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Recent decades have witnessed increasing interest in the concept of the circular economy within both the business world and political circles. The circular economy spans the entire life cycle of products from product design through production, marketing, and consumption, to waste management, recycling, and re-use, and enthusiasm for putting the concept into practice has been identified across different sectors of the economy. This exploratory case study reviews how some of the leading companies in the paper and retail industries, have publicly addressed the circular economy. The case study outlines the nature of the circular economy, provides a cameo literature review of published work on the circular economy, describes the approach adopted for the case study, reports the findings of the review of how the leading companies in the paper and retail industries have addressed the circular economy, and discusses some wider issues. Keywords: circular economy, case study, paper industry, retail industry, greenwash, economic growth

The entire world seems to have responded to COVID-19 pandemic in a knee-jerk manner with a short mindset without building on the existing strengths of public health infrastructure. National governments cannot be blamed for this as we are dealing with a crisis that comes once in a lifetime. Realising this, the Organized Medicine Academic Guild (OMAG) an association of major health associations in this country has suggested measures for long-term solutions to COVID-19-like pandemics in the form of a policy paper by OMAG.

Smokeless tobacco (SLT) use is widespread across many nations and populations, and India shares more than three-quarters of the global burden of SLT consumption. Tobacco use in India has been largely viewed as a male-dominant behaviour. However, evidence from medical, social and behavioural sciences show significant SLT use among women and young girls. This paper highlights key dimensions of SLT use among women in India including prevalence and determinants, the health effects arising from SLT use and cessation behaviours. The paper concludes by providing recommendations with the aim of setting research priorities and policy agenda to achieve a tobacco-free society. The focus on women and girls is essential to achieve the national targets for tobacco control under the National Health Policy, 2017, and Sustainable Development Goals 3 of ensuring healthy lives and promote well-being for all.

Background One year after the declaration of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) and despite the implementation of mandatory physical barriers and social distancing, humanity remains challenged by a long-lasting and devastating public health crisis. Management Non-pharmacological interventions (NPIs) are efficient mitigation strategies. The success of these NPIs is dependent on the approval and commitment of the population. The launch of a mass vaccination program in many countries in late December 2020 with mRNA vaccines, adenovirus-based vaccines, and inactivated virus vaccines has generated hope for the end of the pandemic. Current Issues The continuous appearance of new pathogenic viral strains and the ability of vaccines to prevent infection and transmission raise important concerns as we try to achieve community immunity against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus type 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and its variants. The need of a second and even third generation of vaccines has already been acknowledged by the WHO and governments. Perspectives There is a critical and urgent need for a balanced and integrated strategy for the management of the COVID-19 outbreaks organized on three axes: (1) Prevention of the SARS-CoV-2 infection, (2) Detection and early diagnosis of patients at risk of disease worsening, and (3) Anticipation of medical care (PDA). Conclusion The “PDA strategy” integrated into state policy for the support and expansion of health systems and introduction of digital organizations (i.e., telemedicine, e-Health, artificial intelligence, and machine-learning technology) is of major importance for the preservation of citizens' health and life world-wide.

This Country Program Evaluation aims to assess the World Bank Group’s contribution to Morocco’s development trajectory over the past decade (fiscal years 2011–21) and is timed to inform the next Country Partnership Framework and future Bank Group engagements in the country. The Country Program Evaluation will use a range of methods to assess how the Bank Group has supported Morocco’s efforts to tackle major constraints to achieving its objective of reaching upper-middle-income-country status. The evaluation will focus on three outcome areas: (i) fostering private sector–led growth that absorbs a growing labor force; (ii) strengthening inclusive human capital formation and addressing the obstacles to women and youth labor force participation; and (iii) reducing climate risks and natural resource depletion and addressing their combined effects on the most vulnerable people, especially in rural areas.

The Lake Chad region, which is an economically-and socially integrated area spanning across four countries of Chad, Cameroon, Niger, and Nigeria in north-west Africa, has been trapped in a vicious circle of suboptimal territorial development and fragility. This note shows that the Lake Chad region lags in multiple dimensions of development ranging from poverty, human capital, and access to services. A poverty rate in the Lake Chad region is found to be much higher than other parts of the countries surrounding the lake. The regional poverty rate in the Extreme North region of Cameroon (59 percent) is three times higher that of the rest of the country (19 percent). In Nigeria, the Lake Chad region203 has a poverty rate (72 percent) nearly twice as high as in the rest of the country (38 percent). Chad is the only exception, where the poverty rate in the country’s Lake Chad region (31 percent) is lower than the rest of the country (40 percent).204 This is explained by the fact that the Chad region around the lake lies near the capital of the country, with a consequently higher urbanization rate and a relatively high population density. The note is organized as follows. Section 2.2 provides key statistics on poverty, sector of work, and human capital indicators in the Lake Chad region vis-à-vis other parts of the country and examine how the Lake Chad lags behind in different dimensions. Section 2.3 provides a diagnostic of economic geography with a focus on three dimensions of density, distance and division. Section 2.4 identifies a set of structural factors, aggregate shocks and selected policies that might be associated with the dynamics of economic activity and social inclusion across the region.

