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Background: Tetralogy of Fallot with an absent pulmonary valve is a very rare variant of tetralogy. It is characterized by absent valve tissue, severe pulmonary regurgitation, and secondary aneurysmal dilatation of the pulmonary arteries., Aim: In this study, we aim to investigate the clinical presentations, management strategies, and outcomes of patients with tetralogy of Fallot and absent pulmonary valve., Methodology: We retrospectively reviewed the charts of all patients who presented to the American University of Beirut Medical Center between January 2010 and December 2020 and who were diagnosed with this anomaly., Results: A total of 300 cases of tetralogy of Fallot were identified, of which 18 patients had absent pulmonary valves. They were followed up for an average of 8.2 years. Prenatal diagnoses were made in four patients, while 13 patients were identified in the neonatal period, with an average age of 4.5 days. Genetic testing confirmed DiGeorge syndrome in one patient. Five patients underwent surgical intervention in the neonatal period, while the remaining patients were operated on during their early childhood. While overall there were no surgical mortalities nor any need for reinterventions, a variety of morbidities were encountered., Conclusion: This study provides an overview of this rare anomaly and its management in a developing country., (© 2024 Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

This paper used longitudinal data from five studies conducted in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Ethiopia, and Rwanda to examine the links between family stimulation and early childhood development outcomes (N = 4904; M age = 51.5; 49% girls). Results from random-effects and more conservative child-fixed effects models indicate that across these studies, family stimulation, measured by caregivers' engagement in nine activities (e.g., reading, playing, singing), predicted increments in children's early numeracy, literacy, social-emotional, motor, and executive function skills (standardized associations ranged from 0.05 to 0.11 SD). Study-specific models showed variability in the estimates, with null associations in two out of the five studies. These findings indicate the need for additional research on culturally specific ways in which caregivers may support early development and highlight the importance of promoting family stimulation to catalyze positive developmental trajectories in global contexts. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Research on the links between family stimulation and early childhood development in low-and-middle-income countries (LMICs) is limited. We used longitudinal data from studies conducted in five LMICs to examine the links between family stimulation and early childhood development outcomes. Results suggest that family stimulation predicted increments in children's numeracy, literacy, social-emotional, motor, and executive function skills. We found variability in the observed estimates, with null associations in two out of the five studies, suggesting the need for additional research in LMICs., (© 2023 The Authors. Developmental Science published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Aim: To review evidence of the effects of stunting, or height-for-age, on schooling level and schooling trajectories, defined as the combination of school entry age, grade repetition and dropouts., Methods: We conducted a systematic review of studies (last update 20 March 2021) that assessed the association between stunting, or height-for-age, and at least one component of school trajectory using five databases (PubMed, Embase, Education Resources Information Center [ERIC], Web of Science and PsycINFO). Two independent reviewers performed study selection and data extraction. Pooled effects were calculated using the generic inverse variance weighting random-effect model. The risk of bias was assessed using the ROBINS-I tool (PROSPERO ID: CRD42020198346)., Results: We screened 3944 articles, and 16 were eligible for the qualitative and quantitative syntheses. Meta-analysis showed that an increase in height-for-age leads to an increase in early enrolment [OR = 1.34 (95% CI, 1.07-1.67)], a reduction in late enrolment [OR = 0.63 (95% CI, 0.51-0.78)], an increase in schooling level [MD = 0.24 (95% CI, 0.14-0.34)] and a reduction in school overage [OR = 0.79 (95% CI, 0.70-0.90)]. Stunted children were more likely to repeat a grade than non-stunted [OR = 1.59 (95% CI, 1.18-2.14)]., Conclusion: This review suggests that stunting in childhood might negatively affect school trajectories. Future research should evaluate the effect of stunting on school trajectories and the modification effect of socioeconomic status., (© 2022 Foundation Acta Paediatrica. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

This article describes the bureaucratic processes required to establish and manage a single international capacity‐development project that brought together a funding council (AHRC), UK University (SOAS University of London) and universities and other research organisations in Myanmar and Ethiopia. Drawing from ethnographic critiques of the planning and audit practices employed in international development and in the UK University sector, we track the formal certification of partnership as enacted through due diligence and contracts, budgets and timeframes, and reconciliations and reporting. These practices point to pervasive assumptions about capacity transfer and the unequal basis of international research coalitions spanning the Global North and Global South. In this article, we challenge these assumptions by documenting how the allocation of capacity is constrained in hierarchies of time and space. For equitable partnership arrangements to be achieved, we recommend that capacity development be considered a long‐term exchange that flows from mutual reflection and learning from one another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

6 World Bank, Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2018: Piecing Together the Poverty Puzzle, World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/30418. The last paper on poverty at the national level aims to provide a better understanding of the sources of poverty reduction in the country with the highest prevalence of extreme poverty. The IARIW and the World Bank co-organized a conference titled, "New Approaches to Defining and Measuring Poverty in a Growing World", held on November 7-8, 2019 in Washington, D.C. Reducing extreme poverty has for decades been a cornerstone of international economic development. [Extracted from the article]

Background: Aesthetics medicine, a controversial branch of clinical medicine known for its high degree of commercialization, faces numerous conflicts, particularly in some developing countries. The global aesthetics medicine industry requires enhancements of its legal and supervision framework and risk management systems. Aims: This paper aimed to provide a comprehensive visual analysis of academic achievements related to regulatory and legal issues in the field of aesthetic medicine and to identify its development trends and research hotspots. Methods: The Web of Science Core Collection was employed to retrieve relevant studies, resulting in a total of 602 research articles after selection. Utilizing bibliometric methods and CiteSpace, this study analyzed the primary countries, institutions, authors, journals, hotspots, frontiers, and trends in this domain. Results: The findings indicated rapid increases in the number of published papers. The United States emerged as the leading contributor with 131 research papers and the highest intermediate centrality. Eleven keyword clusters were identified, with "adolescence" and "office‐based surgery" being the most recent topics. We also analyzed the trends and frontiers of legal research in medical aesthetics. Conclusion: The importance of informed consent has been increasingly emphasized, and research in the field of medical aesthetics has been gradually expanding beyond individual cosmetic procedures. The management system has become more comprehensive, moreover, guidelines and medical laws have been continually published, with research shifting toward a holistic perspective that encompasses patients, medical aesthetic providers, and regulatory authorities in the study of medical aesthetics regulation and legislation. This paper also proposes some innovative directions for future research and applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In over 30 years of history, the field of Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D) has asserted itself both within Information Systems (IS) and across disciplines. However, the