bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Frac Pack: Reviving and Maximising Production Potential in Cambay Offshore Field
Authors: Patil Bhushan , Ivanov Maxim , Shado Horatio-Da-C osta
Published: February 2015

As energy demand continues to grow, it is amazing that more than half of world oil production comes from fields as old as 30 years. The Cambay offshore fields off the coast of Gujarat, India started producing gas in 2002 and oil 2005. The production of Oil was possible through geophysical studies that led to incremental recoverable volumes. The oil wells with cased hole perforated completions however have a sanding problem after a few years of production leading to rapid oil production decline in the field as well as associated sand production issues.

This paper presents the result from implementing the simultaneous gravel packing and hydraulic fracturing of a well commonly known as "FracPacks" in the industry on a sanding well in the field and a comparison to 2 other wells with different completion techniques. The paper outlines the challenges faced with data collection, the design methodology, an overview of operations and execution. The outcome of the FracPack treatment was a textbook tip screen out placement leading to a 76% increase in oil production with zero water cut and sand. The results demonstrate the benefits of contacting the reservoir beyond the critical matrix even in a 2.4 Darcy formation and highlights that FracPacks can be less sensitive to the procedures used for wellbore preparations..

The lessons learned from the Cambay experience add to the growing number of case histories which show that FracPacks are effective techniques for sand management in high permeability formations. FrackPack performance is compared to other techniques such as standalone screens and gravel packs, both in terms of production as well as production longevity. This study will highlight the importance of selecting the completion technique based on the reservoir challenges and the importance of considering constraints such as nearby water, logistics and other operational concerns.
Stuck Pipe Nonproductive Time Reduction by Application of Intelligent Technologies to Replace Conventional Drillstring Separation Methods
Authors: Hunter Gordon , Ollerenshaw Andrew
Published: February 2015

The Sticking of a Drilling BHA and subsequent loss of tools, hole footage and hence potentially jeopardizing well objectives; is THE most costly unplanned drilling event that can occur to an Operator. It tops the table of costly NPT events ahead of items such as Well Control incidents, " waiting on weather", lost circulation, equipment failures and rig associated problems. The cost to the industry is estimated at several billions $USD per year. This is probably conservative and in the Gulf of Mexico alone in 2007, it was predicted to be 3% of the total spend on upstream oilfield equipment and services or $7.8 Billion (Dodson et al)1. This can significantly affect drilling budgets where technical and operational risk must be balanced with potential return on Investment (ROI). The technological advance into extreme hostile territory, deepwater and HPHT, makes the investment and risk higher to the extent that some wells are left undeveloped. Deepwater wells are often incurring spread dayrates for services including the rig of $1M USD per day.

Stuck pipe is a reality and the success of a recovery plan depends on a number of issues of which the most important is the efficient separation of the drillstring at the most beneficial point. Current separation technology is the same as it has been since the start of this industry albeit more advanced in its efficiency. Explosives or chemical cutting are still the only methods to separate the drillstring usually requiring mobilization of specialist equipment and personnel.

This paper discusses the application and development of an integral circulation and disconnect tool. Additional to receiving downlinks to adjust a multi position circulating valve, it processes sensory information to establish the status, " stuck" or " free" and ultimately receives a command to disconnect from the BHA or wherever it is positioned in the string. The disconnect is effected by electro / mechanical means and represents a step change in application of technology for this purpose; removing any form of surface intervention or the requirement for 3rd party specialist equipment or personnel, leaving the Operator in control of the event.
Assessment of Coatings in High pCO2 Environment for Pipeline Internal Coating Application
Authors: Zakaria Muzdalifah , Sauri Ahmad Shalabi , Abas Ahmad Zaki , Mat Saadan , Suhor M Firdaus , M Nor Azmi , Kamarudin Rozilah
Published: February 2015

Offshore pipeline transportation of non-treated, high CO2-containing gas stream imposes significant challenges due to the anticipated high corrosion rate that could disqualify the economic use of the carbon steel material. Alternative solutions are required in order to find the most cost effective system in transporting CO2 over long distances particularly for offshore application. Several solutions exist which include application of corrosion resistance alloy (CRA), cladded or CRA- or non-metallic-lined pipes and internal coatings.

This paper is focused on the assessment of the physical properties of internal coating for pipeline transporting high CO2 gas in the dense phase under the steady state operational condition. The performance of commercially available epoxy-based coatings exposed to high pCO2 has been studied as per NACE TM0185. Three coatings from different manufacturers were tested in an autoclave at temperature of 25°C and 80°C and partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2) 80 bar and 150 bar respectively for 28 days. The coatings were evaluated for the presence of blistering, adhesion to metal and between coats, hardness and resistance to undercutting and creep. The results have shown that all the 3 coating systems did not show significant physical degradation under the test conditions. However, one of the coatings showed a reduction in the pull off adhesion at high temperature which indicates some degradation of the coating under the imposed test conditions.

