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Several studies have shown that the mechanism of labour-intensive construction (LIC) projects can mitigate high unemployment and create skilled development, especially in developing nations. The guidelines and practices for implementation may have faced some encumbrances in some countries. Whether the current guidelines and practices for municipal infrastructure support agent (MISA) to execute LIC projects face hindrances in South Africa has yet to receive in-depth studies. Thus, this study attempts to proffer policy solutions to improve the proposed revised guidelines and practices for MISA in LIC project execution in South Africa.

The study's objectives were accomplished via a combination of 16 virtual interviews of built environment professionals and government officials involved in LIC project execution in South Africa and supported by the analysed documents. A thematic approach was used to analyse the data and presented two main themes.

Findings show lax enforcement of discretionary funds, lax institutional capacity and inadequate individual skills, among others, as the gaps in existing South Africa's LIC guidelines and practices. Also, policy solutions to address the gaps were proffered.

The suggested feasible policies will improve the proposed revised guidelines and practices for MISA in LIC project execution in South Africa. This guide will promote the development of individual skills, institutional capacities and increase employment across South Africa.

This study promotes the use of LIC to create employment and contribute to proffering measures that will improve the proposed revised third edition of the guidelines and practices for MISA to execute LIC.

The aim of the study is to review the extant literature on International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) adoption in emerging economies (EEs) and low-income countries (LICs) (“what do we know?”), and to propose an agenda for future research (“what do we need to know?”).

An analytical framework that builds on diffusion theory is developed. The authors follow the “PRISMA Flow Diagram” to reduce a total of 427 articles from four databases to a final sample of 41 articles. These studies are examined, aided by the analytical framework.

The authors find that IPSASs are a relevant issue for EEs/LICs. Overall, existing research is often explorative. The authors discover that the majority of articles rely on secondary data collection. While two-thirds of the studies perform a content analysis of pre-existing material, about one-fifth of the articles each collect primary data through means of interviews and questionnaires. The findings offer a holistic understanding of where and at what stages IPSAS reforms stand in EEs/LICs, and what factors influence the progression of reforms to the next stage of diffusion.

The authors outline a number of avenues for further research after discussing the dominating trends and structuring the literature based on our analytical framework. These stem from looking at the blank spots and an identified need to contextualise IPSASs adoption in EEs/LICs.

This study aims to investigate the consequence of the quality of governance (QoG) in moderating the effect of healthcare spending on human development.

The authors employ a two-step Windmeijer finite sample-corrected system-generalized method of moments (sys-GMM) estimation technique on a panel dataset of 161 countries from 2005 to 2019. The authors use healthcare expenditure as the main explanatory variable and the Human Development Index (HDI) as the dependent variable and also consider voice and accountability (VnA), political stability and absence of terrorism (PSnAT), governance effectiveness (GoE), regulatory quality (ReQ), rules of law (RLaw) and control of corruption (CoC) dimensions of governance indicators as proxies of good governance. The authors develop a new measure of good governance from these six dimensions of governance using principal component analysis (PCA).

The authors empirically revealed that allocating more healthcare support alone is insufficient to improve human development. Individually, PSnAT has the highest net positive effect on health expenditure that helps to increase human welfare. Further, the corresponding interaction effect between expenditure and the Good Governance Index (GGI) is negative but insignificant for low-income countries (LICs); negative and statistically significant for sub-Saharan African (SSA) economies and positive but insignificant for South Asian nations.

This study is an in-depth analysis of how governance impacts the effectiveness of healthcare expenditure to ensure higher human development, particularly in a large panel of 161 countries. The authors have developed a new index of good governance and later extended the analysis by separating countries based on the income level and geographical location, which are utterly absent in existing literature.

The purpose of the study is to map previous and current construction procurement research to further develop the research in the Nordic counties.

Mapping of previous and current research based on search in national database. The analysis is based on research perspectives, empirical contexts and research methods.

That the blind spots are partly overlapping, but that there is potential for knowledge transfer in some areas. There is also the potential for a Nordic research program on one or several of the blind spots.

The study is limited to PhD and licentiate-thesis reports in Norway and Sweden. Further research should include the other Nordic countries and a more extensive literature review including journal articles to broaden the scope. Findings have implications on collaborative Nordic research initiatives, knowledge transfer and in a longer perspective on the level of procurement knowledge in industry and society.

Findings provide a base for future research collaborations, initiatives and applications.

Findings provide a comprehensive understanding of construction procurement research in the Nordic countries, starting with Norway and Sweden. This understanding is needed for developing research collaborations and applications.

The objective of this study is to present a successful strategy to promote Korea as the logistics hub of Northeast Asia. Firstly, we introduce the necessity of a logistic hub strategy for Korea. In order to develop a successful strategy, we consider the 'free trade zone' model of the Netherlands and China. We develop a realistic and suitable model for Korea based on this Jree trade zone' model. Our proposal for a successful logistic hub strategy for Korea is the fulfillment of the following six objectives: 1) security of market accessibility, 2) improvement of the logistic system, 3) improvement of the education system, 4) improvement of the tax system, 5) assurance of labor market flexibility, and 6) development of an appealing living environment for foreigners.

