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As donors channel more of their development assistance through private companies, a discussion is growing on what this shift means for international development. This paper focuses on four Central European donors, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, who have recently implemented new incentives to promote the greater engagement of the private sector in their international development programmes. The paper uses new survey data of project managers at organisations implementing aid projects funded by these four donors to explore how private actors differ in their approaches to aid implementation. The analysis reveals that the type of implementing organisation does not affect their focus on internal project goals (budget, schedule, and scope), but project managers at private firms consider long-term impact and economic sustainability of the project less important. These findings support claims that for-profit organisations exercise a short-term approach to satisfy funders, but lack a deeper focus on long-term development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the LCOE for photovoltaics has decreased several times, it is once again gaining popularity. The intensification of the development of PV installations is contributing to the duck curve phenomenon in an increasing number of countries and, consequently, affecting current electricity prices. Decisions on new investments in large-scale PV sources are driven by potential economic and environmental effects, and these, in turn, are subject to locational considerations, both as to the country and its region. In calculating the economic impact of locating a 1 MWp PV farm, it was assumed that the electricity generated by the farm would be fed into the national grid, and that the life of the PV farm would be 20 years. Poland was considered as an example country for the placement of a photovoltaic farm. The authors of this paper proposed that the main verification parameter is the availability of connection capacities to feed the produced electricity into the country's electricity grid. The methodology proposed by the authors for the selection of the location of a PV farm consists of four steps: step (i) identification and selection of the administrative division of a given country; step (ii) verification of available connection capacities; step (iii) (two stages) verification of other factors related to the location of the PV farm (e.g., information on land availability and the distance of the land from the substation), and analysis of productivity at each potential location and electricity prices achieved on the power exchange; step (iv) economic analysis of the investment—analyses of PV farm energy productivity in monetary terms on an annual basis, cost analysis (CAPEX, OPEX) and evaluation of economic efficiency (DPP, NPV, IRR). The greatest impact on the economic efficiency of a PV project is shown by the value of land (as part of CAPEX), which is specific to a given location, and revenues from energy sales, which are pretty similar for all locations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• One Polish household wasted 0.56 kg of food per day. • In Polish households, fruit, vegetables, bread are wasted the most during the day. • Household characteristics explain food waste more than individual characteristics. • Single-person households waste more food products and semi-products than other. • On a per capita level Polish households with children waste less food. In Poland, to our best knowledge, none of the scientific publications produced to date have addressed the scale of wasted food in households and the impact of sociodemographic and economic factors on this. This study fills this research gap. The study was carried out in 2019 on a nationwide random-quota sample of 500 households, which are representative of all households. The survey was carried out in the respondents' homes for seven consecutive days. It consisted of an interview conducted by an interviewer (Computer-Assisted Personal Interviews method) and a paper diary completed by the respondents themselves. The aim of the study was to present the volume of wasted food, taking five groups into account,and to examine the impact of the sociodemographic and economic characteristics of the households and the person responsible for preparing meals on food waste. The results show that one person, on average, wasted 62.6 kg of edible food per year (98.2 kg of edible and inedible parts combined). According to the results, the most discarded food products include fruit and vegetables, bread, dairy products, drinks and juices, and cold cuts. Statistical analysis showed that the level of food waste in Polish households is conditioned by characteristics such as household size (persons), the presence and number of children, monthly income, as well as the characteristics of the person responsible for preparing meals, such as age and employment status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The travel restriction leads to the enormous economic loss to the tourism industry. In this paper, the economic loss and the environmental gains (e.g., water and energy resources) from COVID-19 impact on China's tourism industry are estimated based on environmentally extended multiple regional input-output model. Results indicate that the China's tourism consumption loss triggered 921 billion US$ output loss via supply chain in 2020, which account for 7 % of GDP in 2019. Additionally, the economic loss further ripples tourism water footprint conservation of 10 billion m3 (equal to the annual water consumption of Poland) and tourism energy footprint conservation of 116 million tce (equal to the annual energy consumption of Australia). Findings reveal that regions with large tourism economic losses are not completely consistent with the regions with significant relief of water and energy pressures. Water pressure in Xinjiang (Northwest) and energy pressure in Hainan (South) have been alleviated due to reduced tourism consumption along the Southeast coast. These knock-on effects highlight a deeper internal link between the economy and the environment. The development of tourism in the post-COVID-19 era needs to reduce the direct water and energy footprint of local area by applying advanced water-saving and energy-saving technologies. • China's tourism output loss caused by COVID-19 accounts for 7 % of GDP in 2019. • 10 billion m3 of water saving equals to the annual water consumption of Poland. • 116 million tce of energy saving equals to the annual energy consumption of Australia. • Tourism activities decreasing in East relieve great water use stress in Northwest China. • Decreasing tourism demand in Southeast mitigates energy use stress in South China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]