The results from the lab testing have shown that commercially available coatings are able to perform well in dense CO2 phase within the defined test parameters. However, in order to reliably predict the service life of the coatings material, their performance when subjected to the variation in operation, e.g., decompression, as well the analytical methods that can give representative performance measures between laboratory test and service life, are critical and the subject of this review.
Advanced Ultrasonic Inspection of HDPE Welds
Authors: Pettigrew I.G.
Published: February 2015

High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) pipes have been a substitute for carbon steel pipes for a number of years in the oil, water and gas industry due to their attractive properties of aging resistance, corrosion immunity and lower cost.

Electro-Fusion (EF) and Butt-Fusion (BF) welding processes are most commonly used to join sections during manufacturing and installation of HDPE pipelines. The nature of defects in HDPE welds can be caused by a variety of factors and manifest themselves in different ways. The recognised defect mechanisms in BF welds include embedded planar flaws due to poor welding processes, discrete planar flaws caused by imperfections on the fusion face, cold fusion welds caused by incorrect welding procedures, inclusion of particulates and weld mismatch. In comparison, common problems with EF welds during manufacturing include voids, lack of fusion and incorrect heating cycle resulting in a weak joint due to the incorrect crystallographic structure of the joint.

The quality of the joint significantly influences the overall operational safety of the system. Systems that are currently in place to provide quality assurance of HDPE welds includes the approval of welding procedures and personnel, monitoring of welding conditions and visual inspection. The requirement to evaluate the integrity of the weld using Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE) by visual inspection does not cater for detection of embedded defects. Other methods used to test the integrity of an HDPE weld is through destructive testing; either sectioning a sample and examining the quality or subjecting the weld to a tensile test.

The importance of having an NDE method to qualify the integrity of HDPE welds cannot be understated for the oil and gas industry. A large scale pipeline NDE validation program was undertaken to evaluate the use of Ultrasonic Time-of-Flight Diffraction (TOFD) complimented by Phased Array Ultrasonic Testing (PAUT) for volumetric inspection of BF welds. In addition, PAUT was used for the volumetric inspection of EF welds during the same program.

This paper aims to supplement the understanding of pipeline construction through identification of improvements to pipeline fusion processes and offers the NDE capability to monitor in-situ and on-line pipelines.
Increasing the Efficiency of Seismic Data Acquisition via Compressive Sensing
Authors: Mosher Charles , Li Chengbo , Morley Larry , Ji Yonchang , Janiszewski Frank , Olson Robert , Brewer Joel
Published: February 2015

Optimal selection of locations for sensors in a seismic survey has been a long-standing issue for geophysicists. If we could sample the earth at two points per wavelength or better in all dimensions according to Nyquist sampling theory, design would not be an issue. The reality of limited access and funding requires us to make do with orders of magnitude fewer sampling points than Nyquist theory would dictate. The field of Compressive Sensing (CS) provides a new theory for non-uniform sampling that allows for using significantly fewer sensors than current practice in seismic exploration. We describe the application of CS concepts to seismic survey design.

We refer to our method as Non-Uniform Optimal Sampling, or NUOS. This method differs from earlier work on the application of CS to seismic acquisition in that an optimization loop is used to determine the locations of sources and receivers for a non-uniform design, rather than relying solely on decimation, jittering, or randomization. Optimization can also be applied to the problem of simultaneous shooting. As an extension of the NUOS methodology, we design shooting patterns for simultaneous source surveys by creating non-uniform patterns for each source that have minimal cross-coherence with each other.

We have used a combination of computer modeling and targeted field trials to develop and validate CS designs for seismic acquisition. Full 3D finite difference modeling is used to provide data for computer analysis of CS designs in conjunction with conventional survey design systems. Field trials show that we are able to obtain significant improvements in bandwidth and data quaility with NUOS designs for source and receiver locations. NUOS designs for simultaneous shooting further reduce acquisition shooting time by factors of 2 or more, depending on the number of simultaneous sources employed. We illustrate the application of CS designs to ocean bottom recording using examples from offshore Malaysia and the North Sea.