core assumptions on which the field was built have been questioned over time, resulting in a situation in which such assumptions—on development, the role of ICTs towards it, and the meaningfulness of the term "developing countries"—have been problematized. As a result, this paper poses the question on whether it still makes sense to do ICT4D research: starting from older ICT4D landscape papers, it fleshes out three main assumptions made at the origins of the field. It then problematizes such assumptions through more recent works, noting that the old theoretical grounds of the field do not apply anymore today. Having said that, it states three reasons for renewed ICT4D research efforts: the reframing of "development" in terms of justice, the potential of multitheoretical research approaches, and the turn to indigenous understandings of ICTs. For all these reasons, it concludes that doing ICT4D research is especially important today, in virtue of a juncture of history that problematizes its older assumptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, ISO 14001 has become an internationally recognized environmental management system that has spread all over the world. The existing literature has examined in detail the motivations, benefits, and challenges of ISO 14001 adoption in developed countries. However, there is a relative lack of studies on the adoption of ISO 14001 by the subsidiaries of multinational corporations (MNCs) in developing countries, and in Thailand in particular. This paper investigates the motivations, benefits, and challenges of ISO 14001 adoption at Japanese subsidiaries in Thailand based on the results of a questionnaire survey of 100 subsidiaries and a semi‐structured interview survey of 11 subsidiaries. We find that the main motivations are pressures by the national and local governments, as well as by the customers. In addition to the tax incentives, the main benefits are gaining competitiveness, enhancing the corporate image, and maintaining efficient management. We also identify the following challenges: the costs of ISO 14001 adoption, and the training and awareness of the employees. Compared with the existing literature, we find some new motivations, benefits, and challenges related to the local context of ISO 14001 adoption. Although our results are valid only for the Japanese subsidiaries in Thailand, the in‐depth understanding of the motivations, benefits, and challenges of ISO 14001 adoption may contribute to the expanding literature about corporate environmental behavior toward sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inclusive businesses (IBs) are promoted to alleviate poverty and contribute to sustainable development at the base of the pyramid (BOP). In the agri‐food sector, there is limited evidence regarding what types of partnerships enhance IBs' value creation potential for low‐income producers. This prevents policymakers from providing effective support to IBs and leveraging their full potential for sustainable development. To understand what types of partnerships are more effective for social value creation, this paper conducts a mixed‐method analysis of 46 cases from Tanzania and Ghana. It finds that transactional partnerships create efficient IB networks that require limited external support. Such IBs, however, generally undertake business‐as‐usual activities. In contrast, IBs adopt more innovative business models when their partners are integrated in decision‐making and strategic planning. Such IBs, however, often require tailored support to resolve their inter‐ and intra‐organizational challenges. This paper suggests practical considerations for designing IB partnerships to maximize impact potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a methodology for characterizing the breadth of natural hazard types, hazard interrelationships, and risk scenarios in Global South urban areas, focusing on Nairobi, Kenya, and Istanbul, Türkiye. Our approach involves (a) a comprehensive characterization of multi‐hazards and their interrelationships in an urban setting, (b) collaborative development of relevant multi‐hazard scenarios with local disaster risk reduction (DRR) stakeholders, and (c) analysis of the potential for integrating these scenarios into urban DRR efforts. Using a critical review of 135 sources (academic and gray literature, databases, online, and social media), we identify 19 natural hazard types that might influence Nairobi and 23 in Istanbul. We further identified in Nairobi 88 and Istanbul 105 hazard interrelationship pairs (e.g., an earthquake triggering landslides) out of a possible 576 interrelationships. These findings are cataloged in an extensive database, which informs the creation of multi‐hazard risk scenario exemplars for each city. These exemplars are refined through stakeholder engagement, involving four workshops (47 participants) and nine semi‐structured interviews with local DRR stakeholders. Despite the identified benefits, this engagement reveals a significant gap in integrating multi‐hazards into current urban policy and practice. Governance challenges are highlighted as a key barrier, but opportunities for better integration are also identified, including evolving policies and growing awareness among urban actors. Our approach, particularly relevant in data‐scarce urban areas of low‐ and middle‐income countries, provides a framework for exploring multi‐hazard issues in various urban contexts. Plain Language Summary: Our study sought to understand the breadth of natural hazards an urban area in the Global South might face, how the hazards are interrelated (e.g., an earthquake can trigger landslides), and typical risk scenarios that matter to local experts. We applied our methodology to Nairobi and Istanbul to assess how considering multiple hazards could enhance disaster risk reduction (DRR) efforts. We systematically reviewed 135 information sources, including gray and peer‐reviewed literature and online and social media. We found 19 natural hazard types could influence Nairobi, while Istanbul faces 23. These hazards showed numerous interactions, with 88 in Nairobi and 105 in Istanbul. Subsequently, we held workshops and interviews with local DRR stakeholders in both cities to co‐designed multi‐hazard risk scenarios. Practitioner stakeholders in Nairobi and Istanbul emphasized that considering these interrelationships helped create comprehensive risk scenarios and improved planning for addressing multiple hazards concurrently, a crucial aspect of urban safety and preparedness. They noted that current city policies and practices often overlooked this approach, primarily due to risk management and governance issues; for example, siloed approaches to DRR resulting in disjointed implementation and planning, and a lack of coordination and communication among actors. Our research framework may assist other urban areas, particularly those in developing countries with limited data, in comprehending and preparing for the complex challenges posed by various natural hazards. Key Points: Using Nairobi and Istanbul, we introduce a framework for analyzing multi‐hazard interrelationships in low‐ and medium‐income citiesA systematic review of 135 sources finds 19 and 23 hazard types and 88 and 105 hazard interrelationships in Nairobi and Istanbul, respectivelyWorkshops and interviews identify risk scenarios, governance challenges, and opportunities for multi‐hazard integration in urban policies [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work examines the flawed narrative linking ecological crises to overpopulation, with a focus on its impact on women in the Global South. The paper argues that this perspective enables control over women's bodies under the pretence of environmental concern, aligning with necropolitics and a new form of eugenics. It calls for a nuanced understanding of the effects of environmental crisis on women, advocating for a human‐centred approach that elevates the experiences and rights of historically marginalized groups. The discussion includes a critical analysis of the Malthusian discourse, highlighting alternative views on food scarcity and the problematic nature of family planning initiatives. The paper promotes reproductive environmental justice, challenging the overpopulation narrative and underscoring the need for equitable and respectful solutions that support the rights and well‐being of women in the Global South. This article critiques the narrative that blames overpopulation for environmental issues, showing how it disproportionately affects women in the Global South and often leads to violations of their reproductive rights. It argues for a shift from population control to reproductive environmental justice, which focuses on equitable and human‐centred