"For years, Nauru, a small Pacific island nation (population 10,000), benefited from the considerable wealth generated from its only major natural resource, phosphate. However, when that resource was almost exhausted and national assets held under the Nauru Phosphate Royalties Trust (NPRT) had been reduced to relatively minor holdings, the Government of Nauru sought and received assistance from Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) to prepare a National Sustainable Development Strategy to guide future development in the country. This case study examines innovative efforts to strengthen participatory capacity in Nauru to support development of the new strategy, focusing on the design and implementation of a participatory planning process which engendered wide community engagement and included communications with communities about the choices and trade-offs facing them moving forward. This subseries is published by the ADB to provide the governments of its Pacific developing member countries (PDMCs) with analyses and insights on key issues and lessons learned with respect to capacity development. Cases studied highlight a range of experiences throughout the region by sector, theme, and source of external support, revealing approaches to capacity development that work best and the conditions that have been conducive to their success. They also explore the unique challenges faced by PDMCs in addressing capacity constraints as well as some opportunities facing governments and the people in the Pacific islands. Among other things, the case studies underline the importance of PDMC leadership, engagement of local partners, strategic attention to long-term capacity issues, and effective use of external resources. We hope that the findings in these reports will help guide future capacity building efforts in the Pacific."
This article was co-published with the Guardian.Nine of the 12 members of a high-level congressional committee charged with advising on the U.S.'s nuclear weapons strategy have direct financial ties to contractors that would benefit from the report's recommendations or are employed at think tanks that receive considerable funding from weapons manufacturers, the Guardian and Responsible Statecraft can reveal.While the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States (CCSPUS) purports to recommend steps to avoid nuclear conflict, it does nothing to disclose its own potential conflicts of interest with the weapons industry in its final report or at rollout events at think tanks in Washington.The United States will soon face "a world where two nations [China and Russia] possess nuclear arsenals on par with our own," warned the commission's final report, released in mid-October. "In addition," the report charged, "the risk of conflict with these two nuclear peers is increasing. It is an existential challenge for which the United States is ill-prepared."According to the CCSPUS, this potential doomsday scenario requires the U.S. to make "necessary adjustments to the posture of US nuclear capabilities – in size and/or composition," a policy shift that would steer billions of taxpayer dollars to the Pentagon and nuclear weapons contractors."What we've consistently seen is the nuclear weapons industry buying influence and that means we cannot make serious decisions about our security when the industry is buying influence through think tanks and commissioners they are skewing the debate," said Susi Snyder, program coordinator at the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons."Instead of having a debate about the tools and materials we need to make ourselves safe," she added, "we're having a debate about which company should get the contracts. And that doesn't make the American people safe or anyone else in the world."The CCSPUS was established two years ago via the annual defense policy bill, and conflicts of interest on the commission were apparent from the beginning. But an analysis by the Guardian and Responsible Statecraft found deep ties between the commission and the weapons industry.The most recognizable member of the CCSPUS is its vice-chair, Jon Kyl, who served as a senator from Arizona from 1995 to 2013 and again in 2018, after the death of John McCain. While this, and more, is included in his biography in the commission's report, what's left out is his more recent employment as a senior adviser with the law firm Covington & Burling, whose lobbying client list includes multiple Pentagon contractors that would benefit from the commission's recommendations.In 2017 Kyl, personally, was registered to lobby for Northrop Grumman, which manufactures the B-21 nuclear bomber that the commission recommends increasing the number the U.S. plans to buy, at a cost to taxpayers of nearly $700 million each.Kyl did not respond to questions about his employment status with Covington & Burling, but the former senator was listed as a "senior adviser" on the firm's website until at least December 1, 2022, nearly 10 months after the commissioner selections for the CCSPUS were announced in March 2022.Another commissioner, Franklin Miller, is a principal at the Scowcroft Group, a business advisory firm that describes Miller as having expertise in "nuclear deterrence," and acknowledges its work in the weapons sector."The Scowcroft Group successfully advised a European defense leader on a strategic acquisition opportunity," says the consulting firm in the "Defense/Aerospace" section of its website. "We have also assisted a major defense