Sanitation challenges are growing at unprecedented rates in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, specifically in the country of Jordan, where more adversities are faced in the provision of inclusive and sustainable sanitation for marginalized communities. The overloaded water supply systems, strained by high population density in the face of political instability manifests itself in poor public health. How countries in the MENA region plan to handle these problems and improve the sanitation infrastructure is the starting point for this work. We aim to develop a comprehensive and multidisciplinary framework between stakeholders, aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with a specific emphasis on SDG 6, for providing feasible, community-oriented approaches to sanitation issues in disenfranchised communities in Jordan through the Initiative Sanitation and Hygiene Networking in Jordanian Poverty Pockets (ISNJO) project. The findings will be used to formulate strategic guidelines and inform the development and subsequent initiation of innovative and multidisciplinary initiatives to tackle the sanitation and water scarcity challenges at hand.

This paper aims to provide a comprehensive view of the E-Government Development Index analysis in Southeast Asia. Through a review of the results of an annual survey of 192 United Nations (UN) member states, the study identified 11 countries with the E-Government Development Index in Southeast Asia. The findings in this study revealed that the E-Government Development Index (EGDI) in Southeast Asian countries displays different levels of development. Singapore, Malaysia, and Brunei are the countries in the region with the highest EGDI scores. Singapore leads the area with a high EGDI score. These countries have effectively implemented advanced e-government services, such as online public services, digital infrastructure, and e-participation, which have greatly improved the quality of life of their citizens and the efficiency of their government function. On the other hand, countries such as Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar lag in their e-government development as a result of factors such as limited Internet access, inadequate digital infrastructure, and low levels of digital literacy among the populations of these countries. In addition, some moderate progress has been made in the development of e-government in mid-level countries, such as Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. These countries continue to improve their digital infrastructure and enhance their e-service offerings to close the digital divide. Overall, EGDI in Southeast Asia reflects different levels of digital transformation in the region, with each country facing its distinct set of difficulties and opportunities when it comes to leveraging technology for better governance and public service delivery.

This study updates Pereira and Pereira by revisiting the macroeconomic and budgetary effects of infrastructure investment in Portugal using a dataset from the Portuguese Ministry of the Economy covering 1980–2019, thereby capturing a period of austerity and decreased investment in the 2010s. A vector-autoregressive approach re-estimates the elasticity and marginal product of twelve infrastructure types on private investment, employment, and output. The most significant long-term accumulated effects on output accrue from investments in airports, ports, health, highways, water, and railroads. In contrast, those in municipal roads, electricity and gas, and refineries are statistically insignificant. All statistically significant infrastructure investments pay for themselves over time through additional tax revenues. Compared to the previous study, highways, water, and ports have more than doubled their estimated marginal products due to a significant increase in relative scarcity over the last decade. In addition, our analysis reveals an important shift in the impacts of infrastructure investment, now producing more substantial immediate effects but weaker long-term impacts. This change offers policymakers a powerful tool for short-term economic stimulus and is particularly useful in addressing immediate economic challenges.