approaches to environmental and reproductive health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to investigate how politically based trade union power can determine the fate of a regulatory body's organizational reform and undermine public accountability in a purportedly democratic developing country (DC). A large regulatory organization in Bangladesh was examined as a case study to uncover how political actors and power were embedded in a World Bank (WB)‐led organizational reform designed to contribute to public accountability and democracy. Interviews and media (newspaper) were utilized to identify the contestation of powers at macro‐ and micro‐levels. The explanation of reform implementation was informed by New Institutional Theory and its derived concept of institutional logics. Finding that political recruitment of the organization's senior executives made it susceptible to the pressures of political agents, the study reveals how politically supported union actions interrupted a WB‐led organizational reform that was seeking to secure democracy and public accountability. It finds that the pre‐existing institutional arrangements resurfaced over time as the political agents secured more power to restore past practices that adversely impacted public accountability. The lack (absence) of accountability in a so‐called democratic regime facilitated political interference with the regulatory governance and reforms that undermined organizational accountability to external stakeholders. The case‐study organization's institutional environment, agents, and interests were unique situational conditioners that nonetheless may be relevant to other similar public accountability organizations in DCs. The findings of the paper have important implications for policymakers who design, implement, and evaluate public accountability reforms in DCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments in the Global South have recently started to align their public procurement regulations considering Green Public Procurement (GPP) guidelines to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 12. In this context, it is important to establish environmental criteria to help decision making after analyzing the variety of options available in the market. Thus, using as examples two of the most acquired products in public procurement in Peru: Medium‐density particleboard melamine furniture and paper offset, the aim of this paper is to determine the main environmental hotspots and therefore show the path to foster GPP in Peru. To achieve this goal, a Life Cycle Assessment was carried out considering it is a suitable environmental management tool to quantify environmental impacts. For this, a set of scenarios were modeled and compared for each of the two products selected, covering different geographical and technological options that are currently purchased by the Peruvian government. Results demonstrated that it is possible to attain considerable reductions in the environmental impact of the products analyzed if the main critical stages throughout their life cycle are identified and adequate solutions are applied to avoid burden shifting. Moreover, we argue that it is important for developing countries to carry out case‐specific life‐cycle inventories as they provide higher‐quality information based on the particular characteristics of regional or local industries, allowing the determination of more realistic environmental impact mitigation benchmarks. Nevertheless, the inclusion of lifecycle‐based criteria in GPP must be performed cautiously, avoiding command and control regulations, as numerous challenges remain in terms of capacity building, environmental awareness, and environmental information, and transparency in emerging and developing economies. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2022;18:1206–1220. © 2021 SETAC Key Points: Latin American governments are currently aligning their public procurement regulations with Green Public Procurement (GPP) guidelines to comply with international environmental recommendations, such as Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) or nationally determined contributions (NDCs).Considering that these nations struggle to develop empirical data to support GPP initiatives, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is presented as an attractive environmental management tool to quantify environmental impacts and orient GPP regulations.Two of the most acquired public procurement products in Peru, melamine furniture and paper offset, were evaluated using LCA to identify environmental hotspots, the sensitivity of the results through scenario analysis, and improvement actions to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental impacts.Despite the existing challenges linked to building environmental information in Peru, case‐specific life‐cycle inventories for regional industries have proved to allow the determination of realistic environmental impact mitigation benchmarks to include in GPP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The adoption of improved technologies is generally associated with better economic performance and development. Despite its desirable effects, the process of technology adoption can be quite slow and market failures and other frictions may impede adoption. Interventions in market processes may be necessary to promote the adoption of beneficial technologies. This review systematically identifies and summarizes the evidence on the effects of interventions that shape the incentives of firms to adopt new technologies. Following Foster and Rosenzweig, technology is defined as "the relationship between inputs and outputs," and technology adoption as "the use of new mappings between input and outputs and the corresponding allocations of inputs that exploit the new mappings." The review focuses on studies that include direct evidence on technology adoption, broadly defined, as an outcome. The term intervention refers broadly to sources of exogenous variation that shape firms' incentives to adopt new technologies, including public policies, interventions carried out by private institutions (such as NGOs), experimental manipulations implemented by academic researchers trying to understand technology adoption, and natural experiments. Objective: The objective of this review is to answer the following research questions: 1.To what extent do interventions affect technology adoption in firms?2.To what extent does technology adoption affect profits, employment, productivity, and yields?3.Are these effects heterogeneous across sectors, firm size, countries, workers' skill level, or workers' gender? Selection Criteria: To be included, papers had to meet the inclusion criteria described in detail in Section 3.1 which is grouped into four categories: (1) Participants, (2) Interventions, (3) Methodology, and (4) Outcomes. Regarding participants, our focus was on firms, and we omitted studies at the country or region level. In terms of interventions, we included studies that analyzed a source of exogenous variation in incentives for firms to adopt new technologies and estimated their effects. Thus, we left out studies that only looked at correlates of technology adoption, without a credible strategy to establish causality, and only included studies that used experimental or quasi‐experimental methods. Regarding outcomes, papers were included only if they estimated effects of interventions (broadly defined) on technology adoption, although we also considered other firm outcomes as secondary outcomes in studies that reported them. Search Methods: The first step in selecting the studies to be included in the systematic review was to identify a set of candidate papers. This set included both published and unpublished studies. To look for candidate papers, we implemented an electronic search and, in a subsequent step, a manual search. The electronic search involved running a keyword search on the most commonly used databases for published and unpublished academic studies in the broad topic area. The words and their Boolean combinations were carefully chosen (more details in Section 3.2). The selected papers were initially screened on title and abstract. If papers passed this screen, they were screened on full text. Those studies that met the stated criteria were then selected for analysis. The manual search component involved asking for references from experts and searching references cited by papers selected through the electronic search. These additional papers were screened based on title and abstract and the remaining were screened on full text. If they met the criteria they were added to the list of selected studies. Data Collection and Analysis: For the selected studies, the relevant estimates of effects and