In marginalized ecosystem-dependent rural communities, access to ecosystem services plays a crucial role in achieving sustainable livelihoods. This study was conducted to find out the influence of various livelihood capital components on the access mechanism for forest-based Provisioning Services (PS) in some selected villages of the Gosaba Block on the fringes of the Sundarban. The contribution of the livelihood capitals to gain access to Provisioning Services (PS) was identified using factor analysis on 160 households, selected through cluster random sampling. The sustainability levels of livelihood capitals were analyzed using the Prescott-Allen method (2001). The natural, financial, social, and physical capitals were significantly below average, while the human capital was close to average. Enhancement of human, physical, financial, and social capital, ease in issuing Biometric Fisherman cards for entering forests, flexibility in borrowing loans, and ecotourism by involving local villagers must be encouraged to enhance forest-based provisioning services in the near future.

Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) are mostly presented as a means to introduce efficient procurement methods and better value for money to taxpayers. However, the complexity of the PPP mechanism, their lack of transparency, accounting rules and implicit liabilities make it often impossible to perceive the amount of public expenditure involved and the long-run impact on taxpayers, providing room for fiscal illusion, i.e., the illusion that PPPs are much less expensive than traditional public investments. This psaper, thanks to a systematic review of the literature on the EU countries experience, tries to unveil the sources of this illusion by looking at the reasons behind the PPPs’ choice, their real costs, and the sources of fiscal risks. The literature suggests that PPPs are more costly than public funding, especially when contingent liabilities are not taken into account, and are employed as mechanisms to circumvent budgetary restrictions and to spend off-balance. The paper concludes that the public sector should share more risks with private sectors by reducing the amount of guarantees, and should prevent governments from operating through a sleight of hand that deflects attention away from off-balance financing, by applying a neutral fiscal recording system.

The livelihood of ethnic minority households in Vietnam is mainly in the fields of agriculture and forestry. The percentage of ethnic minorities who have jobs in industry, construction, and services is still limited. Moreover, due to harsh climate conditions, limited resources, poor market access, low education level, lack of investment capital for production, and inadequate policies, job opportunities in the off-farm and non-farm activities are very limited among ethnic minority areas. This paper assessed the contribution of livelihood diversification activities to poverty reduction of ethnic minority households in Son La Province of Vietnam. The analysis was based on the data using three stages sampling procedure of 240 ethnic minority households in Son La Province. The finding showed that the livelihood diversification activities had positively significant contribution to poverty reduction of ethnic minority households in Son La Province. In addition, the factors positively affecting the livelihood choices of ethnic minority households in Son La Province of Vietnam are education level, labor size, access to credit, membership of associations, support policies, vocational training, and district. Thus, improving ethnic minority householder’s knowledge through formal educational and training, expanding availability of accessible infrastructure, and enhancing participation of social/political associations were recommended as possible policy interventions to diversify livelihood activities so as to mitigate the level of poverty in the study area.

Localization is globally accepted as the strategy towards attaining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In this article, we put forth the South Indian state of Kerala as a true executor of the localization of SDGs owing to her foundational framework of decentralized governance. We attempt to understand how the course of decentralization acts as a development trajectory and how it has paved the way for the effective assimilation of localization principles post-2015 by reviewing the state documents based on the framework propounded by the United Nations. We theorize that the well-established decentralization mechanism, with delegated institutions and functions thereof, encompasses overlapping mandates with the SDGs. Further, through the tools of development plan formulation, good governance, and community participation at decentralized levels, Kerala could easily adapt to localization, concocting output through innovative measures of convergence, monitoring, and incentivization carried out through the pre-existing platforms and processes. The article proves that constant and concerted efforts undertaken by Kerala through her meticulous and action-oriented decentralized system aided the localization of SDGs and provides an answer to the remarkable feat that the state has achieved through the consecutive four times achievements in the state scores of SDG India Index.

This study aims to examine the pathways through which the user experience (UX) of ChatGPT, a representative of generative artificial intelligence, affects user loyalty. Additionally, it seeks to verify whether ChatGPT’s UX varies according to a user’s need for cognition (NFC). This research proposed and examined how ChatGPT’ UX affect user engagement and loyalty and used mediation analysis using PROCESS Macro Model 6 to test the impact of UX on web-based ChatGPT loyalty. Data were collected by an online marketing research company. 200 respondents were selected from a panel of individuals who had used ChatGPT within the previous month. Prior to the survey, the study objective was explained to the respondents, who were instructed to answer questions based on their experiences with ChatGPT during the previous month. The usefulness of ChatGPT was found to have a significant impact on interactivity, engagement, and intention to reuse. Second, it was revealed that evaluations of ChatGPT may vary according to users’ cognitive needs. Users with a high NFC, who seek to solve complex problems and pursue new experiences, perceived ChatGPT’s usefulness, interactivity, engagement, and reuse intentions more positively than those with a lower NFC. These results have several academic implications. First, this study validated the role of the UX in ChatGPT. Second, it validated the role of users’ need for cognition levels in their experience with ChatGPT.

The present paper discusses the case of the Madrid Nuevo Norte Project (MNNP) in order to examine the relation of this mega-project with the city’s sustainable development. For this reason, the study used a qualitative approach using semi-structural interviews with experts (Madrid’s town hall, Madrid State, and the program management office and other external) that relayed strongly with MNNP. The expert panel requirements are split in six expertise areas: sustainability, urban development, urban planning, government or public affairs, project management or Madrid Nuevo Norte (MNN) key stakeholders. The study highlighted the vital importance of MNNP as a flagship sustainable project for the rest of Europe, that meets sustainability criteria for contributing substantially in the improvement of the quality of life of final users and for the community in general. For instance, it contributes to the regeneration of the city’s degraded area, to the interconnection of an isolated part of the city and public transportation connection, improving the external image of Madrid. Despite of it, there are some challenges that should be carefully managed such as applying sustainable solutions from other cities not properly tailored to Madrid, housing pricing accessibility increase due to the lack of terrain in Madrid and the politization of the project as discussion topic between local parties. In this context, local authorities should give particular emphasis in complying with the principles of sustainability for improving the overall performance of MNNP, ensuring social justice and prosperity for the people of Madrid.