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Since enacting Act 8630/93, Brazilian port activities have been going through significant modifications, changing from the public port service management to the landlord model. Act 12815/2013 enforced a new regulatory framework increasing Port Authorities' dependence on the Federal Government. Since 2019, the Government has attempted to elaborate a Port Authorities' identity based on the private port governance model inspired by the Australian and United Kingdom ones. This paper assesses Brazilian's Port Authorities management models from 1993 to 2020 and considers the Australian, the United Kingdom and Antwerp port governance models as benchmarks.

This paper adopts a two-step methodological approach, namely a combined desk and field research methodological approach and considers three essential resources: government legislative acts and published data available online; ports' data and information issued by governments' agencies, academic papers and national and international ports' websites; and a semi-structured questionnaire survey targeting the leading associations representing port users, foreign trade and stevedoring companies.

The outcome shows that the solutions to overcome the existing Brazilian Port Authority governance problems remain in the Federal Government's hands by (1) removing its control through bureaucracy, (2) preventing the party-political influence following in the public ports and (3) decentralising port management by chief executive officers named by Port Authority Councils.

This paper does not explore the regulatory frameworks underlying the “Lease Terminal” and “Private User Terminal”.

This paper assesses the management models that led Brazilian's Port Authorities from 1993 to 2020, comparing them with the UK and Australian private service port and Antwerp landlord model.

The purpose of this paper is to explore stakeholder views on the policy of integrated health and social care for older people with complex needs in Sweden and the issue of trust in implementing the policy.

The study used a qualitative interview design and interviews with nine strategically selected stakeholders. A thematic analysis focused on trust, as defined in the theory of collaborative advantage, was used.

This study of health and social care exposed a lack of trust on political, strategic and inter-professional levels. Two opposing lines of argument were identified in the interviews. One advocated a single government authority for health and social care. The other was in accordance with recently implemented national policies, which entailed more collaboration between local government authorities, obliging them to make joint local agreements. The Swedish experience is discussed in an international context, examining the need for collaboration in integrated care services for older people.

Although the findings are important for the current adjustment in health and social care for older people, the number of interviewees are limited. Future studies will include more regions and longitudinal studies.

Sweden is currently undergoing an extensive adjustment in line with recent national government policy which involves more primary health care and a corresponding reduction in the number of hospital beds. The restructuring of the care system for older people with complex needs is a paradox, as it simultaneously increases the need for centralisation while also increasing coordination and collaboration on a local basis.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the Special Autonomy policy to improve the community welfare of Papua Province.

This study was carried out using a qualitative approach assessing program activities and client satisfaction. It focused on program activity, target and implementation effectively and efficiently, involving the client’s evaluation process. Research data was obtained from the Papua Regional Development Planning Agency and separated into primary and secondary sources. Primary data was obtained through observation, interview and documentation from several informants. The informants were determined based on the role and involvement in the Papua Province Special Autonomy. Secondary data sources were obtained through field studies, scientific journals, previous research, written documents from relevant agencies, internet and electronic and print media.

This study exhibits characteristics of Papua Province Special Autonomy, which are identical to an asymmetric decentralization model, although it took 20 years of implementation because of the lack of evaluation and improvement. It disproves Katorobo’s (2004) theory that the said asymmetric decentralization model is more effective than symmetrical decentralization. Material requirement planning (MRP) empowerment or abolition should be considered important because of the lack of positive results. Otsus needs to improve the system and financial management, considering financial distribution for developed regions in the coastal areas and plains rather than mountainous regions.

This research was conducted because of the phenomenon of Papua Province Special Autonomy, also driven by the problems in the implementation of Special Autonomy Policy for Papua Province that had not borne optimum results. This study aimed to make recommendations for the Special Autonomy policy of the Papua Province to improve community welfare.

This study aims to analyze the imbalances in the public finance structure of Pakistan’s economy and highlight the need for comprehensive reforms. Specifically, it aims to contribute to the empirical literature by analyzing the relationship between fiscal vulnerability, financial stress and macroeconomic policies in Pakistan’s economy between 1971 and 2020.

The study develops an index of fiscal vulnerability, an index of financial stress and an index of macroeconomic policies. The fiscal vulnerability index is based on the patterns of fiscal indicators resulting from past trends of the selected variables in Pakistan’s economy. The financial stress in Pakistan is caused from the financial disorders that are acknowledged in the composite index, which is based on variables with the potential to indicate periods of stress stemming from the foreign exchange market, the securities market and the monetary policy components. The macroeconomic policies index is developed to analyze the mechanism through which fiscal vulnerability and financial stress have influenced macroeconomic policies in Pakistan. The causal association between fiscal vulnerability, financial stress and macroeconomic policies is analyzed using the auto-regressive distributive lags approach.

There exists a long-run relationship between the three indices, and a bi-directional causality between fiscal vulnerability and macroeconomic policies.