firm in pursuing global partnerships and co-production opportunities."Miller did not respond to a request for comment about the identity of the Scowcroft Group's clients.Kyl and Miller are joined on the CCSPUS by retired general John E Hyten, who previously served as the vice-chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, the second-highest-ranking member of the U.S. military.While Hyten's biography in the commission's report lauds his extensive military service, in retirement he has worked closely with a number of firms that could benefit immensely from the commission's recommendations.This March he was appointed as special adviser to the CEO of C3 AI, an artificial intelligence company that boasts of working with numerous agencies at the Department of Defense. In June 2022, Hyten was named executive director of the Blue Origins foundation, called the Club for the Future, and as a strategic adviser to Blue Origin's senior leadership. Blue Origin is wholly owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and works directly with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the air force and the space force on space launch-related capabilities.Hyten's ties to these firms are notable given the CCSPUS report's repeated overtures for improving and investing in space and artificial intelligence capabilities. Specifically, the report recommends the United States "urgently deploy a more resilient space architecture" and take steps to ensure it is "at the cutting edge of emerging technologies – such as big data analytics, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence (AI)."Hyten did not respond to a request for comment.The CCSPUS also included think tank scholars whose employers receive significant funding from the arms industry. Two commission members work at the Hudson Institute, which, according to its most recent annual report, received in excess of $500,000 from Pentagon contractors in 2022. This includes six-figure donations from some of the Pentagon's top contractors, including Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems.On Monday, October 23, the Hudson Institute held an event to highlight the CCSPUS's report that included the two Hudson Institute employees who also served as commissioners. The event unabashedly promoted recommendations from the report that would be a financial windfall for Hudson's funders. The landing page for the event features a photo of a B-21 stealth bomber, the same photo used in the commission report that also recommended that the U.S. strategic nuclear posture be modified to "increase the planned number of B-21 bombers and tankers an expanded force would require."Neither at the event nor in the report is it noted that the plane's manufacturer, Northrop Grumman, is in the Hudson Institute's highest donor tier, contributing in excess of $100,000 in 2022.The Hudson Institute staff who served as commissioners did not respond to requests for comment.Another commissioner, Matthew Kroenig, is a vice-president at the Atlantic Council, a prominent DC think tank which, according to the organization's most recent annual report, is funded by several top Pentagon contractors, including Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon (now RTX), General Atomics, Saab and GM Defense. The Atlantic Council also receives more than $1 million a year directly from the Department of Defense and between $250,000 and $499,999 from the Department of Energy, which helps manage the nation's nuclear arsenal.These seeming conflicts of interest were not mentioned at any point in the CCSPUS's report or at an Atlantic Council event promoting the report and featuring the same photo of the B-21 used by the Hudson Institute and the commission.Kroenig did not respond to a request for comment.Even commissioners whose careers had included positions that were notably critical of nuclear weapons had recently established ties with firms that profit from the nuclear and conventional weapons industry.Commissioner Lisa Gordon-Hagerty worked for years at the pinnacle of nuclear weapons policy in the U.S., including positions on the national security council, the U.S. House of Representatives and the Department of Energy. She was also the director of the Federation of American Scientists, a non-profit organization known for advocating for reductions in nuclear weapons globally. Her last government position prior to joining the commission was serving as the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which is responsible for military applications of nuclear science. She resigned from the post in 2020, allegedly after heated disagreements with the secretary of energy, who tried to cut NNSA funding.While much of her career is mentioned in the commission report, what's left out is that Gordon-Hagerty has also been cashing in on her nuclear expertise. After leaving the NNSA, in 2021 she joined the board and became director of strategic programs at Westinghouse Government Services, a nuclear weapons contractor that has been paid hundreds of millions of dollars for work with the Department of Defense and Department of Energy.Gordon-Hagerty did not respond to a request for comment.Like Gordon-Hagerty, fellow commissioner Leonor Tomero had a distinguished career at the highest levels of nuclear weapons policy. According to her bio in the commission report, she was the deputy assistant secretary of defense for nuclear and missile defense policy and served for over a decade on the House Armed Services Committee as counsel and