Application of Compressive Sensing theory to seismic data acquisition will result in significant improvements in data quality and acquisition efficiency, leading to more effective use of seismic data for exploration and production.
Establishing New Directional Casing While Drilling Benchmarks Reduces Top Hole Well Construction Costs, Offshore Malaysia
Authors: Pickup Duncan Ian , Harris Andrew , Ain Mohd Nasir Mohd Firdaus Nazural
Published: February 2015

While planning an Angsi field development well offshore Malaysia, directional casing while drilling (DCwD) was identified as an enabling technology for reducing operation time and well construction costs. On offset wells, DCwD had improved top hole drilling performance by providing superior hole cleaning combined with higher annular velocities thereby increasing ROP.

Well Angsi-D12 would be drilled from 26" conductor with 13–3/8" casing with the following BHA: 12¼" mill tooth bit, 17½" single row under-reamer, PDM, ABH and GWD/MWD. The use of DCwD would also solve any hole cleaning issues due to the small annulus created by the 13–3/8" × 17½" BHA and allow faster penetration rates to be used. The well was planned to be built-up to 70° inclination whilst drilling from 186m MD to TD at 1680m MD.

Project objectives were to:enhance the safety and efficiency of top hole drilling by eliminating the casing running operation;apply gyro-MWD to survey during the magnetic interference area (186m MD to 418m MD) then switch to standard MWD to survey thereafter;casing drill from the 26" conductor shoe to TD in one run.

The 13–3/8" DCwD operation was successfully completed from 26" conductor to TD on well D12 without rig modification using a standard casing drive system. The DCwD application produced a high average on-bottom penetration rate of 87.3m/hr with instantaneous ROP reaching 450m/hr. The system produced good control of DLS whilst sliding and easily transferred weight to the bit at 70° inclination at 1500m to TD at 1525m. Close cooperation between the operator and service provider led to two new 13–3/8" DCwD records, one for the longest section drilled and another for highest inclination. The new benchmarks will enable the operator to deploy cost cutting DCwD technology in more challenging projects in eastern Malaysia. The authors will discuss application challenges, well planning/implementation in addition to economic and operational results.
Offshore Geothermal Energy Utilisation: An Idea Whose Time Has Come?
Authors: Toralde Julmar Shaun Sadicon
Published: February 2015

Geothermal energy is energy that is sourced from the heat of the Earth. It is classified as a renewable energy resource and is exploited and utilized for power generation purposes onshore, mostly by countries who live in close proximity to the boundaries of Earth's tectonic plates where geothermal energy is abundant, predominantly in its most active parts, in what is termed as the Pacific Ring of Fire. This geothermal energy-rich area not only covers those that are on land, but also extends offshore. However, the exploitation and utilization of geothermal energy in the offshore setting has historically been deemed uneconomic and not feasible. But with the advent of new offshore drilling and power generation technologies and the increasing cost of conventional energy sources, the idea deserves reconsideration. This paper presents a review of the literature available on the subject of offshore geothermal energy utilization and lists down challenges it has yet to hurdle in order to be realized. It considers the possible utilization of geothermal energy for existing and planned subsea petroleum development projects as well other applications where it might be of benefit, maybe not in the conventional large-scale power conversion sense it is used for on land but as a modular, scalable, sustainable and renewable energy resource offshore.
Structural reform, revenue adequacy and optimal tax assignment in local government
Authors: Robotti Lorenzo , Dollery Brian
Published: February 2015

A striking feature of local government reform in many Commonwealth countries has been a heavy reliance on structural reform, often in the form of forced local council amalgamation. This paper argues that the long-run success of structural change in local government hinges on several key factors, not least that voluntary rather than compulsory council mergers have a far greater chance of success. A second key ingredient resides in a high degree of local autonomy in both the composition and operation of decentralized governmental functions. A third vital factor lies in ensuring that revenue and tax assignment is sufficient to provide local government with financial autonomy. Finally, adequate powers of taxation need to be accorded to local government and this requires careful consideration of the types of taxes most suited to local government.
Rethinking the rotation term of reserved seats for women in Panchayati Raj
Authors: Tiwari Nupur
Published: February 2015

The belief that increased numbers of women holding decision-making positions is a sign of empowerment is reflected in the United Nations Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM), which tracks the percentages of women in national parliaments, in other legislatures, and as senior officials and managers among professional and technical workers. There is a growing demand for an increasing presence of women in political decision-making. It is argued that women need to be ‘empowered’ in the realm of political decision-making so as to facilitate their ‘real’ empowerment.
BOOK REVIEW: The limits of boundaries. Why city-regions cannot be self-governing.
Authors: Dawkins Jeremy
Published: February 2015