This study contributes to the development of a fiscal monitoring mechanism, which has the basic purpose of analyzing the refinancing risk of public liabilities. Moreover, it focuses on fiscal vulnerability from a macroeconomic perspective. The study tries to develop a framework to assess fiscal vulnerability in light of “The Risk Octagon” theory, which focuses on three risk components: fiscal variables, macroeconomic-disruption-associated shocks and non-fiscal country-specific variables. The initial contribution of this work to the literature is to develop a framework (a fiscal vulnerability index, financial stress index and macroeconomic policies index) for effective and result-oriented macro-fiscal surveillance. Moreover, empirical literature emphasized and advised developing countries to develop their own capacity mechanisms to assess their fiscal vulnerability in light of the IMF guidelines regarding vulnerability assessments. This study thus attempts to fulfill the said gap identified in literature.

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.

Corruption and dishonesty in the political and bureaucratic realms have impeded the ability of local governments to provide services and social justice in Nepali society. In light of this, the purpose of this research is to answer the key research question: what are the possibilities and limitations of local government in implementing constitutionally guaranteed rights in order to transform local communities?

This study gathered qualitative data from 14 local governments in seven provinces. A total of 56 in-depth interviews were held with elected representatives, political parties, and government officials at both the national and local levels. Both open-ended and open-structured questionnaires were employed for the interviews.

The results indicate that capacity is a major constraint for local governments, which should be addressed to achieve successful local governance, inclusive citizen engagement, and strong technical, administrative and fiscal capabilities. Lack of local autonomy, political conflict and social class differences, external engagement, and conservative hierarchic government bureaucracy are major hurdles to growing capacity.

This paper analyses the capacity of newly restructured local governments through qualitative approach. It attempts to understand to what extent the Nepali local governments are capable in delivering the services at the local level as closest unit of the citizens.

Cruise tourism is the fastest-growing segment of the shipping and port industry. This study aims to develop an analytic model to assess the key criteria and sub-criteria influencing four cruise port's development in Taiwan.

Based on the literature review, four criteria and 13 sub-criteria are developed and analysed by fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP). Four cruise ports include Kaohsiung, Keelung, Taichung and Hualien ports. The 26 relevant field experts (including cruise operators, governmental officials and academics) were invited to provide information for assessing the sub-criteria in the model.

The results indicate that port infrastructure and facilities are the most important criterion, followed by port-city development plans, port geography and climate and port regulations and services. In addition, the three most important sub-criteria overall are the onshore tourism programme, the city’s historical and cultural features and the green port hinterland transport system. Also, Keelung port is ranked as the best port, followed by Kaohsiung, Taichung and Hualien.

As Asia is an important cruise market in the world (ranked as third) and passenger number in Taiwan has achieved the top two in Asia, denoting Taiwan is a good market to develop an evaluation model of cruise ports. The findings present a holistic picture of the relative importance of the various criteria associated with cruise port development and raise issues related to cruise port marketing and the economic and environmental sustainability of ports and their hinterlands.

This article critically analyses the extent to which selected Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) transportation projects in the Caribbean subregion embrace good practices and how they benefit the public sector.

The article begins with the general rationale of PPPs, leading to a discussion on the specific challenges of the Caribbean subregion and an assessment of certain critical projects. The sample cases include the L F Wade International Airport in Bermuda, the cruise berthing and cargo port redevelopment project in the Cayman Islands, and the Sanger International Airport in Jamaica. There are five aspects to the critical assessment: (a) an evaluation of the type of PPP arrangement used; (b) the legal/policy framework; (c) financial implications; (d) accountability; and (e) miscellaneous data. Desk-based research is conducted as supported by both international and local sources to convey a uniquely local perspective in this under-researched area of scholarship.

PPP frameworks in the Caribbean are improving quickly but remain a work in progress. Jamaica leads the region. Bermuda trails behind. Problems of legal compliance with frameworks and limited market engagement persist, leading to risk management problems.

This article fills a literature gap on critical analysis of individual Caribbean PPP transportation projects. Previous reports, mostly by international organisations, cover regional or sectorial trends. Other sources take a descriptive but not critical approach.

The article presents the phenomenon of hazards related to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in the food supply chain (FSC) by identifying possible stakeholders of a seafood company who might be influenced by the hazards.

A case study analysis was conducted with a review of the organization's documentation alongside a semi-structured interview and an impact effort matrix.

Seven out of 18 stakeholders had to strongly engage in minimizing the effects of hazards related to SARS-CoV-2. The most important areas of cooperation regarded safety were identified. Both external and internal documents and reports regarding the minimizing of negative effects of hazards related to SARS-CoV-2 were required by institutional clients, official authorities and the studied organization itself. The proper identification of stakeholders and up-to-date knowledge about them allowed the organization to react faster and protect the FSC.

The authors’ research was based on qualitative methods, so it lacked a diagnostic survey, along with similar studies for comparison of results and approaches.

The surveyed company may be a good benchmark for others to follow when choosing the appropriate approach in the field of stakeholder analysis for addressing new emerging risks.

The findings are important, timely and original, and they focus on a subject rarely studied in the literature. The information from the paper applies to numerous groups of food companies.