their associated standard errors (SEs) were entered into an Excel spreadsheet along with other related information such as sample size, variable type, and duration for flow variables. Other information such as authors, year of publication, and country and/or region where the study was implemented was also included in the spreadsheet. Once the data were entered for each of the selected studies, the information on sample size, effect size and SE of the effect size was used to compute the standardized effect size for each study to make the results comparable across studies. For those studies for which relevant data were not reported, we contacted the authors by email and incorporated the information they provided. Forest plots were then generated and within‐study pooled average treatment effects were computed by outcome variable. In addition, an assessment of reporting on potential biases was conducted including (1) reporting on key aspects of selection bias and confounding, (2) reporting on spillovers of interventions to comparison groups, (3) reporting of SEs, and (4) reporting on Hawthorne effects and the collection of retrospective data. Results: The electronic and manual searches resulted in 42,462 candidate papers. Of these, 80 studies were ultimately selected for the review after screenings to apply the selection criteria. Relevant data were extracted for analysis from these 80 studies. Overall, 1108 regression coefficients across various interventions and outcomes were included in the analysis, representing a total of 4,762,755 firms. Even though the search methods included both high‐income and developing countries, only 1 of the 80 studies included in the analysis was in a high‐income country, while the remaining 79 were in developing countries. We discuss the results in two parts, looking at firms in manufacturing and services separately from firms (i.e., farms) in agriculture. In each case, we consider both technology adoption and other firm outcomes. Authors' Conclusions: Overall, our results suggest that some interventions led to positive impacts on technology adoption among firms across manufacturing, services, and agriculture sectors, but given the wide variation in the time periods, contexts, and study methodologies, the results are hard to generalize. The effects of these interventions on other firm performance measures such as farm yields, firm profits, productivity, and employment were mixed. Policy‐makers must be careful in interpreting these results as a given intervention may not work equally well across contexts and may need to be adjusted to each specific regional context. There is great need for more research on the barriers to technology adoption by firms in developing countries and interventions that may help alleviate these obstacles. One major implication for researchers from our review is that there is a need to carefully measure technology adoption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID‐19 pandemic motivated calls for the field of development studies to be recast. This article analyses two prominent, future‐gazing 'pandemic papers' to illustrate salient features of the ascendant trend towards a new 'global development' paradigm. By unpacking and interpreting major lines of reasoning put forward by two agenda‐setting articles, this contribution appraises how these texts make the case for the future of development studies. Through this analysis, the article questions the core arguments that seek to shift the contours of the discipline, and thus the study of development generally. In making their call to adopt a universalist or global development framework that includes a focus on Europe and North America, the authors of the 'pandemic papers' overlook the Southern origins of and justifications for the North‒South framework they seek to overturn. The present article acknowledges the importance of and supports returning to and advancing — rather than jettisoning — the intellectual lineage anchored in non‐Truman understandings of development, including as a popular project of Southern emancipation from colonial, imperial and structural subordination. Rather than de‐centring the global North‒South framework, it suggests that the analytically more useful way forward is for development studies to (re)centre the global South and use global South theories and lenses to better understand the world economy and the majority world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evacuation models represent one of the main tools used to assess building fire safety. Existing evacuation models are based on data from evacuation drills in western and developed countries, while there is a need for data from South Asian and developing countries (in general). This paper presents the results of an evacuation drill carried out in a library of a developing country in South Asia (Pakistan). The data of 85 student evacuees were recorded and analysed. Pre‐evacuation and walking speed data have been reported in this paper which are compared with the available data for library evacuations in other countries. The average pre‐evacuation time of 24.3 s (± standard deviation [SD] = 19.83 s) obtained in this study was shorter than previously published data for similar building types in other parts of the world. Furthermore, unimpeded horizontal speeds (mean = 0.74 m/s, SD = 0.28 m/s) were also smaller than the values reported in the available literature. Stair descending speeds (mean = 0.97 m/s, SD = 0.36 m/s) were within the ranges of stair movement data listed in previous studies. These findings represent a pioneering dataset for future building designs and evacuation simulations in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a critical overview of scholarship on the geographies of education. The article explores some of the key roots, linguistic traditions, and conceptual underpinnings of what has become a burgeoning and diverse area of scholarship. It emphasises the different subdisciplinary areas to which research on geographies of education has contributed, including work on social reproduction, the relationship between education spaces and their "outsides," the agency of learners, structural inequalities, learners' experiences, materialities, and mobilities. The paper concludes with some suggestions about future work on geographies of education, identifying key areas of potential in terms of connection: with scholarship on geography education; with research going on outside geography; with scholarship on education spaces less well‐represented thus far (such as Further Education); and with research on and from non‐Anglophone contexts and the Majority Global South. This paper provides an overview of scholarship on the geographies of education. It considers research from a number of geographical traditions, providing a wide‐ranging review of work on issues as diverse as identities, political ideals, materiality, inequality, mobility, and learners' experiences. The paper also explores potential avenues for future research on geographies of education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through an analysis of the available literature on women street vendors in the Global South, and then specifically in India, this paper identifies several knowledge gaps and future directions for research. The paper makes three broad claims: (1) street vending spaces are fundamentally gendered spaces; (2) the intersectional identities and caste‐based locations of women street vendors shape their spatial experiences, material realities and access to power; and (3) gender and caste are co‐constituted categories that produce a spatiality unique to the Indian subcontinent. While the geographical approach towards street vending recognises the importance of space and considers vendors as spatial practitioners, vendors are often assumed to belong to a homogenous (male) category with differentials such as gender, race, age, ethnicity and caste invisibilised. This research gap is of even more critical importance in India where caste intersects with gender to produce space. Examining the literature on gender and street vending reveals three broad analytical themes—socio‐spatial disparities, politics of space, and strategies of control. What seems to be missing is a critical, qualitative focus on the experiences of women street vendors, the gendering of vending spaces, the recognition of caste as a dynamic factor, and a spatial analysis grounded in the Southern urban context. Ultimately, this paper makes the case for a situated and postcolonial feminist geography approach to street vending in India, and calls for an intersectional research agenda that is attentive to the co‐constitution of caste and gender in the production of urban space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This