If it really matters how a metropolitan region is governed, should it not be obvious on the ground? To take just three NewWorld examples of metropolitan-scale city councils, Calgary, Houston and Brisbane should have a different ‘look and feel’ to that of their fragmented equivalents, not to mention greater efficiency and equity stemming from their ability to manage growth across all or most of the urban region.
BOOK REVIEW: The Theory and Practice of Local Government Reform
Authors: Martin Steve
Published: February 2015

Structural reform has been one of the most important and hotly contested features of modern local government. From North America to Europe to Australasia, local government boundaries have been redrawn over the last two decades. In many countries it seems that structural change has been the ‘default’ option to which successive generations of policy makers are irresistibly drawn time and time again. And yet the reasons for the extraordinary popularity of this particular policy instrument and, more importantly, its impacts are under-researched. There is a dearth of rigorous empirical analysis of the costs and benefits and the relative effectiveness of different kinds of structural change and different approaches to implementing them. The Theory and Practice of Local Government Reform, edited by Brian E. Dollery and Lorenzo Robotti, is then a very welcome attempt to address these issues in comprehensive and comparative fashion, which draws upon expert knowledge of recent developments from across an impressive range of different countries and contexts.
Managing Central-Local Government Relationships: The Case of New Zealand
Authors: Reid Michael
Published: February 2015

The manner in which central and local governments engage has taken on extra salience in recent years as governments seek to address wicked issues and begin to appreciate the role of place as a key contributor of economic growth. Different approaches exist, ranging from formal and constitutional to informal and political, but none represents a magic bullet with outcomes always subject to local circumstances. In this context the example of New Zealand highlights a particular challenge; how to maintain effective of inter-governmental relationships in the absence of either constitutional recognition of local government or a formal agreement between the two sectors.
Upazila Parishad in Bangladesh: Roles and Functions of Elected Representatives and Bureaucrats
Authors: Rahman Muhammad Sayadur
Published: February 2015

This study explores whether democratic Upazila Parishads in Bangladesh have become more responsive to those who elected them and whether people's expectations about their elected representatives and their functions to their elected have changed. The study carried out in eight Upazilas from seven Divisions in Bangladesh. The study has found that Upazila Parishads in Bangladesh with democratically elected representatives have largely failed to enhance their rapport with people. The recently implemented mandatory advisory role for the members of the parliament (MPs) has complicated the role of the local government and the interference by MPs in local government affairs has weakened the independence of local government. The findings of this study reveal that awareness is low, and that only 30% of respondents were concerned about the roles and functions of the Upazila Parishad. The data reveals that though the local citizens think that they are knowledgeable about the roles and functions of elected representatives and bureaucrats in reality many remain unaware of the roles and functions.
Editorial
Authors: Ryan Roberta , Tan Su Fei
Published: February 2015

The Commonwealth Journal of Local Governance is now co-edited and has a new look. Under the continued editorship of Prof. Alison Brown, the Centre for Local Government at the University of Technology, Sydney is pleased to partner with Cardiff University and the Commonwealth Local Government Forum (CLGF) to produce the journal. This new partnership will ensure the continued development of the journal as an important platform for local government researchers and practitioners to share knowledge and experience.
New Century Local Government: Commonwealth Perspectives
Authors: Wall Gareth
Published: February 2015

This ambitious and highly informative volume is premised on both the seismic shift in the perceived developmental role of local government across the globe, and the challenges that local governments will face as their key role in achieving the post-2015 sustainable development goals is increasingly being recognised within the global policy fora. New Century Local Government brings together an impressively wide geographic spread of country case studies from across the four regions of the Commonwealth, and pulls together work by leading scholars of local government who are all members of the Commonwealth Local Government Research Advisory Group (CLGF-RAG). It provides a plethora of detailed country case studies arranged around three themes: decentralisation in the Caribbean, Pakistan and England, local government finance and local economic development in India, South Africa and Tanzania, and new approaches to governance in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Not only do the papers provide detailed accounts of the changes in policy and practice within their focus country cases – but many of them, notably the papers by Brown, Reid, McKinlay and Sansom include a comparative perspective with developments from Commonwealth countries in other regions, which is one of the key strengths of the volume. It is also the raison d’être of comparative work across the countries of the Commonwealth, given the shared legal and administrative histories and the dominance of English as the academic and often administrative lingua franca. It would have been great to see more of the cross-regional and cross-country lessons being drawn out from across the contributions in a final concluding chapter, but the editors leave this to the reader – possibly to ensure they read the volume in full.
Decentralisation and Development: Can Uganda now pass the test of being a role model?
Authors: Ssonko David
Published: February 2015

