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This paper analyses the degree of political decentralisation and its relation to the local councils in Tanzania. It explores the institutional and political set-up of the local councils originating from the degree of political decentralisation and how it influences the tension between the bureaucrats and local politicians.

Qualitative approach by a comparative case study is adopted to investigate the phenomenon in two local governments in Tanzania. The data were collected through interviews with 37 senior local government officials and eight focus group discussions with 48 administrators and councillors.

The findings indicate that the two local governments are subjected to a similar political system guided by similar rules and guidelines from the central government bureaucracy for implementing the party manifesto and central government priorities. Thus, the local politicians have little room for negotiation in adopting local agenda to reflect the preferences of the local community. Any attempt to challenge this status quo creates political tensions between bureaucrats and the administrators.

The findings provide invaluable insights to different stakeholders such as political scientists, government officials, and policymakers with interests in research or practice of political decentralization and political-administrative relation.

The role of local authorities is crucial in addressing the essential needs of communities, and they possess the right to impose property taxes on all properties within their territory. Property taxes are levied on all properties, contributing to approximately 60% of the local authority’s finances. However, their role in this policy is not frequently understood, primarily in executing property tax reassessment. Hence, this paper aims to reveal property tax reassessment implementation and identify its key challenges.

The latest tone of the list record was extracted from the local government division, Ministry of Housing and Local Government Malaysia, to answer the research objective. The data were received on November 2021 by email. Furthermore, through the literature review, the most significant challenges in property tax reassessment were identified, compared and presented.

The results highlight that property tax reassessment implementation in West Malaysia is at the level of concern where only two councils have the latest tone of the list. However, larger councils have a higher performance compared to smaller councils. The findings also reveal various challenges in property tax reassessment, such as insufficient human resources, inadequate property systems and software and lack of financial capacity. Others include a shortage of competent assessors, lower public education, political interference and socioeconomic uncertainty.

This study offers practical implications to policy and decision-makers in the West Malaysian local authorities. Despite inferior performance by West Malaysian local authorities, there is a need for conducting property tax reassessment activity to ensure the quality and uniformity of the assessment. This study suggests that local government stakeholders and managers should devote more attention to formulating long-term plans and promoting the property tax reassessment practice. The property tax reform could solve the current situation of substandard reassessment activity.

This study explains, compares and interprets the actual statistical data through the figures and summarises the challenges of property tax reassessment activity among local authorities.

It is well known that culture is a catalyst for change, helping economies respond to societal problems and demands and that culture is where people turn to in moments of crisis. In this case study around designing and implementing evaluation methodologies/frameworks for Coventry UK City of Culture 2021, it is suggested that in English public policy and within publicly invested arts there is a maturation of thinking around recognising/measuring the public value of culture including its social value. The purpose of this paper is to chart the recent policy of justifying cultural expenditure with social value claims and highlight challenges for evaluating activity within Coventry UK CoC 2021 as a change in wider policy is taking place.

This paper provides creative insights into the design and implementation of the evaluation methodologies/frameworks for Coventry UK City of Culture 2021. The authors of this paper as the collective team undertaking the evaluation of Coventry's year as UK City of Culture 2021 bring first-hand experiences of challenges faced and the need for a cultural mega-event to evidence its value.

The case study aims to address the concepts of measuring value within cultural events and argues that a paradigm shift is occurring in methods and concepts for evidencing the aforementioned value.

The case study within this paper focuses on the build-up period to the UK City of Culture 2021 year and the thinking and logic behind the creation of the evaluation/measurement framework and therefore does not include findings from the actual cultural year.

It is acknowledged that there are papers examining measuring and evidencing the “value” of cultural mega-events, the authors bring real-life first-hand experience of the concepts being utilised by them on the ground in the delivery and evaluation design of Coventry, UK City of Culture 2021.

Socioeconomic aims and impacts are an explicit part of the UK City of Culture (UKCoC) application, bidding, delivery and evaluation stages. This article engages with existing debates on evaluating cities of culture and introduces perspectives from critical data studies to examine the collection and analysis of different data for the purposes of the CoC application and evaluation processes.

The meta-methodological concept of accompanying researcher is used to analyse the experiences of researchers based within a city bidding for UKCoC 2025 in dialogue with the evaluation reports from past UKCoC host cities.