reflective paper describes a relationship to mapping as a collective and southern practice. Using examples from the author's own involvement in collective map‐making practices based in New Delhi, the paper roots mapping in the context of southern urbanisms, taking examples of informal housing, work, and workplaces to debate the role of mapping vis‐à‐vis the desire for either more or less visibility. It then argues that mapping must reflect prevailing rationalities of governance and power, thinking about both why we make maps and who makes maps. Finally, it suggests that mapping as a process must extend from the making of a map to an active engagement in how it circulates and is read. The paper suggests the author's own experience with collective political formations as a possible institutional form that can hold such an approach to mapping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governmental responses to the COVID‐19 global pandemic have generated numerous constitutionals, policy, legal, and political‐economic debates. Scholarly engagements with the sociolegal and policy consequences of the COVID‐19 pandemic have been dominated by discussion on the role of emergency powers, the suspension of individual civil liberties, the suspension of economic rules in order to guarantee economic survival, and social regulation of public spaces and of workplaces. This paper aims to explore how a critical sociolegal scholarship can contribute to a more sophisticated understanding of the role of law in creating the unequal conditions that propitiated the COVID‐19 pandemic and that might enable further crises. This introduction offers a roadmap for theorizing the limits of law, the operationalization of emergency powers and the different policies implemented by global south and north countries in response to the pandemic. This introduction is structured as follow: (1) provides a general overview of the law and society tradition and its engagement with the COVID‐19 pandemic; (2) engages with three key consequences of the pandemic, labor, and the lockdown; colonial implications; and the limits of law; (3) introduces the papers in this special issue; (4) sketches a proposal for the critical sociolegal scholarship of law and crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The diffusion of independent regulatory agencies (IRAs) in utilities sectors in developing countries is underpinned by the idea that IRAs are highly effective institutional devices to signal policy credibility to private investors. But is it really so? Institutional economists tend to confirm the effectiveness of IRAs, while also highlighting the many factors that condition its positive impact on investments. Acknowledging the importance of interaction effects, this paper proposes to shift the level of analysis, moving away from IRAs to look at the overall complementarity between policy objectives, instruments, and the wider political context. In sum, it argues that IRAs are, as such, irrelevant. What matters instead is policy coherence. A comparison between two case studies on electricity policy reforms in Algeria and Morocco lends credit to the policy coherence approach. It shows that policy incoherence may deprive IRAs from any impact on sectoral evolution and that there are effective alternatives to IRA to signal policy credibility and attract investors. The paper concludes by suggesting practitioners to relax the focus on preconceived policy solutions, to be open to alternative policy approaches and to focus on helping developing countries designing coherent policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the literature on capital flight by investigating the relationship between kidnapping rate and capital flight in developing countries. Numerous empirical studies exist on the determinants of capital flight but, surprisingly, none of them have investigated the empirical link between kidnapping and capital flight. To fill this existing void in the literature, this paper utilised a sample of 67 developing countries for the period 2003–2017. Estimates of the GMM technique show that kidnapping rate has a positive and significant impact on capital flight. However, estimations of the marginal differences show that this significant effect remained consistent only in the sample of 'fragile' developing countries. The results remained consistent to alternative measures of capital flight. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper delineates the characteristics of an emerging Southern multilateralism to argue against pessimistic narratives of anarchy and disorder as well as optimistic narratives that celebrate the resilience of the Liberal International Order (LIO). It does this by staging a conversation between a top‐down International Relations literature that explores the contours of global order and a bottom‐up international development literature that investigates the changing role of the Global South in world politics. By highlighting the continuities and discontinuities of Southern multilateralism with it, the paper illustrates the ways in which Southern Multilateralism both challenges the LIO and supports it. The perspective of Southern Multilateralism suggests that countries in the Global South insist on sharing global responsibility with prevailing institutions of liberal multilateralism, neither seeking to overthrow it nor to be co‐opted within it. A subsidiary argument of the paper is that Southern Multilateralism is not homogenous: To that end, it attends to the richness of Southern Multilateralism by directing attention to variations within it. In line with the theme of the Special Issue, this paper focuses on two cases that involve India's presence on the African continent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change has impacted the world as we know it and will continue to do so unless radical steps are taken. These steps involve complex ethical decisions that will need to be made by leaders worldwide. This systematic literature review on the ethics of climate change from 1992 to 2020 reveals three key areas of research: the ethics of who bears the cost of climate change, market solutions, and geoengineering and non‐market solutions. Emerging research areas relate to the ethics of population, displacement and resettlement, and leadership. This paper reveals an intrinsic relationship between ethics and climate change that extends beyond a purely economic and emissions‐based perspective. An ethical perspective must be utilised to ensure that any amelioration efforts are equitable and consider those at the margins, including those in developing nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fifth‐generation (5G) technology is seen to be a solution for developing countries to improve their quality of services in terms of transportation, education, health, agriculture, and other fields, thereby holding the promises of economic transformation by improving productivity and the quality of life. The paper considers some of the challenges that face operators, investors, and providers when planning to introduce 5G technology to developing countries. The main focus of this paper is the 5G transport network, in particular, the backhaul network. The 5G transport network architectural options and scenarios are discussed based on several standards and previous studies, the problems of existing infrastructures of developing countries are investigated, and new proposed technologies that may help to address those challenges are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Faith‐based and non‐faith‐based non‐governmental organisations (NGOs) are significant service providers in the developing world, yet limited research has compared these organisations, especially in the context of Southeast Asia. This paper explores a theoretical concept related to why religious faith may distinguish Christian faith‐based organisations (FBOs) from non‐faith‐based NGOs. Qualitative data were analysed from 41 interviews across 13 Christian FBOs and 12 non‐faith‐based NGOs working with women and children in Cambodia who have been (or were at risk of being) sexually exploited, trafficked or involved in sex work. Faith was found to distinguish FBOs from non‐faith‐based NGOs in all four of the dimensions comparatively examined in the study: (1) goals and missions, (2) motivations, (3) approaches to care and (4) conceptions of success. It is argued that the contrasts between these two types of organisations, in terms of faith, are related to the combination of both the infusion of faith in FBOs and factors related to the development context in which these organisations worked, a theoretical concept posited as Context‐Infusion Convergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has become