Editorial: Policy analysis and practices on environmental issues, COVID-19 pandemic and more

Citation

Fong, P.K.W. (2023), "Editorial: Policy analysis and practices on environmental issues, COVID-19 pandemic and more", Public Administration and Policy: An Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 26 No. 2, pp. 126-127. https://doi.org/10.1108/PAP-09-2023-147

The PAP journal was first published in 1992 and has been published online in open access on the Emerald Insight Platform since 2018. This year marks the 31st anniversary of its first launch and 6th anniversary of its online publication with Emerald. It now publishes three issues with at least one special issue and around twenty-four articles per year.

PAP's published articles have attracted wide international readership and citations. It has obtained the 2022 Journal Impact Factor (JIF) of 1.4 as released by Clarivate. Moreover, PAP has the CiteScore of 2.1 as indexed by Scopus.

PAP is now abstracted and indexed by: Scopus, Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), CrossRef, Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), EBSCO Discovery Service, Google Scholar, Health Research Premium Collection (ProQuest), Healthcare Administration Database (ProQuest), ProQuest Central, ProQuest Central Basic (Korea), ProQuest Central Essentials, ProQuest Central Student, Publicly Available Content Database (ProQuest), Summons (ProQuest), WorldCat and The British Library.

Academics and practitioners in public administration, management, public policy, and related fields are welcome to contribute papers to this journal.

Summary of articles

This second issue of 2023 consists of eight articles, with four related to the policy analysis and practices on environmental issues, two on the COVID-19 pandemic management, and two on problems on municipal and local government organizations. A brief introduction of these articles is given below.

The first article on “California's cap-and-trade program: is it effective in advancing social, economic, and environmental equity?” by Alvin Holliman and Kimberly Collins investigates the effectiveness of the California cap-and-trade program. Key findings include evidence of enhancing social and environmental equity but ineffectiveness in reducing carbon emissions in accordance with state goals.

The second article is “A comparative study of the adoption of public-private partnerships for water services in South Korea and Singapore” by Soojin Kim and Yujin Choi. The findings show that while South Korea has employed the PPP model mostly to expand and modernize their sewage systems, Singapore has used PPPs to build and operate desalination facilities that produce potable water through the treatment and filtration of wastewater.

The third article is “Grassroots involvement on Global South policy narratives and deliberative action on climate change loss and damage: a case in the Philippines” by Noe John Sacramento. Based on the case of a community-driven workshop in Bohol, Philippines, it highlights the importance of hearing grassroots voices and the need to balance technocratic and critical approaches to policy analysis.

The fourth article on “The challenges and approaches of measuring research impact and influence on public policy making” by Sheila Siar reviewed the three approaches of measuring research impact: pyramid, influencing and results chain. It argues that research organizations have to adopt the best possible features of each approach and develop a customized method depending on their objectives and overall monitoring and evaluation framework.

The fifth article is “A comparative study of the performance of Iran and G7 countries in the management of COVID-19” by Vahid Pourshahabi. The results show that 8 indicators of closing schools, cancellation of public events, restriction of gatherings, restriction of domestic travel, restriction of international travel, reduction of household debt, testing policy, and contact tracing, have an effect on the number of deaths in the countries under review.

The sixth article on “Public-Private-Community Partnerships (PPCPs) as a mechanism in enhancing food security during the COVID-19 pandemic in Zimbabwe” by Brighton Shoniwa indicates that the PPCPs could be a feasible alternative as they enhance value chain collaboration, improve access to inputs, reduce information asymmetry, and ensure trust and facilitate risk sharing.

The seventh article is “Using the Power-Interruptions-Finances-Resources model to tackle the financial management problems of municipal corporations in India” by Eliza Sharma and John Ben Prince. Based on primary data from 577 employees of municipal corporations in India, it proposes a new model based on the four dimensions of power, interruptions, finances, and resources to tackle the financial problems.

The eighth article is “Effects of customised capacity building on employee engagement, empowerment, and learning in Ghanaian local government institutions” by Elizabeth C. Annan-Prah and Raphael P.K. Andoh. Based on responses from 281 employees of Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies, the findings show that customized capacity building has an effect on employee engagement, empowerment, and learning.

I wish to thank all the authors for contributing their papers to this issue and the reviewers for their critical but constructive comments in helping the authors to improve their papers. Finally, I thank Emerald and our editorial team as well as the members of both Asia Pacific Editorial Board and International Editorial Advisory Board for their contributions in making the successful publication of this issue possible. We hope these papers will enhance the understanding of policy analysis and practices on environmental issues and the pandemic management across the Asia Pacific and Africa regions.

Peter K.W. Fong

Editor-in-Chief, PAP Journal

President, Hong Kong Public Administration Association

About the Editor-in-Chief

Professor Peter K.W. Fong, PhD (New York University), is President of Hong Kong Public Administration Association and Editor-in-Chief of PAP Journal. He teaches strategic management and supervises DBA students' dissertations of University of Wales TSD. He was appointed as Advisory/Visiting Professors by Tongji, Tsinghua, Renmin, and Tianjin Universities, Chinese University of HK and HK Poly U. He holds memberships of HK Institute of Planners & Planning Institute Australia. He was a Teaching Fellow of Judge Business School, University of Cambridge; Director of EMBA programme, HKU Business School; Associate Professor, Department of Urban Planning and Urban Design, HKU; Executive Vice President of City University of Macau; Honorary Professor, China Training Centre for Senior Civil Servants in Beijing; Studies Director, Civil Service Training & Development Institute, HKSAR Government; Visiting Scholar, MIT; and Consultants, the World Bank and Delta Asia Bank. Peter K.W. Fong can be contacted at: fongpeter@netvigator.com