Uganda’s Government of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) assumed power in 1986, in an environment of political turmoil, and initiated a policy of decentralisation as a way of restoring state credibility and deepening democracy. Decentralisation was accordingly legislated under the Local Government Act of 1997, as a framework act directing the decentralisation process. The aim of the Act was to enable implementation of decentralisation provisions provided for under Chapter 11 of the 1995 National Constitution. The decentralisation policy in Uganda aimed at improving local democracy, effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability in the delivery of essential services country-wide. Improved service delivery was in turn expected to make significant positive impact on people’s quality of life. Unfortunately, the implementation of decentralisation appears to have concentrated more on administrative objectives as a means of promoting popular democracy and less on service delivery which would have led to economic transformation and better lives for the majority of Ugandans, and now new districts are being created without corresponding improvements in service delivery. Surprisingly, this is happening in the midst of external praise that decentralisation reform in Uganda is one of the most far-reaching local government reform programmes in the developing world. The paper explores the role of decentralisation in development and how it can be undermined by political factors. It highlights the development of decentralisation in Uganda, discusses its achievements, failure and challenges, and concludes that the decentralisation programme which was ambitious and politically driven has had mixed results in terms of enhancing service delivery and should be seriously reviewed and strengthened if it is to remain as a role model in Africa.
Elite perceptions of change in English local government: comparisons between Conservative and New Labour governments
Authors: Asquith Andy
Published: February 2015

In 1997 Local Government Studies published an article (Asquith, 1997) which assessed the perceptions of managerial and political elites in eight English local authorities towards change management against the background of Conservative Governments' reform agendas. The article argued that the authorities could be placed on a continuum depending on their state of organisational evolution, with some authorities being better equipped to manage change than others. During 2005 the authorities were revisited to ascertain how they had adapted to deal with the reforming Blair Governments since 1997. What this article shows is that characteristics evidenced in the original work in the authority deemed to have evolved the most, were present in those authorities revisited.
Service delivery: Focus on Dipaleseng local municipality: Mpumalanga
Authors: Zama S'bonisile
Published: February 2015

The supply or lack of services impacts on people's quality of life, and so the Constitution of South Africa and other strategy documents emphasise the provision of services to all South African citizens irrespective of colour or creed. The services are vast and the responsibility for provision is divided between national, provincial and local authorities. This paper focuses on the delivery of services whose responsibility and accountability lies with the local municipalities, including: water; electricity; sanitation and refuse removal. The paper also explores the background to the recent unrest in the country with a focus on Dipaleseng Municipality, looking at its socio-economic situation, and challenges which include poverty, economic stability and provision of basic services. Sources of data include the South African media, journal articles, relevant documents, websites and databases.
Local Governance and Local Democracy in Uganda
Authors: Kiyaga-Nsubuga John , Olum Yasin
Published: February 2015

Uganda embarked in 1993 on radical decentralization, among other reasons, to enhance local governance and local democracy. The major focus of the decentralization policy was on empowering citizens to participate in decisions that affect their localities. This issue will be examined based on two major themes of the twelve principles of the Commonwealth’s ‘Aberdeen Agenda’ for local democracy – the enabling environment and participation. However, the paper argues that Uganda’s devolutionary decentralization can only foster local governance and local democracy if it is properly conceptualised, the facilitating conditions are given careful attention, and the institutional framework is sufficiently elaborate and effective to enable it to achieve its intended objectives. Short of these measures, the gap between intent and reality might be so great as to disable the decentralization policy from achieving real local governance and local democracy.
Complete Issue: No.2, January 2009 (1.2MB)
Authors: Board Editorial
Published: February 2015

Complete Issue of No. 2, January 2009 (1.2MB).
Governing the Outer Islands: Decentralisation in Kiribati and Tuvalu
Authors: Richardson Phil
Published: February 2015

For over a decade the governments of Kiribati and Tuvalu have adopted decentralisation policies to strengthen the role of local-level authorities in development. This can be seen as a response to both domestic policy drivers and global trends. However, while Kiribati and Tuvalu share a common past and many of the same development issues, the decentralisation process has taken distinct paths in the two countries. This paper takes stock of the Kiribati and Tuvalu experience, drawing on research, country-specific project evaluations and practitioner perspectives. It focuses on local governance at the outer island level and examines three dimensions of the decentralisation process: policy drivers; central-local relations; and integration of traditional and modern institutions of governance.
REVIEW NOTE: Local Government Reform and Local Government Finance
Authors: Dollery Brian
Published: February 2015

