Examining stakeholder participation and conflicts associated with large scale infrastructure projects: the case of Tema port expansion project,Ghana

ABSTRACT

Balancing economic activities with socio-environmental considerations has become a global standard for the construction of large scale infrastructure projects, including ports. In this discourse, stakeholder participation and environmental and social impact assessment (ESIA) have been stressed as important tools that can help port managers to co-create values, avoid conflicts and promote inclusive growth. Drawing on qualitative research tools and stakeholder theory, this paper explores whether and to what extent local stakeholders’ inclusion has substantial influence on addressing their socio-cultural concerns and interest. This is illustrated with a case study of an ongoing port expansion project at Ghana’s largest port of Tema. The findings suggest that although the port authority conducted an ESIA and engaged local stakeholders as part of the planning process, this did not translate into preventing the loss of valuable cultural resources of the local communities. The port authority did not place ‘value’ on cultural resources of the local communities that cannot be expressed in monetary terms. Further, lack of good faith engagement with local stakeholders led to conflicts in some cases that triggered a court action and delays. The paper concludes that stakeholder participation if not applied well, can become a ‘post-political’ tool.     

普通高校实施生命教育的可行性分析

学生生命教育课程的缺失造成部分大学生存在心理问题。本文通过对国内外生命教育的认知分析,探索了高校实施生命教育的途径,认为：高校利用自身的优质资源,运用教育学、心理学、体育心理学等相关的学科理论知识和手段,从人文生命的高度实施生命教育,开设生命教育课是必要可行的。     

对新形势下我国高校办高水平运动队的思考

目前,国家教育部已经全面承担世界大学生运动会的比赛任务,在这种新形势下,加强对高校办高水平运动队的研究显得更为重要．本文对高校办高水平运动队的的优势和存在的问题及建议提出了一些新的见解．     

学校体育场馆(地)社会化服务的体制性障碍研究

对第五次全圆体育场地普查有关资料的研究显示,学校体育场地对外开放比例偏低,不开放率迭70．80％．研究认为、国家及地方政府应继续完善相关法规,促使和监督学校体育场地设施有序开放和规范经营,学校也应增强服务意识,加大法规贯彻力度,采用合理的经营管理方式,提高体育场馆设施管理水平和使用效率,并积极宣传和引导大众体育消费．分析了学校体育场馆的资产性质、主要功能、公益性和经营性关系,提出解决学校体育场馆体制性障碍的建议．论述了学校体育场馆（地）的现状,分析了学校体育场馆（地）社会化服务的体制性障碍,提出盘活和整合现有学校体育场馆（地）资源并与社会共享的建议．     

公众意见调查综合支持指数在铁路建设项目竣工环保验收中的应用

公众意见调查是铁路建设项目竣工环保验收的主要内容与重要环节。本文从所选的20项通过环境保护部验收的铁路竣工环境保护验收公众意见调查资料人手,采用公众意见调查综合支持指数研究公众对铁路项目的支持程度,将公众意见调查分为强烈支持、比较支持、一般支持和反对4个等级,研究表明,公众意见凋查综合支持指数计算结果与环境管理决策一致,公众意见调查综合支持指数可作为一种定量分析方法,为铁路竣工环保验收提供决策支持。     

农村扶贫中非政府组织的作用

在建设社会主义新农村的新阶段,农村扶贫问题却面临着新的形势,单单政府的反贫困已经不能满足当今农村扶贫的需要,扶贫越来越需要动用更多的社会力量,在这之中非政府(NGO)组织的作用不可低估。本文将从NGO在我国的发展、NGO参与扶贫的必要性、NGO参与农村扶贫的相关问题等视角对我国农村扶贫中NGO的参与进行探讨。     

Planning transport for social inclusion: An accessibility-activity participation approach

Social equity is increasingly becoming an important objective in transport planning and project evaluation. This paper provides a framework and an empirical investigation in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) examining the links between public transit accessibility and the risks of social exclusion, simply understood as the suppressed ability to conduct daily activities at normal levels. Specifically, we use a large-sample travel survey to present a new transport-geography concept termed participation deserts, neighbourhood-level clusters of lower than expected activity participation. We then use multivariate models to estimate where, and for whom, improvements in transit accessibility will effectively increase activity participation and reduce risks of transport-related social exclusion. Our results show that neighbourhoods with high concentrations of low-income and zero-car households located outside of major transit corridors are the most sensitive to having improvements in accessibility increase daily activity participation rates. We contend that transit investments providing better connections to these neighbourhoods would have the greatest benefit in terms of alleviating existing inequalities and reducing the risks of social exclusion. The ability for transport investments to liberate suppressed activity participation is not currently being predicted or valued in existing transport evaluation methodologies, but there is great potential in doing so in order to capture the social equity benefits associated with increasing transit accessibility.     

Should we all just stay home? Travel,out-of-home activities,and life satisfaction

How and why travel contributes to our life satisfaction is of considerable import for transportation policy and planning. This paper empirically examines this relationship using data from the American Time Use Survey. It finds that, controlling for relevant demographic, geographic, and temporal covariates, travel time per day is significantly and positively associated with life satisfaction. This relationship is attenuated, but still significant, when the amount of time spent participating in out-of-home activities is controlled for. Time spent bicycling is strongly associated with higher life satisfaction, though it attains significance only in some models; time spent walking is also quite positive, though it is not significant. However, both walking and bicycling are positively and significantly associated with life satisfaction when time spent on purely recreational walking and bicycling is included. Life satisfaction is positively and significantly associated with time spent traveling for the purposes of eating and drinking, religious activities, volunteering, and playing and watching sports. Travel time exhibits a strong positive relationship with life satisfaction in smaller towns and cities, but in large cities the association weakens, and for very large cities travel time may actually not be associated with life satisfaction at all. This may be due to the costs of traffic congestion, which disproportionately exists in large cities. In all, while the associations between travel and life satisfaction are clear, the causal story is complex, with the positive relationships potentially being explained by (1) travel allowing us to access destinations that make us happy, (2) the act of travel itself being fulfilling, and/or (3) intrinsically happier people being more likely to travel. In all likelihood, all three factors are at play.     

Democratization of Coastal Zone Decision Making for Indigenous Australians: Insights from Stakeholder Analysis

Community participation has become something of an orthodoxy within natural resource management. In the absence of an explicit strategy for democratization and capacity-building the notion of community participation is potentially meaningless and its application likely to mask decisions made in the interests of elite groups. This article examines the shortcomings of participatory processes in coastal resource management and seeks to identify and overcome constraints to democratization and capacity-building for Indigenous Australians. Using two coastal catchments in Central Queensland as a case study, we explore relations of power among stakeholders using Stakeholder Analysis to provide a platform for more effective deliberative participation by this group of stakeholders. Discussion of the specific barriers to participation identified by Aboriginal stakeholders will demonstrate the need to adopt notions of capacity-building that focus not only on the attributes of the individual stakeholder that might facilitate their participation, but on the characteristics also of the decision-making environment.     

擒拿格斗对于优化航海类专业体育课程体系的探讨

擒拿格斗是我国民族传统体育运动项目之一,具有浓厚的民族特色及有效的健身防卫功能,代表着优秀的中华传统武术文化.但在现行的航海类专业体育课程体系设置中其地位和作用未得到应有的重视.本文旨在通过对擒拿格斗项目应用于航海类专业体育课程的必要性进行分析,进而探讨其对于优化航海类专业体育课程体系的独特功能.