strategic forces subcommittee staff lead, where her portfolio included the establishment of the U.S. space force, nuclear weapons, nuclear nonproliferation, nuclear cleanup, arms control and missile defense.Outside government, Tomero was Director of Nuclear non-proliferation at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, an organization that has repeatedly called for reductions in the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal. Tomero is also on the board of the Council for a Livable World, which explicitly states that its goal is to eliminate nuclear weapons.Yet, in September, Tomero became a vice president of government Relations at JA Green & Company, a lobbying firm whose client list includes a host of military contractors that could see revenues soar if the CCSPUS's recommendations are adopted. Space X, for example — which pays $50,000 every three months to JA Green for lobbying related to "issues related to national security space launch" — would probably benefit mightily from the commission recommendation that "the United States urgently deploy a more resilient space architecture and adopt a strategy that includes both offensive and defensive elements to ensure US access to and operations in space.""No clients of JA Green & Company sought to influence the work of the Commission or the Commission's recommendations in any way," said Jeffrey A Green, president of JA Green, in an email. "We follow all applicable ethics rules and there are no conflicts of interest."None of the potential conflicts of interest between commissioners' financial interests and the policy proposals laid out in their final report were disclosed by the CCSPUS itself within its final report or at any public event highlighting its findings.While many commissioners did not respond to requests for comment, the commission's executive director, William A Chambers, provided a statement on behalf of the CCSPUS and its members."Members of [the commission] were chosen and appointed by Members of Congress based on their national recognition and significant depth of experience in such professions as governmental service, law enforcement, the Armed Forces, law, public administration, intelligence gathering, commerce, or foreign affairs," wrote Chambers. "Before they began performing their role as Commissioners, they were instructed on the ethics rules that govern congressional entities and were required to comply with rules set forth by the Select Committee on Ethics of the Senate and the Committee on Ethics of the House of Representatives."Chambers did not respond to a request for a copy of the ethics rules.But the opacity about potential conflicts of interest leaves some experts questioning the CCSPUS's recommendations."There's a huge argument raging over what is security, how much does it rely on transparency and, especially when it comes to nuclear weapons, there is a call for greater transparency," said Snyder of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. "That light they're asking to shine on China, North Korea and Iran is a light they also need to shine on their own decision-making."
There is the need for a legal instrument that would first and foremost establish the executive powers of a new entity with overarching responsibilities and powers over all the authorities that have sectoral responsibilities for climate change. Such a legal instrument should also identify these sectoral authorities and their responsibilities, preferably within an Annex which could be amended and adjusted in a flexible manner. This instrument should be managed by a new unit on climate change within MRA and it should ensure integration without causing fragmentation between the sectors. At the same time, retaining the sectoral input would ensure that there is no duplication of roles, that the institutions are specialised within their own field and that the overarching institution does not becomes a bottle neck. In other words, different competent authorities responsible for the different sectoral policies and obligations should remain, but these must be answerable to an institution that has executive powers to ensure compliance and to coordinate long and short term planning with respect to climate change targets and impacts. By way of recommendation therefore, a legal instrument of this sort should seek to intervene as little as possible in the daily running of the sectoral policies and only apply its powers in situations of emergency when non compliance by the different sectors stalls the fulfilment of Malta's obligations. Its main role should be to ensure implementation of a National Strategy on Mitigation and Adaptation. This legal instrument would not duplicate the role of public institutions that are already regulators for various sectors on climate change. It would however empower the new entity to take enforcement measures against the said institutions if they fail to do so. It would also ensure the implementation and enforcement of existing legislation that regulates the various sectors in order to rationalize their sustainable use and provide for conservation measures. This would benefit both the implementation of mitigation and adaptation measures. An entity entrusted with the overall responsibility for climate change law and policy must be legally empowered to ensure the implementation of national adaptation programmes. It must also coordinate the various sectors to carry out the necessary research to adopt and implement mitigation and adaptation measures. It must