Findings are analysed under three themes: defining data morsels; local histories and infrastructures of data generation and sharing; and resources, capacities and expertise for data generation and evaluation. The discussion examines data still to be generated and/or brought into relation; tensions around data and measurement; and how constructing an evaluation baseline is generative—creating new organisations, relationships and practices.

The conceptual and methodological approach and empirical findings will be relevant for academic, policymakers and practitioners engaging with cultural evaluation.

In focussing on the bidding stage in real time through the accompanying researcher position, this article presents original empirical insights into the process of creating a baseline for cities of culture evaluation. The conceptual originality of this article is in using critical data studies to explain strategies of data generation and analyse data relations and frictions.

An increasing demand of agricultural intensification and value addition necessitates the use of improved inputs such as improved seed. Smallholder farmers contribute about 70% of agricultural production in Tanzania. Agriculture sector in Tanzania contributes about 24.1% of the GDP, 30% of exports and 65% of industrial raw materials. Thus, agriculture development, economic growth and industrialization are inseparable. Due to the nature of the product, smallholder farmers cannot judge the overall excellence of seed at the time of buying. This paper assessed quality uncertainty in maize and vegetable seed and its implication for market exchange between farmers and seed sellers in Kilolo district, Iringa Tanzania. The study used a random sample of 130 smallholder farmers and representatives from ten seed companies. Asymmetric information prevails between the two trading sides, i.e. sellers and buyers, leading into quality uncertainty. Moreover, product augmentation is profoundly overlooked whereby most of seed companies have not augmented their products. Because an improved seed is a quintessential example of an experience good, quality uncertainty of some crop varieties under field conditions favored some seed brands to be used more by farmers compared to others. This paper offers a thorough deduction on quality uncertainty under farmers' field condition and its implication on market exchange. It adds information in the body of knowledge on how an improved seed can contribute to sustainable production of food and industrial raw materials, which is a step towards desired industrialization agenda in Tanzania.

Farmers in rural areas are generally not well empowered with knowledge and innovations to solve their agricultural problems in spite of the growing presence of such knowledge resulting from research and innovation activities across the globe. This study aims to document approaches, impact and impediments of using village knowledge centers (VKCs) to transfer agricultural knowledge and innovations.

To achieve the objective of the study, a case study research design was used to investigate the impact of a selected VKC as institutional innovation in agricultural technology outreach and extension in rural Tanzania. Primary data was collected through semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions and observation methods. Besides, secondary sources such as reports were used to complement primary data during fieldwork.

The study reveals that various approaches are used by the VKC to transfer knowledge and innovation to farmers. The use of the multi-actor platform (MAP) to run the VKC ensures inclusive knowledge production and sharing among different actors. The findings also suggest that knowledge and innovation co-creation is constructed with various knowledge systems actors to enhance the use of research generated. Accordingly, the findings show that the university efforts are an important catalyst for integrated knowledge, technology and innovation systems in rural settings.

The present study reveals different limitations associated with the use of a single case study design. The single-case design provided researchers with little basis for generalisation of the study findings and conclusions. Aside from that, the use of a cross-sectional design did not help the researchers to validate the findings and conclusions. To address these limitations, the study recommends similar studies that will adopt different types of longitudinal design such as cohort and diary methods. Apart from this, a future study to investigate the tangible impact of VKC on knowledge and innovation transfer is recommended.

Considering the novelty of the MAP approach in Tanzania and the dearth of studies reporting on how the village knowledge center works and how effective it is, the present study provides insights on the approaches, impact and impediments.

The purpose of this study is to explore multiple stakeholders managing the different type of knowledge in a flood-prone area. Different stakeholders hold different types of knowledge in their area of interest, and both knowledge streams have their intrinsic potentials and limitations. In this paper, the issue of knowledge complementarity is explored in the context of flood hazards. Hazards such as floods may appear messy, unpredictable, with unsorted and unorganised forms of data, information and knowledge on the part of diverse stakeholders.

Case study design had been used in this study to explore how stakeholders: Orang Asli, Malay, and humanitarian organisations manage the differences in terms of type of knowledge each of them have. To illicit the response from participants from each of the stakeholders, in-depth interviews had been used.

This research has led to the development of a conceptual framework based on the case study. The lessons learned from the framework is discussed, together with the barriers to their implementation.

This paper presents a research case study on multiple stakeholders in the district of Pekan, the state of Pahang, Malaysia, and how these multiple stakeholders manage flood hazards with their different types of knowledge.