Mental disorders lead to difficulties in social, occupational and marital relations. Failure to detect mental disorder denies patients potentially effective treatment. This study aimed to assess the prevalence and nature of mental disorders at the primary care settings and the recognition of these disorders by the attending physicians. Over a period of eight weeks, consecutive and consenting patients who attended three randomly selected primary health care facilities in Sagamu Local Government Area of Ogun state were recruited and administered a questionnaire that included a socio-demographic section and Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ). A total of 412 subjects took part in the study. Subject age ranged from 18-90 years with a mean age of 52.50±21.08 years. One hundred and seventy-six (42.7%) of the subjects were males. A total of 120 (29.1%) of the subjects had depressive disorder, 100 (24.3%) had anxiety disorder, 196 (47.6%) somatoform disorder and 104 (25.2%) met the criteria for an alcohol related problem. The PHC physicians were only able to diagnose disorders relating to mental health in 52 (12.6%) of the subjects. Health and work situations accounted for more than three-quarters of the causes of stress experienced by the subjects. We conclude that there is a high prevalence of mental disorders among patients seen in primary care settings and that a significant proportion of them are not recognized by the primary care physicians. Stress relating to health, work and financial problems is common among primary health care attendees. Physicians in primary health care should be alert to the possibility and the impact of undetected psychiatric morbidity.

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the changing pattern and characteristics of international financial flows in the emerging entrepreneurial ecosystems of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), provide a novel taxonomy to classify and analyze them, and discuss how such investments contribute to competence building and sustainable development.

In an exploratory study, the authors analyze the characteristics of international venture capital investors and the start-ups receiving funding in Kenya and map their interaction. The authors proceed by developing a novel taxonomy, classifying investors according to their main rationales (for-profit-for-impact), and start-ups according to the locus of needs and markets addressed by the start-up (local-global) and the locus of the start-ups capacity and knowledge (local-global).

The authors observe a new type of mainly western investors who support innovative ideas in SSA by identifying and investing in domestically developed technical innovations with the potential to address global market needs. The authors find such innovations to be mainly developed at the intersect of global and local knowledge.

The authors shed light on the – up to now – under-researched emerging phenomenon of international high-tech investments in SSA, and develop a novel taxonomy of technology investments in low-income countries, guiding further research on the conditions, impact, practical, and policy implications of this new form of finance flows.

This paper aims to explore the effect of non-resource tax revenue instability on non-resource tax revenue in developed and developing countries.

The analysis has used an unbalanced panel data set of 146 countries over the period 1981–2016, as well as the two-step system generalized methods of moment approach.

The empirical analysis has suggested that non-resource tax revenue instability influences negatively non-resource tax revenue share of gross domestic product. The magnitude of this negative effect is higher in less developed countries than in relatively advanced countries. This negative effect materializes through public expenditure instability: non-resource tax revenue instability exerts a higher effect on non-resource tax revenue share as the degree of public expenditure instability increases. Finally, non-resource tax revenue instability exerts a higher negative effect on non-resource tax revenue share as economic growth volatility rises, inflation volatility increases and terms of trade instability increases.

The main policy implication of this analysis is that policies that help ensure the stability of non-resource tax revenue also contribute to improving countries’ non-resource tax revenue share. For example, governments’ measures that help cope with or prevent the severe adverse effects of shocks on economies (shocks that could translate into higher tax revenue instability) would ultimately help enhance countries’ tax revenue performance.

The severity of the current COVID-19 pandemic shock (which is a supply and demand shock) and the macroeconomic uncertainty that it has generated – inter alia, in terms of economic growth instability, terms of trade instability, inflation volatility and public expenditure instability – are likely to result in severe tax revenue losses. Governments in both developed and developing countries would surely learn from the management of this crisis so as to prepare for possible future economic, financial and health crises with a view to dampening their adverse macroeconomic effects, including here their negative tax revenue effects.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this topic is being addressed in the empirical literature for the first time.

This paper aims to apply the debt sustainability framework using various ratios to review the current state of sovereign debt of Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) member countries.

Debt sustainability framework using various ratios (which include the present value approach, Country Policy and Institutional Assessment debt policy assessment ranking and solvency ratio of external debt) for the period 2010 and 2017 were used for the analysis to determine external debt sustainability and solvency of ECOWAS members.

The findings indicate that most ECOWAS countries are already turning at the unsustainable debt path and may renege in their debt obligations, thus creating a vicious cycle of external borrowing that could lead to capital flight.

This paper offers the empirical evidence to identify which of the ECOWAS countries are already at the threshold of external debt stress, and in the likelihood to renege on their debt obligations.