necessarily be supported by a parallel capacity building process in the various entities that run the day-to- day implementation functions. On an administrative level, without necessarily being included in a legal instrument, memoranda of understanding and stakeholder dialogue are indispensable tools to ensure cooperation. This will facilitate reaching mitigation and adaptation targets within the stipulated time frames. The mainstreaming of climate change impacts in national policies ensures the adoption of mitigation and adaptation measures and guarantees synergy and linkages amongst various public plans and programmes. Response to climate change should take place at a strategic level to assess beforehand the socio-economic impacts of any mitigation and adaptation measures adopted as a consequence prior to mainstreaming into national policy making. The existing Regulations on the Strategic Environment Assessment already include climate change impacts as one of the issues that needs to be taken into consideration in an SEA. Furthermore, for all those situations where an SEA is not required, Maltese authorities should promote pro-active adaptation measures such as, for example, in development planning, rather than take reactive adaptation measures. The new climate change legal instrument must ensure effective monitoring and stakeholder engagement, particularly the involvement of NGOS and Local Councils which increases public awareness on climate change issues. The new law should also take into consideration national security issues relating to climate change when formulating mitigation and adaptation strategies. The new law should also target the development of a research programme for climate change, including access to funding programmes. It is vital that Investment in research and development in all sectors should not remain on a voluntary basis. It will provide local industry with the necessary technology and it will generate specialised local expertise in a rapidly growing sector that is assuming a tremendous economic potential. Procrastination is detrimental on two main fronts. First because Malta will miss out in securing a place in this niche-market and second because we will keep relying upon foreign technology and expertise. Since Malta can rely on and pool from the scientific and technical advice of the European Environmental agency, it is best to concentrate on investing in scientific and technical research that addresses the local scenario. This should be earmarked as a priority for EU funded projects and care should be taken not to duplicate research conducted by EU agencies to which Malta has access, but rather to build upon it and apply it at the local level. It is also essential to include as a legal obligation the publication to civil society of information acquired as a result of research conducted at the EU level or carried out locally. It must be ensured that all sectors surmount the constraints due to the lack of a sound knowledge base on local ecosystem dynamics. Filling such a gap would serve to build local scientific evidence that would identify to what extent marine, terrestrial and aquatic flora and fauna groups are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Emphasis should be placed on minor and already vulnerable groups. All sectors should be legally bound to maintain a Geographic Information System to integrate data related to climate change, and any other data required apart from spatial information. Adopting and implementing the recommendations suggested by the National Sustainable Development Strategy for Malta would greatly enhance the implementation of adaptation measures relating to climate change, both on a cross-sectoral and sectoral level. At present it is envisaged that the government is currently preparing a new Bill on sustainable development, in the meantime the applicable provisions of the EPA by virtue of which the sustainable development strategy was published should continue to apply. Malta should also endeavour to promote more regional cooperation in the Mediterranean under the Barcelona Convention framework and Euro Med, to identify the adaptation needs of the Mediterranean littoral to the impacts of climate change. Authorities should initiate immediately, even at the regional Mediterranean level, studies to assess vulnerability due to climate change, how new opportunities may be tapped, how to meet with the negative consequences of climate change in the sector, how to ensure that local operators adapt to the shift in tourism trends as a result of climate change. There is the need of systematic and sustained awareness building programmes to educate all. This will intensify awareness and promote a change in behavioural patterns to improve adaptation to climate change. Increasing awareness of climate change impacts within the government, industry, and community sectors will support cultural change transitions that are required for the adoption of more climate change friendly technologies, designs, and operations by public and private operators. The new climate change law should also obligate the various sectors to formulate contingency plans. This serves to: address the negative impacts envisaged as a result of climate change particularly upon vulnerable groups. assess socio-economic implications, with increased insurance covers for risks resulting from the likely impacts of climate change. identify financial guarantees and incentives amongst the various stakeholders in all sectors. ; peer-reviewed