The multi-faceted problem of local government finance has attracted increasing attention in the new millennium. The reasons for the renewed interest in this thorny question are comparatively straightforward. In the first place, for the past two decades all public sector institutions have been profoundly affected by the twin revolutions simultaneously sweeping the world – the globalization of the international economy and the information revolution wrought by the computer age – and local government is no exception. Not only have these inexorable forces had dramatic implications for the structure of government as a whole, and relationships between the different tiers of government, but also for service provision and public finance, including local public finance. Secondly, substantially heightened demands on local government, together with limited access to adequate funding, have seen the genesis of a deepening crisis in the financial sustainability of local government entities.
Participatory action research, strengthening institutional capacity and governance: Confronting the urban challenge in Kampala
Authors: Lwasa Shuaib , Kadilo Gilbert
Published: February 2015

Urban governance presents the most daunting and challenging task for sub-Saharan African countries in this century (Rakodi, 1997: 3; Rakodi, 2001; 5; McGill, 1988; 6). Africa is urbanizing faster than any other region. The level of urbanization stands at 39.1%, with annual rates of growth ranging between 8% and 13%. It is estimated that by 2025 half of the African population will be urban. This demographic shift, particularly in the sub-Saharan region, presents major problems for urban management. Although urban management programs of infrastructure development, financial management, economic development, environmental planning, spatial development mechanisms and social services provision continue to be enhanced, there is a mismatch between the program outcomes and need. Due to this shortfall, alternative strategies have been sought but with little documented evidence of successes, failures and lessons because of limited evaluation. The importance of research-informed policy is underscored by the apparent disconnect between actors in the urban field. These actors include city managers, researchers, political leaders and most important, communities. The latter are often disregarded yet they largely influence the development path and shape the fabric of urban space. Even where communities are engaged, they exert less influence than other actors on urban policies and programs. This paper examines how participatory action research is changing the relationships between researchers, communities and city authorities in a search for alternative approaches to address urban poverty and environmental challenges in Kampala – in particular service delivery, solid waste management and flood control. Based on an action-research and development project conducted in Kampala since 2006, there is evidence that communities can be galvanized not only to design solutions to their problems, but also to engage with city authorities through information sharing platforms about their needs and thus bolster outcomes of urban development programs through improved governance.
New directions in New Zealand local government
Authors: McKinlay Peter
Published: February 2015

The purpose of this paper is to provide a ‘work in progress’ report on some initiatives emerging from local government practice in New Zealand which should help us consider how we think about the role of local government in a world which is undergoing dramatic change. The starting point is work which the writer undertook with the support of Local Government New Zealand (the national association) and a number of New Zealand councils considering the ‘proper role’ of local government. The context is an ongoing public debate driven substantially by the New Zealand business community from a perspective that this ‘proper role’ should be restricted to the delivery of local public goods, narrowly defined. This has included argument that local governments themselves should be structured substantially to promote the efficient delivery of services generally within the now well understood prescriptions of the ‘new public management’. One implication which the business sector in particular drew in looking at the workings of local government was that there should be economies of scale through further amalgamation of councils (the local government sector having been through a major amalgamation process in 1989 which eliminated a large number of special purpose authorities and reduced the number of territorial local authorities from more than 200 to 73). Debate continues, with the latest manifestation being the National Party led government's proposals for the restructuring of local government within the Auckland region, New Zealand's major metropolitan area. The initiatives discussed in this paper are partly a response, but more significantly a result of selected local authorities reflecting on the nature of their role, and the opportunities for being proactive in using their statutory privileges in ways that could produce benefits for their communities without any associated increase in the cost of local government itself.
Improving institutional and service delivery capacity in conflict affected areas: The experience of Honiara City Council, Solomon Islands
Authors: Parker Terry
Published: February 2015

Solomon Islands is a chain of 922 islands in the South Pacific, spread over 1,450kms from Bougainville (Papua New Guinea) in the north to Vanuatu in the south, and covering an area of 27,450 kms. The country is home to some 520,000 people, with 74 different languages and dialects. It is divided into nine provinces, each centred on a main island. Effectively, there are nine different peoples with strong allegiance to family, village and province, but little common national identity upon which to effectively build a state.Honiara, located on the island of Guadalcanal and surrounded by the province of the same name, is the national capital, seat of government, centre of administration and commerce, and the nation’s window to the world. The city has a population of 79,000, including an estimated 20,000 or so inhabiting informal settlements in the urban and peri-urban areas. Honiara has one of the highest urban growth rates in the Pacific region, estimated at 4% per year . Made up of indigenous peoples from all provinces (Malaitans being particularly numerous), expatriates and a large Chinese community, the city is a melting pot of the diverse ethnic groups that are the Solomon Islands. In practical terms, however, Honiara is a somewhat artificial social construct. There is no genuine local identity or ownership of the place; although people may reside in Honiara, and may have for all their lives, their roots remain in their home village or province.
Education activities for environment and sustainability: A Snapshot of eight New South Wales councils
Authors: Herriman Jade , Partridge Emma
Published: February 2015