a recent rising power in global development cooperation in the past few years. This paper examines how the Global North, as represented by Japan, responds to the rising of the Global South, as represented by China, in infrastructure support. This paper positions itself in the context of Global‐North/South and triangular cooperation to compare Japan's Partnership for Quality Infrastructure with China's Belt and Road Initiative from the dimensions of policy rhetoric, finance mechanism, environmental sustainability and rule of law. This paper draws the conclusion on whether the North–South competition enhances the quality and sustainability of those initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I focus on the substantial research funding cuts announced by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) in March 2021 to examine the process of funding for and participation in global research projects for researchers based in Southern institutions. I focus here on three key aspects of participating in global research projects: first, the structures through which these grants are created—the programmatic frameworks or other imperatives that confine and limit this work to Northern/Western‐centric frames; secondly, the precarity of these grants and the work that they generate; and, thirdly, the increasingly output‐related and time‐bound nature of work in light of limited support. I argue that the effects of these are felt disproportionately by those located in the global South and are therefore worth considering as part of larger debates centred on democratizing and decolonizing knowledge networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes to establish Maximum Sustainable Employment (MSE) as a new guiding light, or beacon, for wild fisheries governance. This new social beacon complements the directives provided by the prevailing beacons: Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) and Maximum Economic Yield (MEY). The argument is that context matters: in countries where poverty levels are high and alternative employment is scarce, fisheries governors cannot limit themselves to a sectoral perspective. Instead, they must include the remunerative employment and 'decent work' that wild fisheries offer society in their strategic deliberations. This perspective is especially relevant for countries in the Global South, but it also has a bearing on the Global North. After discussing the history of scientific fisheries management and the relevance of employment in fisheries, the paper considers the arguments made against MSE. It concludes with a reflection on the balancing of the three beacons in line with prevailing circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the diverse Lagos international school sector as an arena in which Nigerian families are attempting to (re)produce status and good lives that work transnationally. 'Elite' international schools focus on securing entry into Anglo‐American universities and distinguish themselves via discourses of 'modern Britishness', yet also emphasize the special value of schooling in Nigeria and seek to reproduce circulatory lives. There is also a competitive landscape of 'mid‐range' international schools that do not simply serve 'aspirant locals' but have broad international horizons and are central to transnational family strategies. Lagos schools across the spectrum receive students 'sent' from the diaspora, demonstrating they are valued stations in the transnational social field to protect as well as accumulate. The paper contributes to understanding international schools in the 'global South' not simply as a backstage to Anglo‐American centres but as offering unique resources for families navigating hierarchies at home and abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introduction to a special section brings together three papers first presented at a panel, 'Medical Professions in South Asia: Historical and Contemporary Analyses', at the 26th European Conference on South Asian Studies, held in Vienna, Austria and online, in July 2021. All three papers deal with aspects of the professionalisation of biomedical doctors in India since its independence in 1947. The authors bring together historical and sociological approaches to illuminate the growth of specialisms, patterns of practitioner–patient interactions and efforts to maintain occupational closure and maintain status in the face of growing challenges. The introduction concludes with a discussion of the relevance of these papers for the sociology of health and illness in India and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When attempting to manage a large social system, it is necessary to have an overview of how the society functions and how economic theories describe this functioning. Recent discussions of higher orders of cybernetics are helping to define a multi‐disciplinary, multi‐level point of view. Knowledge from several disciplines is needed—systems science, management, engineering, cognitive studies and the various social science disciplines all have contributions to make. In this paper, we apply cybernetic ideas to further develop economic theories. The paper also uses economics to illustrate ideas in cybernetics. Similar thinking can be applied to other disciplines thus advancing the unification of science. The paper illustrates a transdisciplinary approach to knowledge development. The implications of the paper are improved understanding among scholars from several disciplines. The intent is to expand the range of conceptual possibilities available for problem‐solving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soft tissue reconstruction plays an integral part in orthopaedic surgery. For developing country like Bhutan, where no micro‐surgical or plastic surgeons are available, orthopaedic surgeons perform the local or regional flaps for the soft tissue defects. In this paper, we describe the use of different kinds of local and regional flaps and its outcome at Eastern Regional Referral Hospital, Bhutan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Promoted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in particular, fiscal austerity measures have been extensively implemented across the world in the last decade as a policy prescription to address the impacts of economic shocks. Consequently, the implementation of austerity has engendered a vast body of austerity impact assessment literature in the Global North, in particular. Although austerity measures have been equally implemented (and longer) in Global South contexts, the same level of intellectual curiosity has not been dedicated to understanding the human and social costs of austerity in the Global South. To help fill this gap, this paper examines the implications of fiscal austerity for the delivery of two complementary programmes linked to Ghana's conditional cash transfer (CCT) — the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme. The paper adopts a qualitative design where semi‐structured interviews are conducted with (a) two LEAP officers, (b) two headteachers and (c) 35 LEAP beneficiaries in northern Ghana. The findings show that within the current context of fiscal austerity, mainly mediated through the government's commitment to "cut expenditures to the bone", the two complementary services have been unfunded and thus do not exist in practice. The non‐existence of complementary services has dire consequences for children's education as well as undermines Ghana's poverty reduction attempts through the implementation of the LEAP programme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The HIV/AIDS pandemic is a global issue that has unequally affected several countries. Due to the complexity of this condition and the human drama it represents to those most affected by it, several fields have contributed to solving or at least alleviating this situation, and the information systems (IS) field has not been absent from these efforts. With the importance of antiretroviral therapy (ART) as a starting point, several initiatives in the IS field have focused on ways to improve the adherence and effectiveness of this therapy: mobile phone reminders (for pill intake and appointments), and mobile interfaces between patients and health workers are popular contributions. However, many of these solutions have been difficult to implement or deploy in some countries in the Global South, which are among the most affected by this pandemic. This paper presents one such case. Using a case‐study approach with an extreme‐case selection technique, the paper studies an m‐health system for HIV patients in the Kalangala region of Uganda. Using Heeks' design—reality gap model for data analysis, the paper shows that the rich interaction between social context and