Accessible passenger transport and personal mobility in public transportation are essential factors of Smart Cities. While ongoing transport research focuses on covering ‘first mile and last mile’, it lacks the perspective of the AAL domain, enabling personal mobility for older adults and persons with disabilities. Therefore, an investigation of the current situation of transportation systems in Vienna and Zurich, analysing five mayor action areas was carried out. The identified issues are highlighted thus suggesting a policy-driven approach for implementation of an accessible and intermodal transport system based on a public transport model, which is able to tackle the first mile and last mile problem for all passengers in general, as well as for older adults and persons with disabilities in particular.

This study is a systematic survey of literature on the energy-growth nexus, which has been carried out with a view to identifying the leading sources of knowledge in the forms of the most influential journals, authors, and papers. This study not only recognizes and classifies the well-known methodologies used in the energy-growth nexus analysis but also reveals intriguing content-based findings, with quantitative measures for the top 50 papers ranked according to the highest average citations per year. This survey is unique in that the process of selecting articles is entirely objective, allowing the research community's opinions to take the lead in the process rather than any subjective judgments of the authors. In this way, we examine 1041 peer-reviewed articles that specifically focused on the energy-growth nexus. We found that, as of the end of 2017, with 200 articles, Energy Policy is the leading journal publishing on this area while Energy Economics, with a total of 25,352 citation counts, holds the highest impact on this field of research. In addition, the most frequently cited article by the scholastic community in terms of average citations per year has been a literature survey conducted by Ozturk (2010) . Our study's main conclusion, based on a thorough content analysis, is that the nexus results of previous studies are generally inconclusive, with conflicting policy implications. This is not helpful and to a large extent is due to a lack of an appropriate theory. This, we contend, is essentially a methodological weakness and could be addressed by incorporating an appropriate testable economic/environmental theory.

This country background paper examines the issues of sustainable development and education with regards to the current situation in Somalia/Somaliland.It expands on the TESF Somalia/Somaliland Briefing Note, which sets out the need for education systems in Somalia and Somaliland to be transformed and provides valuable context to aid understanding, analysis of and action on education and United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

For the past two decades, quality issues in higher education have attracted many scholars. While scholars are trying to answer the question whether quality assurance both internal and external has an impact on the operations and output from higher education institutions, there is evidence that quality is still a problem in Tanzania. This can be established by a series of deregistration of universities due to non-conformity. In February 2016 TCU revoked the earlier approval that established two private universities and in January 2020 it deregistered six universities and three campuses for quality issues. This study examined previous empirical literature on higher education in order to establish the impact of external quality assurance practice on operations and output of higher education institutions. It focused on creating understanding of EQA and its concepts, identifying benefits of EQA in HEIs and determining ways of improving adherence to EQA. While focusing on impact of external quality assurance practices, this paper reviewed various literatures from previous studies published between 2010 and 2020 on the subject matter. Findings from the review suggest that external quality assurance has both positive and negative impacts on universities’ internal operations. Some of the negative effects include increased cost of operations and the positive are increased enrolment, quality output and good internal quality assurance practice). It is therefore important that higher learning institutions adhere to External Quality Assurance and go beyond its requirements for better results. It is also recommended that External Quality assurance practices should align with globalization pace and that the government should extend support to private universities for maximized quality.

A longer life brings opportunities for older adults and their families as well as for their communities. Commercial businesses can be successful in innovating on these opportunities and achieving business expansion when they better understand the market dynamics and spectrum of older adults as consumers and view them more as assets rather than as burdens to society. While there is no “typical” older adult consumer, some traits, characteristics, and physical realities may be more common, including those related to family and community, the shopping experience, brand marketing and packaging, food and nutrition, and health. The opportunities of longer life are impacted by health and underscore the importance of positive, healthy aging-related behaviors like good nutrition and active lifestyles. Healthy aging also requires a sustained commitment and action from country leaders to formulate evidence-based polices--like systematic nutrition screening and intervention—and healthcare workforce training and education that can strengthen and support an active aging population. In addition, governments should consider engaging commercial businesses to help set sustainable policies that can advance products for older adults. Finally, governments should set national and local goals to incentivize commercial business development and investment in public-private partnerships to improve quality of care, promote healthy aging, and impact outcomes for noncommunicable diseases, ultimately benefitting population health for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) countries.