This paper describes in brief the findings of a research project undertaken by the Institute for Sustainable Futures (ISF) at the University of Technology, Sydney, Australia. The research was commissioned by and undertaken on behalf of the New South Wales (NSW) Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water (DECCW). The aim of the project was to investigate current practices of environmental and sustainability education and engagement within local government in NSW. The research was commissioned by DECCW as the preliminary phase of a larger project that the department is planning to undertake, commencing in 2010.
Building capacity for local government to perform
Authors: McGill Ron
Published: February 2015

This paper looks at the practitioner’s challenge of building capacity for local government to perform. It does so by ways of responding to some of the policy recommendations put forward at the Commonwealth Local Government Conference (CLGC) held in the Bahamas in May 2009.It is suggested that capacity building in local government, particularly in the least developed countries (LDCs), is riddled with rhetoric. There is no common reference point for the concept. The following text is therefore drawn from practice: that of a local government practitioner – the author – with experience in diverse countries (Scotland, England, Malawi and Tanzania), and of an organization wedded to the fundamental importance of local government to local development, and with sound understanding of capacity building interventions – the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF).
Complete Issue (1.7MB)
Authors: Grafton Daniel
Published: February 2015

Complete issue No. 6 July 2010 (1.7MB).
Local governance for local governments: A framework for addressing climate change
Authors: Nursey-Bray Melissa
Published: February 2015

Climate science has established that climate change and associated global warming will impact the world. Already the global temperature has risen by between 0.2 and 0.6 degrees centigrade since the late 19th century, and in Australia, average temperatures have increased by 0.8 degrees centigrade (Pillora 2010). Furthermore, the last IPCC report concluded for the first time not only that climate change was real but reported a 90% certainty that it was also human induced (IPCC 2007). Moreover, Australia is predicted by 2030 to experience the following: (i) a further 1ºC of warming; (ii) up to 20% more months of drought; (iii) up to 25% increase in days of very high or extreme fire danger; (iv) increases in storm surges and severe weather events; and (v) a rise in mean sea level, with the anticipated range of sea level rise to be between 18 to 76 cm by 2100 (Pillora 2010: 4; IPCC 2007).
Local Governments in Rural West Bengal, India and their Coordination with Line Departments
Authors: Chakrabarti Bhaskar , Chattopadhyay Raghabendra , Nath Suman
Published: February 2015

In India, the 73rd constitutional amendment of 1992 decentralises agriculture, irrigation, health, education along with 23 other items to the Panchayats, the village level self-government body. It is envisaged that the three-tier Panchayat system at the District, Block and the Village level would coordinate with different ‘line departments’ of the government for planning various schemes and their implementation. In West Bengal, a state in eastern India, where the Panchayats were revitalised before the constitutional amendment, the initial years were marked by strong coordination between the Panchayats and other departments, especially land and agriculture, making West Bengal a ‘model’ case for the Panchayats. However, where service delivery through the Panchayats has been criticised in recent years, the disjuncture between Panchayats and the line departments is a cause for alarm. In this paper, we search for the causes behind the low level of coordination between government departments and the Panchayat at each tier. We analyse the complex process of organisational coordination that characterises decentralisation, and show how decision making in local governments is nested within various levels of hierarchy. The study focuses on the formal structures of coordination and control with regard to decision-making between the Panchayats and the line departments. We show how these processes work out in practice. These involve lack of role definition, problems of accountability, and politics over access to resources and relations of power within, as well as outside, the Panchayat.
Local Government Improvement in England: Policies, Progress and Prospects
Authors: Martin Steve
Published: February 2015

Whilst many countries have been devolving power to the sub-national level England has moved in the opposite direction. For the last decade English local government has been subjected to tight top down performance monitoring and financial controls. The evidence suggests that these policies have helped to encourage significant improvements in performance. However critics argue that they have been costly to implement and have undermined local democratic accountability. In response to these concerns the current government has promised to sweep away external assessment in favour of self-regulation by councils and in-depth scrutiny by citizens. This ‘new localism’ poses important questions for both policy makers and researchers. In particular how far will the promised reforms actually go and what impacts will they have on the service standards?
Editorial
Authors: Brown Alison
Published: February 2015

