Rural education in Latin America is marked by historical inequalities in terms of access, quality, and retention, which are exacerbated by population dispersion, infrastructure deficits, teacher attrition, and curricula disconnected from local realities. Despite state efforts across the region to implement policies aimed at reducing these gaps, their impact remains uneven due to limitations in the territorial adaptation of top-down guidelines. In this context, educational leadership emerges as a critical factor in coordinating efforts. In particular, transformational and pedagogical approaches act as catalysts for innovation, promoting strategic synergies between the endogenous development of communities and governmental frameworks. Evidence suggests that these leadership styles optimize school management, elevate teacher self-efficacy, and consolidate communities of practice that strengthen institutional outcomes. Furthermore, the study identifies distinctive characteristics within peasant and ethnic contexts, demanding flexible and culturally relevant models. Thus, transformational leadership aligns with the principles of equity and social justice, shaping the school as a node for territorial development. It is concluded that the sustainable strengthening of rural education in Latin America depends on leadership capable of harmonizing macro-policies, micro-practices, and meso-territorial realities, thereby driving inclusion and systemic co-creation.
This study examines the transformative role of co-production in delivering public goods and services across diverse public-service contexts. It aims to examine the nature, application, drivers, barriers, and reported outcomes of co-production. A systematic literature review with thematic synthesis was conducted using 10 peer-reviewed studies selected through predetermined eligibility criteria. The findings identified stakeholder engagement, knowledge integration, resource availability, and motivational drivers as recurring factors associated with effective co-production. The reviewed evidence indicates that co-production can facilitate citizen participation, knowledge exchange, service improvement, learning, and responsiveness to public needs. However, implementation can be constrained by unequal participation, power imbalances, limited financial and institutional resources, technological barriers, weak trust, and difficulties in consistently measuring outcomes. Based on the synthesis, the study develops the Integrated Co-Production Impact (ICI) Theory, which proposes that motivational drivers promote stakeholder engagement, engagement facilitates knowledge integration, and resource availability enables integrated knowledge to contribute to co-production effectiveness. The study concludes that effective co-production depends on the interaction of these conditions and recommends inclusive participation, adequate resources, institutional support, and stronger evaluation mechanisms to enhance sustainable public-service outcomes.
Armed conflicts increasingly target energy infrastructure, yet empirical evidence from African settings remains limited. The Tigray War (2020–2022) caused one of the most severe energysystem collapses in recent history, triggering a twoyear blackout and widespread socioeconomic disruption. This study quantifies the impacts using 1,699 fieldverified assetlevel observations from Ethiopian Electric Power and Ethiopian Electric Utility, supported by secondary data on electricity sales, project delays, and landuse change. The analysis integrates engineeringbased damage assessment, economic loss estimation, and independently validated environmental indicators, an approach not previously applied in African conflict research. Results show US$51.4 million in physical destruction, US$587.9 million in economic losses, 140.8 km of damaged 230 kV lines, 38 collapsed towers, 237 destroyed transformers, and approximately 930 km² of vegetation loss linked to a 628.7% rise in fuelwood extraction. These findings highlight the need for resilient grid reconstruction, decentralized renewables, and integrated environmental restoration in postconflict recovery.
Infrastructure project appraisal is a critical function of public investment management, especially in developing economies where fiscal discipline and institutional capacity are under pressure. This study analyzes the institutional mechanisms of appraisal, focusing on the Development Project Proposal (DPP) system and the role of the Project Evaluation Committee (PEC) as instruments of governance and accountability. The paper identifies recurring challenges such as optimistic costing, weak feasibility studies, and overlapping project scopes by using a qualitative institutional process analysis method. It also highlights the corrective role of appraisal deliberations in safeguarding fiscal credibility and infrastructure quality. The findings emphasize the need to strengthen upstream project preparation, set technical appraisal expertise, and institutionalize feedback loops. Beyond the specific national context, the study contributes to the literature on infrastructure policy by demonstrating how appraisal committees function as essential gatekeepers for sustainable public investment in developing-country contexts.
This paper analyzes the drivers of public debt dynamics in Morocco using an accounting-based decomposition of the debt accumulation. The study quantifies the respective contributions of interest costs, economic growth, and the primary balance to changes in the debt-to-GDP ratio, and further decomposes the growth component into agricultural and non-agricultural sources. The results show that debt dynamics are primarily shaped by the interaction between interest payments and the denominator effect of growth, highlighting the dominant role of the interest–growth differential in mechanical debt accumulation. The primary balance emerges as a key policy-driven component, with years of fiscal slippage closely aligned with marked increases in the debt ratio. The sectoral decomposition indicates that the stabilizing effect of growth is structurally anchored in non-agricultural-activity, while agricultural growth is comparatively volatile. This paper provides a policy-oriented application of debt decomposition to a structurally dual emerging economy. By explicitly distinguishing agricultural and non-agricultural growth contributions, the analysis offers additional empirical insights into how growth composition shapes the stability of debt trajectories in climate-sensitive economies. The results suggest that aggregate growth should not be interpreted as a homogeneous stabilizer in dual economies, with important implications for fiscal sustainability assessments in emerging markets.
