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This report presents a VTT roadmap on ICT for environmental sustainability, based on the assessments and evaluations made by VTT technology experts. We adopt a broad and systemic view to the issue; in other words, we believe that ICT’s effectiveness depends on mutual understanding and changing the system level activities, i.e. the complex web of behaviour of people, institutions, organisations and political jurisdictions, like nation-states. We use the term ICT for environmental sustainability or environmentally sustainable ICT, instead of green ICT, and defined it as: Use of ICT for optimising societal activities in order to improve environmental sustainability.

This manual is intended to support adaptive decision-making in vulnerable communities. The participatory monitoring, evaluation, reflection and learning (PMERL) framework presents a participatory methodology for developing and monitoring against community-based adaptation (CBA) indicators. The manual recommends three types of information which are essential to monitoring and evaluating CBA: practice, outcomes and context. These three types of information are needed, because practitioners need to know: what is being done and whether it is being done in ways that engage and support the most vulnerable communities (practice); if activities are resulting in actual vulnerability reductions on the ground (outcomes); and if vulnerability reductions are occurring in light of changing climate and other contexts, to better understand how climate and other stresses influence outcomes and to ensure outcomes are sustainable under climate and other stresses.

This paper explores gaps and limitations in the conceptualisation, methodology and policy implications of debates about informal health care providers by examining a cross section of empirical studies. Drawing on a tradition of critical medical anthropology, the authors argue that existing debates hinge on a particular understanding of what constitutes appropriate knowledge and on particular expectations of how economic actors in the medical marketplace will behave.

This country report assesses organisations providing REDD+ capacity building services in Vietnam. The report identifies gaps in key areas that need to be filled in order for Vietnam to meet the objectives of its Draft National REDD+ programme. Gaps highlighted in the report include: low capacity among local NGOs to influence the formulation of social safeguards at national and sub-national policy levels; weak capacity among domestic and local capacity building service providers to assist REDD+ pilot projects; lack of REDD+ readiness capacity building support for natural resource industries; insufficient engagement on the part of university-based service providers.

Building capacity for implementing REDD+ is a key component of REDD+ readiness processes that have been underway for over three years. Backed by substantial funding from a large number of organisations, government agencies and individuals, a multitude of organisations are conducting awareness raising and training activities in all REDD+ nations. However, little is known about the competencies of these organisations. This regional report examines organisations providing REDD+ capacity building in the Philippines. In addition to presenting the results of the assessment, the report provides recommendations to inform the REDD+ capacity building process in the Philippines.

Capacity building and training efforts have transformed REDD+ from a little-known concept to an issue that is widely recognised, discussed and on the agenda of the government of Indonesia. This regional assessment of REDD+ capacity building in Indonesia argues that substantial progress has been made in capacity building for policy development and environmental safeguards, but gaps remain in key areas. The report stresses that these gaps need to be addressed, otherwise Indonesia may not be able to meet the objectives of its Draft National REDD+ strategy. Gaps identified in the report include: insufficient attention to REDD+ awareness raising actors' based at a provincial level; minimal transfer of environmental safeguard knowledge built up in the NGO sector to the wider capacity building community; and lack of service providers with experience of managing donor and private funds or trust fund structures.

In the past three years, tropical forested countries across the world have taken important institutional, policy, legal and piloting steps to become ready for REDD+. Capacity building is a key component of this REDD+ readiness process, which is backed by investments from a large number of organisations, government agencies, communities and individuals. This country report provides a regional assessment of organisations providing REDD+ capacity building in Cambodia. The main objectives of the assessment were to: identify and map the service providers involved in REDD+ capacity building; identify the main objectives, competencies and type of services being offered by a shortlist of eight leading service providers, their target audiences and key achievements; identify the gaps in capacity building service provision between what is needed most and what is actually being delivered; on the basis of these gaps provide recommendations for strengthening and coordinating actions.

Advances in information and communication technologies are disrupting traditional models of scholarly publishing, radically changing our capacity to reproduce, distribute, control, and publish information. The key question is whether there are new opportunities and new models for scholarly publishing that would better serve researchers and better communicate and disseminate research findings. Identifying access and efficiency limitations under the subscription publishing model, this paper explores the potential impacts of enhanced access to research outputs. It introduces ‘accessibility’ and ‘efficiency’ parameters into calculating returns to Research and Development (R&D). The authors conclude that there may be substantial benefits to be gained from more open access to research findings.