"How individuals deal with risk and uncertainties in the context of an organizational culture is a neglected area in the sociology of risk and uncertainty. This contribution reports from an explorative qualitative study (n=14) which examines the intersection of biographical experiences and organizational culture in the perspective of risk and uncertainty. This study with ex-serviceman of the British Armed Forces Shows that coming from different biographical contexts, young adults become soldiers for different reasons and they experience their time as soldiers differently. Some chose the certainty culture of the military as a life perspective; others see it rather as a stage in their life. It is the group which assimilates most into military culture which has serious problems with the transition into civil life. But these problems seem to be rooted in the way in which soldiers adopt the military certainty culture rather than the transition itself. Soldiers who maintain competing interpretations and biographical projects are less assimilated but better prepared to deal with all kinds of issues such as drinking culture, ethical and life and death issues." (author's abstract)
What can science, technology and innovation offer in the achievement of sustainable development goals? / Ademola A. Adenle, Marian Chertow, Ellen H.M. Moors and David J. Pannell -- Learning to innovate : the global institutions for biodiversity innovation in the sustainable development goals / Casey Stevens -- Energy technologies for sustainable development goal / Govinda Timilsina and Kalim U. Shah -- Linking solar energy systems to sustainable development goals in Africa : recent findings from Kenya and South Africa / Ademola A. Adenle -- Comparing renewable energy micro-grids in Cambodia, Indonesia and Laos : a technological innovation systems approach / Tobias S. Schmidt, Nicola U. Blum and Catharina R. Bening -- Fostering sustainable development goals through an integrated approach : phasing-in green energy technologies in India and China / René Kemp, Babette Never and Serdar Türkeli -- Financing environmental science and technological innovation to meet sustainable development goals in Brazil / Mariana Machado and Carlos Eduardo F. Young -- The systems science of industrial ecology : tools and strategies toward meeting the sustainable development goals / Marian R. Chertow, Koichi S. Kanaoka, T. Reed Miller, Peter Berrill, Paul Wolfram, Niko Heeren and Tomer Fishman -- Automated vehicles and sustainable cities : a realistic outlook to 2030 / Rui Wang and Christopher Oster -- The role of technology and rebound effects in the success of the sustainable development goals framework / David Font Vivanco and Tamar Makov -- Vaccine innovation and global sustainability : governance challenges for sustainable development goals / Cristina Possas, R.M. Martins and Akira Homma -- The role of development-focused health technology assessment in optimising science, technology and innovation to achieve sustainable development goal 3? / Janet Bouttell, Eleanor Grieve and Neil Hawkins -- Anti-malarial drug development and diffusion in an era of multi-drug resistance : how can an integrated health framework contribute to sustainable development goal? / Freek de Haan and Ellen H.M. Moors -- Digital health : how can it facilitate progress on meeting sustainable development goals in China? / Simon K. Poon, Yiren Liu, Ruihua Guo and Mu Li -- Responsive and responsible science, technology and innovation for global health / Nora Engel, Agnes Meershoek and Anja Krumeich -- A systemic perspective on the global sanitation challenge--insights from socio-technical dynamics in Nairobi's informal settlements / Mara J. van Welie and Bernhard Truffer -- The role of animal-source foods in sustainable, ethical and optimal human diets / Julia de Bruyn, Brigitte Bagnol, Hilary H. Chan, Delia Grace, Marisa E.V. Mitchell, Michael J. Nunn, Kate Wingett, Johanna T. Wong and Robyn G. Alders -- Optimal nitrogen management for meeting sustainable development goal 2 / Kshama Harpankar -- Adoption of integrated crop management technology for poverty reduction and food security : the case of smallholder rice production in Timor Leste / Maria Fay Rola-Rubzen, Renato Villano, Marcolino Fernandes E. Brito, J. Brian Hardaker, and John Dixon -- Two decades of GMOs : how modern agricultural biotechnology can help meet SDGs / Ademola A. Adenle, Hans De Steur, Kathleen Hefferon and Justus Wesseler -- Farmer-prioritized climate-smart agriculture technologies : implications for achieving sustainable development goals in East Africa / Caroline Mwongera, Chris M. Mwungu, Leigh Winowiecki, Peter Läderach, Mercy Lungaho, Kelvin M. Shikuku and Steve Twomlow -- Toward sustainable agri-food systems in Brazil : the soybean production complex as a case study / Cecilia G. Flocco -- Transformation governance for sustainable development : making science, technology and innovation work for small-scale fisheries / Karin Wedig -- Value network analysis for (re)organizing business models towards the sustainable development goals : the case of the agricultural commodity exchange in Malawi / Domenico Dentoni, Laurens Klerkx, and Felix Krussmann -- Making scale work for sustainable development : a framework for responsible scaling of agricultural innovations / Seerp Wigboldus, Laurens Klerkx and Cees Leeuwis -- Conclusions and future policies for meeting the sustainable development goals / Ademola A. Adenle, Marian Chertow, Ellen H.M. Moors and David J. Pannell.