technology should be considered a central concern when designing or deploying such systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Riparian communities in developing countries such as Bangladesh, whose livelihoods depend especially on fisheries and other subsistence activities, are under considerable pressure due to climate change. Therefore, there is a need to better understand how the dynamics of riparian communities are influenced by climate change and how its impacts can be assessed. Using Bangladesh as an example, this paper describes the various climate stressors affecting riparian communities and their socio‐economic impacts, and it outlines some measures needed to increase their resilience to a changing climate. The results show that riparian communities are not only quite vulnerable to the impacts of climate change but also have a rather low level of resilience. This challenge can, at least in part, be attributed to their fragile living conditions, which intensify the socio‐economic impacts of extreme events. One lesson from the paper is that handling climate‐induced risks in riparian communities requires implementing strategic measures to improve local climate and livelihood resilience, such as effective public health infrastructure and a resilient built environment. Win‐win scenarios comprise strategies that offer multiple benefits including better water storage, flood control, and improved riparian habitats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking an embodied approach, this paper conducts ethnographic research on foreign scholars working at Sino-foreign universities. First, it examines both bodily comfort and dissonance they encounter while living in China. Second, it investigates how some scholars deploy bodily strategies at everyday and transnational level to overcome bodily discomfort and reframe lived experiences. As such, the paper demonstrates that embodiments, especially in the context of migration, are always, and necessarily, situated, multiple and ever-changing, as they are structurally positioned, agentively reconstructed and temporally/spatially distributed. Critically, with a focus on the newly emerged academic mobility pattern moving from the Global North to the South, this paper brings a bodily sensitive theoretical framework into academic migration studies, unpacking the interacting dynamics between places, migrant bodies, agency and subjectivities. It thus expands the analytic utility of the approach of bodies/embodiments and further facilitates the body turn in migration studies in new theoretical and empirical directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Food security is a critical concern for emerging nations, where agriculture is a vital source of livelihood for a significant proportion of the population. However, ineffective food grain storage management (FGSM) poses a substantial threat to food security, resulting in significant post‐harvest loss (PHL). This research aims to identify and analyse the challenges to sustainable FGSM in emerging nations, with a specific focus on India using Total Interpretive Structural Modelling (TISM) and Matrice d'Impacts Croisés Multiplication Appliquée á un Classement (MICMAC) analysis. The study identifies 15 critical challenges after doing a thorough literature review, consulting with industry experts, and a dedicated questionnaire survey. The study finds that inadequate government policies and a lack of commitment from the top management are the major challenges to sustainable FGSM. The combination of the qualitative and quantitative model provides a comprehensive understanding of the identified factors and their interrelationships, offering a logical framework to support decision‐making and encourage sustainability. This paper contributes to the broader debate on sustainable food production and consumption by highlighting the importance of sustainable FGSM in emerging nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industrialized economies in the EU depend heavily on imports of minerals. The extraction and parts of the transport and processing of these minerals take place in the Global South and often bear high human rights and environmental risks. A lack of traceability in mineral supply chains makes it particularly difficult to hold companies accountable for negative environmental and social impacts of their operations and those of their suppliers. This paper analyses three mineral supply chains (copper, platinum, and gold) in order to develop propositions about how supply chain‐specific characteristics affect traceability and foreign corporate accountability (FCA) in mineral supply chains. The analytical framework focuses on three dimensions: geopolitical dynamics, industry characteristics, and private governance mechanisms. The authors argue that chain‐specific characteristics may foster or thwart traceability and FCA in mineral supply chains and thus provides a novel contribution to the debate on traceability and accountability in mineral supply chains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the direct and indirect trade volume and trade cost effects of uncertainty on international trade and economic welfare using a structural gravity framework for a panel of 97 developed and developing countries from 2000 to 2018. We find that the sign and magnitude of the effect depend on whether uncertainty originates from the importing or exporting country. Moreover, applying a cross‐sectional gravity model, we show that an uncertainty shock directly reduces cross‐border trade flows. The paper illustrates the suitability of the proposed modelling approach by means of two counterfactual scenario analyses in which we calculate the general equilibrium trade and welfare effects of uncertainty induced by the unexpected outcome of the Brexit referendum in 2016 and the outbreak of the COVID‐19 pandemic in 2020. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Informed consent to medical intervention is fundamental in both ethics and law. But in practice it is often not taken seriously in developing countries. This paper provides an appraisal of informed consent practices in Bangladesh. Following a review of the ethical and legal principles of informed consent, it assesses the degree to which doctors adhere to it in Bangladesh. Based on findings of non‐compliance, it then investigates the reasons for such non‐compliance through an appraisal of informed consent practices in Bangladesh and provides recommendations aimed at improving such practices. The significance of this paper lies in unveiling the interdependence between the ethical and legal traits of informed consent and their ramifications on strengthening the patient‐oriented approach of duty to care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of its strategy to win African votes for election to the UN Security Council (2008–12), Canberra sought to leverage its soft power potential by presenting Australia as having "no colonial baggage" in Africa while framing Australia as "a country from the Global North, located in the Global South," and one that would "work with other small and middle powers." Ultimately, the campaign was successful, including up to 50 of Africa's 54 countries voting for Australia. This paper considers this framing in the context of a shared but differentiated colonial history, including its contradictions, given that Australians fought several wars on African soil on behalf of the British Empire, supported white minority regimes and anti‐communist movements on the continent, and maintained the white Australia policy until the 1970s. The paper deploys decoloniality theory to engage Australia's lack of a neat fit within a historicised articulation of a "coloniser‐colonised" relationship between Europe and Africa. We show that, despite this lack of fit, Australia's relations with the countries of Africa reinforce long‐standing of patterns of knowledge, power, and being associated with colonialism. Accordingly, the paper makes three recommendations for cooperation and innovative thinking in foreign policy and diaspora diplomacy between Africa and a more independent and multicultural Australia based on the "equality of being." