Regional Intergovernmental Organization Response to COVID-19: The Impact of Neoliberalism on Bureaucratic Autonomy

COVID-19 is a transboundary crisis that crosses political boundaries and affects critical infrastructure. Given the ongoing nature of COVID-19, it is vital to recognize the factors that impact an organization's ability to respond to crises. In this article, we use the concept of bureaucratic autonomy discussed by Bauer and Ege (2016) to examine the response of four regional intergovernmental organizations. We find here that neoliberalism as a dominating global ideology has transformed the autonomy of action dimension into autonomy of finance, with the focus on enabling private firms through adjusting incentive structures, rather than taking direct action. Organizations that lack this autonomy become the benefactors of other dominant neoliberal financing institutions, thus furthering the entrenchment of neoliberalism and neoliberal finance. JEL Classification: F53, F55, P16.

Hospital services under public-private partnerships, outcomes and, challenges: A literature review

Public-private partnerships (PPP) is used to advance health service access and quality. PPP implementation in hospitals is vital to shorten the service and quality gap. Hospitals are the most significant health budget spender, and this study aimed to identify the PPP effect on hospital performance indicators and its implementation challenges. Thirty-three inclusive articles were filtered and collected from Pubmed, ScienceDirect, Medline, and Sage Publication databases. Results showed that various articles succeeded in implementing PPP and improving the access and quality of health services. Several hospital performance indicators such as diagnosis, therapy, service waiting time, length of stay, referral rate, mortality rate, and patient satisfaction were reported to show better results. However, there was insufficient evidence to say the same on related financial indicators. Policy, resource, communication and trust, risk, and evaluation monitoring were considered challenges in PPP implementation. Its success was not only influenced by major factors such as governance model, finance, politics, and social but also was influenced by the medical practice model applied within the organization. This study contributed to whether PPP affects the hospital performance indicators.

Is the Plastic Pandemic a Greater Threat to Humankind than COVID-19?

The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic has initiated a radical attention shift of society toward the severe consequences it has had over human health, shadowing a symmetrically, if not more, important issue of the rapid intensification in the amount of plastic waste that has been generated over the due course of time. Such a growth in the plastic footprint across the globe has led to a carbon positive environment with an increased amount of greenhouse gases (GHGs) released due to the processing of the waste plastic. We aim to address and provide our perception to this pressing challenge that can be decoded via the advancement of upcycling technologies, utilized and augmented worldwide. With the establishment of such sustainable policies and strategies, the global plastic footprint can be systematically mitigated, accelerating the world into economic circularity and environmental sustainability.