Telegrams exchanged between Gen. Plutarco Elías Calles and the following Oaxacan parties: the Socialists League, the Workers and Peasants Regional Party, the United Socialist Party, the Union of Bakers, the For-the-People, Peace and Work Party, the Ñuñu Socialist party, the San Juan Chilcateca party, the San Martin Tilcajete Party, the Benito Juárez Socialist Party, the Ortiz Rubio Socialist Party, the San Blas Farmers, the Chiltepecano Socialist party, private citizens, the Socialist party from Puebla, Municipal commissioners, Municipal Committees, Governors, the League of Ejidatarios from Tampico, Party presidents, Commanders of Military Operations, the Bayona Agrarian Committee, the Confederation for the Defense of Public Services in the Federal District, the Coop of the Nogales Brewery, the Secretary of the Confederation of the Regional Mexican Labor from Puebla, the Tirangueo Pungarabato Committee from Guerrero, the League of Agrarian Communities from Tepic, Nayarit, and the League of Electricity customers from the Federal District. The aforementioned telegrams concern provisions on security against abuse of authority, election campaigns in Puebla, Querétaro and Oaxaca, endorsements and congratulations, murder of Agrarian supporters, land seizure, inauguration of new infrastructure in Pachuca, a request for assisting farmers' businesses, requests for hearings, moving horses, money wire, a petition to return lands, setting up the telegraphic line, an invitation to a bullfight and support of the Light Company workers. / Telegramas entre el Gral. PEC y los partidos oaxaqueños: Ligas Socialistas, Regional Obreros y Campesinos, Socialista Unido, Sindicato de Obreros Panaderos, Pro Pueblo Paz y Trabajo, Socialista del Nuñu, San Juan Chilateca, San Martín Tilcajete, Socialista Benito Juárez, Socialista Ortiz Rubio, Agricultores de San Blas, Socialista Chiltepecano; particulares, Partido Socialista de Puebla, Comisarios Municipales, Comités Municipales, Gobernadores, Liga de Ejidatarios de Tampico, Presidentes de Partido, Jefes de Operaciones Militares, Comité Agrario Bayona, Confederación Defensora de Servicios Públicos en el Distrito Federal, Cooperativa de la Cervecería Nogales, Secretario Federación Confederación Regional Obrera Mexicana de Puebla, Comité Tirangueo Pungarabato de Guerrero, Liga de Comunidades Agrarias de Tepic, Nay. y Liga de Consumidores de Energía Eléctrica del Distrito Federal, acerca de: impartición de garantías contra abuso de autoridades, campañas políticas en Puebla, Querétaro y Oaxaca, adehesiones y felicitaciones, asesinato de agraristas, despojo de tierras, inauguración de obras de infraestructura en Pachuca, solicitud de apoyo a negocios agrícolas, solicitudes de audiencia, traslado de caballada, envío de dinero, petición de restitución de tierras, instalación de línea telegráfica, invitación a fiesta taurina y apoyo a trabajadores de la Compañía de Luz.
In: Decision analysis: a journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences, INFORMS, Volume 8, Issue 1, p. 78-80
ISSN: 1545-8504
David J. Caswell (" Analysis of National Strategies to Counter a Country's Nuclear Weapons Program ") is an officer in the U.S. Air Force and a research affiliate with the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. David has served in various positions ranging from operational simulation development to operations analysis for national intelligence. He currently serves as an operations analyst in support of regional air and space employment in the Pacific. David received his Ph.D. in management science and engineering at Stanford University. His current research continues to apply computer science and operations research methods for gaining insights for nuclear policy and other international security issues. Address: http://www.stanford.edu/group/ERRG/davidc1.htm ; e-mail: david.caswell33@gmail.com . Kjell Hausken (" Governments' and Terrorists' Defense and Attack in a T-Period Game ") has since 1999 been a professor of economics and societal safety at the University of Stavanger, Norway. His research fields are strategic interaction, risk analysis, reliability, conflict, and terrorism. He holds a Ph.D. (thesis: "Dynamic Multilevel Game Theory") from the University of Chicago (1990–1994), and was a postdoc at the Max Planck Institute for the Studies of Societies (Cologne) from 1995 to 1998 and a visiting scholar at Yale School of Management from 1989 to 1990. He holds a doctorate program degree in administration from the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, and an M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from the Norwegian Institute of Technology. He completed military service at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment, has published 110 articles, and is on the editorial board for Theory and Decision and Defence and Peace Economics. Address: Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Stavanger, N-4036 Stavanger, Norway; e-mail: kjell.hausken@uis.no . Ronald A. Howard (" Analysis of National Strategies to Counter a Country's Nuclear Weapons Program ") is a professor of management science and engineering in the School of Engineering at Stanford University. Professor Howard directs teaching and research in the Decision Analysis Program of the department, and is the director of the Decisions and Ethics Center, which examines the efficacy and ethics of social arrangements. He defined the profession of decision analysis in 1964 and has supervised more than 80 doctoral theses in decision analysis and related areas. His experience includes dozens of decision analysis projects that range over virtually all fields of application, from investment planning to research strategy, and from hurricane seeding to nuclear waste isolation. He has been a