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Process innovation has been shown to influence positively firms' productivity. This has led to a fruitful literature on its determinants. However, in the context of developing countries, the potential role of firms' formal versus informal status as a determinant has been overlooked. The objective of this paper is to fill this gap in the literature by analyzing the effect of firms' formal versus informal status on the introduction of process innovation using data from Côte d'Ivoire. Econometric estimations show that formality status positively influences the introduction of process innovation. This result remains unchanged when the industrial, services, and trade sectors are considered separately. Policy implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analysis of public debt determinants is well documented in the literature. However, previous studies give more focus to the economic determinants neglecting the role played by socio‐political factors. The purpose of this study is to fill that gap observed in the literature by investigating the impact of socio‐political factors on CEMAC countries' public debt accumulation in a bivariate relationship. The paper employs the OLS and GLS as baseline models using panel data covering the period from 1980 to 2021. The study uses as alternative techniques the FE, FE‐IV, and the GMM for robustness checks. The empirical findings highlight the system (both presidential and legislative), corruption, Electoral openness and Competitiveness for legislative election (Liec), and fraud as the main driving factors of public debt in CEMAC countries. This paper suggests further studies to give a particular interest to socio‐political factors while investigating the determinants of public debt in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several studies have pointed out that manufacturing wages are relatively higher in African countries than in other countries at similar levels of development, and that this contributes to the continent's lower levels of manufacturing competitiveness. This paper derives unit labor costs (ULCs)—average wages relative to productivity—for two‐digit manufacturing sectors across a sample of 79 developed and developing countries, including 13 African countries, over the 1990–2015 period. We benchmark the ULCs to China and estimate the relationship between relative ULCs and manufacturing sector investment rates and export performance. We find that relative ULCs have a smaller association with exports in Africa relative to other developing regions. There is some evidence that investment responds to changes in relative ULCs in Africa; however, the estimated effects are smaller than in the full sample. Further, we find that for Africa, the level of labor productivity has a quantitatively stronger and more robust association with manufacturing performance than the level of real wages. The results have important implications for industrial policy in African countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper argues that the dynamics of trade induced income convergence depend on the nature of bilateral trade between nations. To justify this argument, the paper presents a comprehensive approach that explicitly accounts for trade among OECD countries (north–north trade), trade between OECD and SSA countries (north–south trade) and trade among SSA countries (south–south trade). The approach also allows for the identification of the direct and indirect effects of bilateral trade on income convergence. The results show that bilateral trade among OECD countries accelerates income convergence both directly and indirectly. This result appears to be consistent with the new trade theories by Krugman, Journal of International Economics, 1979, 9, 469–479; Krugman, American Economic Review, 1980, 70, 950–959. and the intuitions of Heckscher, The effect of foreign trade on the distribution of income 1919, 1950, 1–32 and Ohlin, Interregional and international trade, 1933. The trade‐convergence relationship for OECD to SSA trade is the strongest both directly and indirectly. This is the empirical evidence that the nature of this bilateral trade, promotes one directional knowledge spillover from developed to developing countries, which enables developing countries to adopt new technologies and grow faster than their rich counterparts. However, bilateral trade among SSA countries does not have any significant effect on income convergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between financial development and energy consumption is the most frequently research subject in economy and finance. The main objective of conducting this paper is to answer does financial development have an impact on renewable energy in developed countries? Many papers performed in energy literature, the findings were pointing to the existence of this kind of relationship. In order to examine the relationship between financial development and renewable energy consumption, a total of 23 developed countries, benefited from annual frequency data between 1990 and 2015. In addition to the widely used system generalized method of moments estimation method, models are also estimated with modern estimators using the cross-sectionally augmented autoregressive distributed lag. As a result of the analysis performed indicates that there is a strong relationship between financial development and renewable energy consumption in developed countries when financial development is measured using banking variables. Otherwise, the estimated coefficients on stock market variables are negative and none of them found statistically significant in all models. These findings are consistent for both estimators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The LDCs, which are not only highly vulnerable and least prepared to face climate‐related challenges but also resource‐strapped, can leverage AFT to mobilize climate finance. This, however, requires better appreciation of the need to enhance coordination, build capacity and achieve synergies between two important sources of development finance. Since this is an under researched area, this paper has made the attempt to fill the void by exploring, with the help of examples and where possible, various possibilities that exist. While indirect support for feasibility studies and project preparation can contribute to the foundational work in leveraging climate finance, direct support such as co‐financing, developing proof of concept or de‐risking projects to attract private investment, including through blended financing modality, is important to unlock the financing potential. At the same time, there is a need to maintain the right balance between mitigation and adaption when it comes to climate finance. One major limitation of the paper is that, in the interest of brevity, it narrowly focuses on select modalities and instruments such as development finance and private investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the politics surrounding the implementation of Pakistan's first mass transit project, the Lahore Bus Rapid Transit corridor completed in 2013, to interrogate the role that infrastructure mega‐projects hold in highly factional and democratising polities of the global South. Drawing on the Lahore BRT as a case study, this paper posits that infrastructure development is increasingly interwoven with conceptions of political legitimacy and "modernising" governance, especially under conditions of nascent democratic competition. We argue that democratisation‐led transformations in the political‐institutional context of state power has helped fashion new roles for mega‐projects, which partly explains why state power is mobilised for projects that had been ignored for several decades. Finally, this paper cautions that this new role for infrastructure, while marking a departure from previous patterns, can simultaneously constrain the possibilities for sustainable interventions going forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land registration is a process of keeping track of landowners of existing land. Registration of land helps maintain proof of ownership and prevents illegal land possession. Land‐related conflicts are common in developing countries like India due to inconsistent data and transparency. The land ownership transfers also take a longer time than expected. This article presents a land registry system using blockchain and InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) technology to overcome the mentioned problems. The land records will be immutable using blockchain, and nobody will forge them illegally. The system will be more transparent as all the users in the blockchain network can view the land and the owner's details before getting into ownership transfer. For maintaining the integrity of land and owner details, it will get stored in IPFS. The land transaction will be carried out via a smart contract. The smart contract checks whether all the entities agree with the transaction, and the money will get transferred within the described time limit. This proposed system will strengthen the land administration process by providing immutable and transparent land records. It will also speed up the registration process by a significant amount. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]