Guidelines for public institutions based on the experience of the Government of Catalonia

Democratic decentralisation through ‘conventional’ institutions of local government is facing increasing challenges, whether from financial pressures, questions of representativeness, difficult central-local relations and from a perhaps growing belief that local government has failed to realise its potential and there may be better ways of achieving societal goals. It is clear there is need to contemplate quite radical change to ensure local government becomes or remains ‘fit for purpose’. This collection of papers illustrates the way in which the role of local government is evolving in different parts of the Commonwealth and provides practical examples of new local government at work. It showcases emerging practice, and highlights success stories from new ways of working and challenges confronting local government in both developed and developing countries. New Century Local Government makes a very valuable contribution to helping understand the changing role of local government, and will ensure that practitioners are up-to-date with the most innovative initiatives in local government planning and administration.

Public libraries in NSW are managed by local councils in accordance with the Library Act 1939, with assistance from the State Government though the State Library. At present approximately 68 councils are party to regional library agreements which are enabled by s12 of the Act. Effectively this means that one council provides library services (or an aspect of library services) to neighbouring councils. Councils that are not party to regional library arrangements run their own public libraries, but often cooperate with neighbouring council libraries to some extent. In 2011 the Act was amended to add s12A which enables councils to propose alternate models for regional cooperation on libraries.

Integrating Amartya Sen's approach with the literature on place-based territorial development processes, this book recognises the interplay between the evolution of local development systems and the expansion of individual and collective capabilities.

This report provides a gender review of a decade and a half of World Bank infrastructure lending for 1,246 projects. The objective of this review is to assess the status of and trends in gender integration in the World Bank infrastructure portfolio, and to establish a baseline for monitoring and enhancing gender integration in line with commitments made for the 2006 Gender Action Plan.