This study aims to examine the effectiveness of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE)-based English textbooks and question papers in developing second-language higher-order thinking skills (HOTS).

Descriptive analysis establishes a causal relationship between learning objectives and second language (L2) writing proficiency. Content analysis is used to compare and analyze tabulated data for textbooks and question papers for the English language by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and CBSE. This method categorizes the materials and their assessments under HOTS and lower-order thinking skills to ascertain the relationship between learning objectives and L2 writing proficiency.

The study highlights teaching material and assessment shortcomings and their alignment with learning outcomes to enhance students' writing skills. It underscores the need for HOTS-focused materials, discussing their impact on writing skills. The study also explores how textbook–question paper mismatch hampers Bloom's taxonomy-based cognitive skills.

This research illuminates the efficacy of teaching and learning English as a second language (ESL) writing skills to improve the quality of education, which has real-world implications. The study highlights flaws in the educational system in India and suggests curricular and pedagogical changes.

The research examines NCERT and CBSE ESL textbooks and question papers to align teaching and assessment methods. The results aim to improve education through ESL writers' HOTS.

This study aims to investigate Australian civil tribunal decisions to ascertain compliance with decisional quality standards in Australian law, with a particular focus on strata and community title cases.

An orthodox doctrinal legal analysis and assessment of cases and tribunal policies was adopted. All Australian jurisdictions were surveyed, including federal, state and territory jurisdictions. The case law in each jurisdiction was screened to identify whether the principles applicable to decisional quality were engaged and then analysed as to the extent of that engagement.

Where a party presents a substantial, clearly particularised argument relying upon established facts, tribunals are obliged to address those facts and the arguments by way of an active intellectual process. However, appellate decisions disclose a degree of deference not often accorded to judicial officers, and there is a need for a more disciplined approach to ascertain whether any errors have been made by a tribunal lie on the critical path to the decision. As strata and community title disputes become more complex, the importance of decisional quality standards can only increase.

Up to date as of 1 March 2023.

The present position would appear to be that where a party presents a substantial, clearly particularised argument relying upon established facts, a tribunal must address its mind to those facts and the arguments by way of an active intellectual process. The requirement is limited to circumstances prescribed by a statute and factual and legal issues which are necessary to be determined in order for the tribunal to be satisfied as to circumstances prescribed by a statute. However, where the errors are not gross and plainly obvious, appeals from defective tribunal decisions are unlikely to succeed. There is a degree of deference not often accorded to judicial officers. That deference is unfortunate when tribunals are allocated jurisdiction over what quite often are significant property disputes.

The impact on community living of uncorrected poor quality tribunal decisions can be immense, depending on the degree of error. For example, water ingress into people’s homes might remain unremedied for many years, as, for example, occurred in the Marinko case.

The research and analysis is entirely original. A search of journals and textbooks did not identify any prior analysis, at least in the Australian context, relating to decisional quality standards of tribunals.

Compared to younger and older generation migrants, middle-aged migrants in the diaspora seem to be more conflicted regarding their belonging. This paper aims to explore how middle-aged migrants in the diaspora define themselves in space and time.

The paper is based on ethnographic fieldwork done among Malawian migrants (herein referred to as Lydiatians) settled at Lydiate informal settlement in peri-urban Zimbabwe.

The paper reveals that, while younger migrants have a “radical transnational stance”, and older migrants regard their place of settlement as their final home, middle-aged migrants prefer to maintain a “strategic dual sense of place” regarding their place of settlement in the diaspora. These middle-aged migrants can be entrepreneurs considering their current settlement as a strategic place for petty commodity trading or those who find informal settlements to provide needed opportunities for cheap housing as the migrants pursue work in the nearby towns.

The paper offers a deeper understanding of how middle-aged migrants navigate their sense of place and contribute to host nations by functioning as key resources, dynamizing local economies through entrepreneurial activities and labour provision for various industries. The implications of this research should encourage states to positively interact with migrants, leveraging their potential for societal and economic development.

The finding that migrants in the diaspora have a dual, strategic view of their settlements is fascinating, if not new. Before this, scholars presented migrants as transnational figures, successively moving to a better place, which finally becomes home. However, the data presented in this paper suggests that this characterization associating migrants with maintaining a “stable, sedentary, bounded and fixed perception of home” is oversimplified. This is because migrants can sometimes continue to cherish the idea of informal settlements in the diaspora as home, just as the migrants also entertain the nearby established towns as useful places in their life.