a 65-year-old in 2004 and 2006 of around EUR 146 000. With a life expectancy of 18.8 years (as calculated by Eurostat) at the age of 65 and an annual interest rate of 6%, the present value of the home would be around EUR 49 250.
(Sustainable Development Goal: sdg1)
For example, the indicated low water stress in many African countries in Figure 3 does not take the lower status of water resources development into account. Most of these countries have less than 6% of their cultivated area equipped with irrigation systems (AQUASTAT, n.d.) Climate change and increasing climate variability are also likely to vary at the local and basin scales and over different seasons. For the most part, however, dry areas will tend to become drier and wet areas wetter (Figure 4), such that climate change will likely exacerbate water stress in areas that are already the most affected.
(Sustainable Development Goal: sdg6)
For reasons of methodological practicality as well as contemporaiy relevance, the most recent reports were therefore chosen for examination. It should be noted that the concluding observations ofthe five treaty committees during the past two years do not necessarily reflect their entire historical approach to the particular issues discussed here but rather their most recent views. However, all general comments and recommendations prepared by each ofthe committees were considered in this study.
(Sustainable Development Goal: sdg5)
This public lecture delivered as one of the Waiheke Lecture Series to the New Zealand Centre for Global Studies in May 1916 deals with global society and the challenges of governance. It deals with the themes of environmental governance, climate change, the nuclear threat and international institutions, particularly the United Nations. In all these areas is suggested that the problems are significant and the solutions are not to hand. Despite the problems, it is not too late to solve them the lecture concludes, despite the fact that time is running out. More robust international law, a new organization to deal with international environmental problems, a stronger UN and an end to the stalemate on nuclear weapons are issues available to be progressed. We need to find ways to ensure the holders of public power are held to account for social injustice and human suffering on a global scale.
(Sustainable Development Goal: sdg16)
The effectiveness of changes will depend not only on the compliance of schools with new policies, but on the way educational institutions respond to incentives (and directives) for improvement (Elmore, 2008). The institutional responses can be influenced by different factors that are often related to the ability and quality of school leadership. These schools exist in a myriad of contexts with a myriad of specific conditions - language groups, income groups, community cohesion and mobility, etc.
(Sustainable Development Goal: sdg4)
Such a forum could organise thematic events, with regular information retrieval and exchange facilitated by a dedicated website. As a first step, universities’ current connections, initiatives and projects involving stakeholder collaboration, community development and/or outreach should be mapped and published in the collaboration platform. The lack of robust and comparable data constrains the visibility and impact of universities’ activities. It also makes it difficult to measure the success or failure of programmes.
(Sustainable Development Goal: sdg4)
An OECD cross-country study of innovation at the firm level showed that collaboration is an important part of the innovation process: in 16 out of 18 countries, firms that collaborated on innovation spent more on innovation than others. This suggests that collaboration is unlikely to be undertaken mainly as a cost-saving measure, but instead to extend the scope of a project or to complement firms’ competences (OECD, 2009a). Moreover, available evidence suggests that international collaboration has increased over time, in terms of scientific collaboration as well as of international knowledge flows (Figure 2.6). This may reflect the higher rate of new product development in large firms as well as easier access to partners and more resources to engage in such relations. In the same way, SMEs which are part of a group tend to collaborate more frequently on innovation than independent ones, although still less than large firms (OECD, 2010a). Data refer to 2004-06 or nearest available years.
(Sustainable Development Goal: sdg9)
Issues that have a direct bearing on the quality of economic growth include deforestation, damage to water and energy sources, and air pollution. In the short-term, governments should engage in stimulatory policies to provide a floor to the impact of constrained global growth prospects. Most countries in the region have both the fiscal and monetary space to undertake such policies without adverse macroeconomic consequences. Policies that “recalibrate” prices of natural capital so that social and environmental costs and economic and social benefits are internalized in the economy are critical for changing growth paths.
(Sustainable Development Goal: sdg10)