Abstract: The Government of Ghana has since 2001 made various efforts to correct the uncontrolled expenditure of public funds that characterised the national economy which has led to a rather unstable economic climate. This article discusses the extent to which the Public Procurement Act (654) has achieved transparency in the use of state resources, causes of delays in the procurement process and effects of the Procurement Act on government expenditure in the Ashanti Region. The descriptive and explanatory research designs were used for the study. The study relied on both probability and non probability sampling techniques. The study revealed that procurement activities and procedures were transparent because decisions on procurement activities followed the rules and regulations of the Act. It was further revealed that contractors were not paid on time after execution of contracts and this affected their organisational management. It was concluded that the Procurement Act had reduced government expenditure considerably in the sense that the Procurement Act has reduced wastage and leakage of financial resources through effective auditing, expenditure monitoring and cost effectiveness and competition which has brought value for money.

Abstract: This paper uses dynamic spatial shift-share analysis to examine employment change in local development districts (LDs) of West Virginia for the period of 1976 to 2007. This paper differs from the standard shift-share analysis by combining the dynamic shift-share with the spatial shift-share and decomposing the employment change of selected sectors into four effects: state growth effect, industry mix effect, neighborhood competitive effect, and state competitive effect. Distance between main cities of local development districts were considered in developing the distance based weight matrix for measuring neighborhood competitive effects. Results describe the changing pattern of employment of the ten selected sectors namely farm employment, mining, construction, manufacturing, wholesale and retail trade, transportation and public utilities, finance insurance and real estate, services, government, and agricultural services of the eleven local development districts of West Virginia. In many LDs’ service, finance, insurance and real estate, construction, and government sectors have been the leading contributors of employment growth in 32 year period. Even though, mining and manufacturing are two main sectors in the economy of West Virginia, employment growth of mining is reported only in a few LDs. Manufacturing employment is declining in all LDs. All LDs have some sectors that are adding employees. Investing them might accelerate economic growth. Neighborhood competitive effects show potential spatial impacts on several sectors.

Abstract: In Latin America and the Caribbean, approximately 36 million people lack even basic access to drinking water, most of them living in rural areas. This uneven spatial distribution of the drinking water supply poses a continuous public health risk, results in low economic productivity, low prosperity and thus contributes to the enforcement of regional disparities. As to the successful implementation of drinking water systems, the focus is still on technical factors and on measures to improve the knowledge of the target groups. Using the example of three rural quarters of Medellín (Colombia), this study shows how the perception of water quality and health risks by different social target groups may influence the implementation process of drinking water systems. A social area analysis was carried out to determine the socio-economic framework of the study, followed by 125 face-to-face interviews with drinking water consumers, complemented by additional expert interviews. Within the study area, 36% of the households use exclusively drinking water from the provided drinking water infrastructure. 10% of the respondents still consume only raw water and 54% are connected to both the raw water and drinking water supply system. The main factors influencing peoples' water quality perception are its colour and appearance, which form a sort of “quality standard” used to evaluate the water quality, even of raw water. The use of raw water for hygiene practices and irrigation is not perceived as a potential risk. A relatively small group of consumers of drinking water seem to have a suitable risk perception with a link between the river pollution and waterborne health risks and diseases. The implementation process of drinking water systems must consider the target groups' socio-economic and cultural context forming their perceptions. A realistic risk perception should be prevalent among the target group prior to the introduction of drinking water supply systems.

Abstract: The study analyzed determinants of transaction costs for borrowers among farmers in Ikwuano Local Government Area of Abia State, Nigeria. The specific objectives were to; examine the socio-economic characteristics of the respondents in the study area, evaluate transaction costs incurred by borrowers in the study area, estimate and analyze factors that affect transaction costs and identify the constraints in accessing credit. Multi-stage randomized sampling technique was used to elicit data from 60 borrowers in the study area. Descriptive statistics were used to evaluate transaction costs and socio-economic characteristics of the respondents while multiple regression analysis was used to measure the determinants of transaction costs. The study showed that distance to the credit institution, age of the farmer, interest rate, loan size and membership of cooperatives were positive and significantly related to transaction costs. Assets of the farmer and information services were negative and significantly related to transaction costs. Level of education of the farmer, savings and gender were positive but not significant to transaction costs. Lack of collateral and high interest rates were the most important constraints of borrowers in the study area. Given that credit is an important policy instrument to facilitate use of modern technologies in rural areas such as the study area, interest rate should be drastically reduced with creation of good infrastructures in view for use of the loans by these farmers who produce the bulk of food consumed by the generality of the people.

Abstract: Self Help Groups (SHGs) emerge as an important strategy for empowering women and to alleviate poverty. India’s SHG movement has emerged as the world’s largest and most successful network of Community Based Organisations (CBOs). However, quality is the major challenge that the SHG movement is confronted with at this point of time in the country. The main objective of this paper is to assess the opinion of the direct stakeholders of SHGs regarding the issue whether SHG is an empowerment model. The study is conducted by using multi-stage random sampling method to collect primary data from the selected Development Blocks of Nagaon districts of Assam comprising promoter, donor, financial institutions and group members. From the ANOVA on overall score of variables on empowerment model, we conclude that at least one of the groups is not significantly different from the others. It is further observed from the descriptive statistics on item wise perception of stakeholders about SHG as empowerment model, out of forty (40) elements of empowerment, in thirty four (34) elements relating to Empowerment construct relating to SHGs whose mean value is positive are considered as the main elements of the respective construct.