consultant to several companies and was a founding director and chairman of Strategic Decisions Group. He is president of the Decision Education Foundation, which he and colleagues founded to teach decision skills to young people. He has written four books, dozens of technical papers, and provided editorial service to seven technical journals. His society affiliations have included the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (Fellow); The Institute of Management Sciences, which he served as president, and the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) (Fellow). Continuing research interests are improving the quality of decisions, life-and-death decision making, and the creation of a coercion-free society. In 1986 he received the Frank P. Ramsey Medal "for Distinguished Contributions in Decision Analysis" from the Decision Analysis Special Interest Group of the Operations Research Society of America (the predecessor to the Decision Analysis Society of INFORMS). In 1998 he received from INFORMS the first award for the Teaching of Operations Research/Management Science Practice. In 1999 he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. Address: Management Science and Engineering, Huang Engineering Center, 475 Via Ortega, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-4121; e-mail: rhoward@stanford.edu . Joseph B. ("Jay") Kadane (" Partial-Kelly Strategies and Expected Utility: Small Edge Asymptotics ") is Leonard J. Savage University Professor of Statistics and Social Sciences, Emeritus, at Carnegie Mellon University. He received a B.S. in mathematics from Harvard and a Ph.D. in statistics from Stanford. He was recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His theoretical interests center on subjective Bayesian theory. His current applied interests include Internet security, medicine, law, physics, marketing, and air pollution. He serves as an expert witness in legal cases. His most recent book is Principles of Uncertainty, which is scheduled to be released in May 2011 by Chapman and Hall and will be available free on the Web for any noncommercial purpose. Address: Department of Statistics, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213; e-mail: kadane@stat.cmu.edu . Konstantinos V. Katsikopoulos (" Psychological Heuristics for Making Inferences: Definition, Performance, and the Emerging Theory and Practice ") holds a Ph.D. in industrial engineering and operations research from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and is currently a senior research scientist at the Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development. He has been a visiting assistant professor of operations research at the Naval Postgraduate School and of systems engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has made contributions to the theory of bounded rationality and its applications to decisions "in the wild" in fields such as engineering design and medicine. Address: Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Lentzeallee 94, 14195 Berlin, Germany; e-mail: katsikop@mpib-berlin.mpg.de . L. Robin Keller (" Investment and Defense Strategies, Heuristics, and Games: From the Editor … ") is a professor of operations and decision technologies in the Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine. She received her Ph.D. and M.B.A. in management science and her B.A. in mathematics from the University of California, Los Angeles. She has served as a program director for the Decision, Risk, and Management Science Program of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). Her research is on decision analysis and risk analysis for business and policy decisions and has been funded by NSF and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Her research interests cover multiple attribute decision making, riskiness, fairness, probability judgments, ambiguity of probabilities or outcomes, risk analysis (for terrorism, environmental, health, and safety risks), time preferences, problem structuring, cross-cultural decisions, and medical decision making. She is currently Editor-in-Chief of Decision Analysis, published by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS). She is a Fellow of INFORMS and has held numerous roles in INFORMS, including board member and chair of the INFORMS Decision Analysis Society. She is a recipient of the George F. Kimball Medal from INFORMS. She has served as the decision analyst on three National Academy of Sciences committees. Address: The Paul Merage School of Business, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697-3125; e-mail: lrkeller@uci.edu . Jeryl L. Mumpower (" Playing Squash Against Ralph Keeney: Should Weaker Players Always Prefer Shorter Games? ") is Director of the Master of Public Service and Administration Program at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, where he holds the Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Chair in Business and Public Policy. Previously he was at the Nelson A. Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, State University of New York at Albany, where he was a professor of public administration, public policy, public health, and information science and served in a variety of University-level administrative positions. His previous experience includes six years as a program director and policy analyst at the National Science Foundation. Mumpower received his B.A. from the College of William and Mary and his Ph.D. in social and quantitative psychology from the University of Colorado, Boulder. He is author or editor of nine books and more than 50 book chapters and articles. His research has addressed basic and applied topics in negotiation and bargaining, environmental policy, individual and group decision-making processes, the use of scientific expertise in public policy making, and risk analysis and management. Address: Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University, 1092 Allen Building, 4220 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843-4220; e-mail: jmumpower@bushschool.tamu.edu . M. Elisabeth Paté-Cornell (" Analysis of National Strategies to Counter a Country's Nuclear Weapons Program ") is the Burt and Deedee McMurtry Professor and Chair, Department of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University. Her specialty is engineering risk analysis with application to complex systems (including space systems and medical systems). Her research has focused on explicit consideration of human and organizational factors in the analysis of failure risks and, recently, on the use of game theory in risk analysis. Applications in the last few years have included counterterrorism and nuclear counterproliferation problems. She is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and of several boards (Aerospace, Draper, InQtel, etc.). She was a member of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board until December 2008. She holds an engineer degree (Applied Math/CS) from the Institut Polytechnique de Grenoble (France), and an M.S. in Operations Research and a Ph.D. in Engineering-Economic Systems, both from Stanford University. Address: Management Science and Engineering, Huang Engineering Center, 475 Via Ortega, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-4121; e-mail: mep@stanford.edu . Jun Zhuang (" Governments' and Terrorists' Defense and Attack in a T-Period Game ") is an assistant professor of industrial and systems engineering at the University at Buffalo, the State University of New York. He has been a faculty member at SUNY Buffalo since he obtained his Ph.D. in summer 2008 from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Dr. Zhuang's long-term research goal is to integrate operations research and game theory to better prepare for, mitigate, and manage both natural and man-made hazards. Other areas of interests include health care, transportation, logistics and supply chain management, and sustainability. Dr. Zhuang's research has been supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation, and by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security through the Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events. Address: Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, 403 Bell Hall, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, Buffalo, NY 14260; e-mail: jzhuang@buffalo.edu .
Despite myriad challenges, Kenya has emerged in recent years as one of Africa's frontier economies, with headline growth in the most recent decade propelling the country toward middle-income status. Less well understood is how risk dynamics associated with production, markets, and policy adversely impact sector performance, in terms of both influencing ex ante decision making among farmers, traders, and other sector stakeholders and causing ex post losses to crops, livestock, and incomes - destabilizing livelihoods and jeopardizing the country's food security. The present study was commissioned in part to bridge this knowledge gap. It is the first step in a multiphase process designed to integrate a stronger risk focus into sector planning and development programs. It seeks to learn from and build on a range of broad initiatives by the Government of Kenya (GoK) and its development partners purposed to enhance Kenya's resilience and response to natural disasters. The ultimate objective is implementation of a holistic and systematic risk management system that will reduce the vulnerability and strengthen the resiliency of Kenya's agricultural supply chains, and the livelihoods that depend on them. This sector risk assessment is the primary output of phase one. The study's main objective is to identify, assess, and prioritize principal risks facing Kenya's agriculture sector by analyzing their impacts via quantitative and qualitative measures. The study's main findings highlight an agriculture sector increasingly vulnerable to extreme weather variability. Chapter one gives introduction. Chapter two provides an overview of Kenya's agriculture sector and a discussion of key growth constraints. Chapter three assesses the main agricultural risks (production, market, and enabling environment). Chapter four analyzes the frequency and severity of the major risks identified and assesses their impact. Chapter five presents some stakeholder perceptions of these risks and the potential to improve their management. Chapter six concludes with an assessment of priorities for risk management and a broad discussion of possible risk management measures that can help to strengthen the resiliency of agricultural supply chains and the livelihoods they support.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine was based on false premises, faulty assumptions, and a weak strategy. The conduct of operations has also been a failure: a coup de main that miscarried, poor air-land cooperation, inadequate tactical communications, substandard battle discipline, low morale, and vulnerable and weak logistics. As the conflict has unfolded, heavy losses have imposed a strain on available Russian manpower. The Russian army reached a culminating point outside Kyiv and has exhibited little sign of operational learning. By contrast Ukrainians have fought an existential war, making good use of dispersed light infantry tactics with high levels of motivation. Their deficiencies in armaments and munitions have been compensated by Western support. However, the political context continues to impose limitations on the Ukrainians, and, at this early stage of the conflict, the number of options remains constrained.