This issue is published on the eve of the CLGF Research Colloquium, hosted by Ugandan Institute of Management on 13/14 May 2013 in Kampala, to launch the 2013 Commonwealth Local Government Conference. The theme − Developmental Local Government: Putting local government at the heart of development − ushers in some exciting new papers, covering issues of urban finance and development, strengthening local democracy, local economic development, and the crucial Post- 2015 agenda, which will be published in the next edition of CJLG. Our thanks to Rose Namara and Sylvester Kugonoza, coordinators at UIM, Philip Amis of the University of Birmingham, who chairs the CLGF research group, and Gareth Wall who organised the Colloquium.
Political Actor or Policy Instrument? Governance Challenges in Australian Local Government
Authors: Brackertz Nicola
Published: February 2015

This article examines the governance challenges facing Australian local government, which include lack of constitutional standing, intergovernmental dependencies, financial constraints and weak democratic standing. The historical context has shaped the nature and place of local government in the Australian federal polity and has contributed to the tensions created by an expansion of the roles and responsibilities of local government, especially in the provision of services, which is not matched by concomitant increases in financial capacity and local autonomy. These governance challenges are discussed with a view to establishing local government’s capacity for autonomous self-governance in the face of intergovernmental and fiscal dependencies, and the implications of this for local government reform trajectories.
Institutional Barriers to Developing Community Indicators in New Zealand: A Preliminary Assessment
Authors: Memon Ali , Johnston Karen
Published: February 2015

There has been enormous activity in many countries and by international agencies during the last few decades to develop indicators to measure trends in different attributes of the environment, including indicators for community wellbeing and for sustainable development. Identifying appropriate indicators of economic, social, environmental, cultural and democratic progress across local government boundaries, as a basis for a strategy to enhance community governance, and as part of a national system of sustainability indicators, is a challenging task. An important dimension that is implicit rather than explicit in the current literature is the significance of institutional barriers to developing indicators. Informed by recent New Zealand experiences, our objective in this paper is to examine those institutional barriers within the context of achieving the wider objectives of the New Zealand Local Government Act 2002 to strengthen participatory democracy and community governance, and the ‘whole-of-government’ sustainable development paradigm that underpins it. We argue that the significance of undertaking the task of indicator development in a collaborative and participatory as well as technically satisfactory manner should not be under-estimated.
Challenging times for local government in Labor’s new federation
Authors: Sansom Graham
Published: February 2015

"Vice-chancellors have a responsibility to get down and say that we're prepared to reform the sector in the following sensible and constructive ways … rather than going back in a traditional way and saying, 'Give us more money and leave us alone'. We will get nothing simply by asking for more money.”The Australian Labor Party went to the 2007 election promising a new era of cooperative federalism that would end the ‘blame game’ between federal and state governments and re-energise reform and productivity agendas. On the evidence of the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting on 26 March 2008, these agendas are advancing rapidly. The communiqué foreshadowed a raft of new commonwealth-state agreements, streamlined arrangements for special purpose grants and, perhaps most significantly, performance criteria for payment of at least some of those grants.2
Enhancement of Radiosensitivity in Human Esophageal Carcinoma Cells by Fenofibrate and Its Potential Mechanism
Authors: Li Xiao-Qing , Zhou Jun-Dong , Zou Shi-Tao , Yu Jian , Meng Xin-Jun , Wu Jin-Chang
Published: February 2015

Aims and Background

Fenofibrate is a specific agonist of PPARα, and is characterized by relatively low systemic toxicity. Recent studies have revealed that fenofibrate suppresses the growth of several cancer lines in vitro, but the exact relation between fenofibrate and irradiation has not been explored. The purpose of this study was to investigate the radiosensitivity enhancement effects of fenofibrate combined with radiation on the human esophageal carcinoma cell lines Eca-109 and TE1, and the potential mechanism underlying these effects.

Methods and Study design

The Eca-109 and TE1 cell lines were tested by the CCK-8 assay for cell proliferation. The multitarget click model was used to delineate the survival curve and radiosensitivity was determined after cells were treated with fenofibrate and/or x-ray radiation. Flow cytometry was used to examine the effect of fenofibrate and radiation on the cell cycle. The expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) protein was detected by Western blot analysis.

Results

When given alone, fenofibrate had a time- and concentration-dependent cytotoxic effect on cells. The dose-enhancement ratio for combined fenofibrate and radiation increased markedly compared with fenofibrate alone. Further, the ratio of cells in the G2/M phase after fenofibrate and radiation was higher than that after fenofibrate or irradiation alone. The expression of VEGF protein was suppressed after treatment with fenofibrate alone or fenofibrate plus radiation.

Conclusions

Fenofibrate can enhance the radiosensitivity of human esophageal carcinoma cells by increasing G2/M phase arrest. Modulation of VEGF expression could contribute in vivo to a favorable interaction.