Research Articles (School of Public Leadership)

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Browsing Research Articles (School of Public Leadership) by Author "Bassi, Andrea M."

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    Moving towards integrated policy formulation and evaluation : the green economy model
    (De Gruyter Open, 2016) Bassi, Andrea M.
    ENGLISH SUMMARY : The mainstreaming of concepts related to the Green Economy, an action-oriented approach to reach sustainable development, has increased demands for integrated models that can shed light on the complex relations existing across social, economic and environmental indicators. A gap exists, whereby our thinking is rapidly evolving, but the tools available are still in the vast majority of cases sectorial, leading to planning processes taking place in silos. To avoid the emergence of side effects, and anticipate future threats and opportunities, a more systemic approach is needed. The Green Economy Model (GEM) was created taking into account four main capitals and their interconnections: physical capital, human capital, social capital and natural capital. The application of GEM in 10 countries has shown its capability to coherently represent reality and generate results that can more effectively inform decision making.
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    System dynamics modelling of the power sector in Mauritius
    (De Gruyter Open, 2016) Deenapanray, Prakash N. K.; Bassi, Andrea M.
    ENGLISH SUMMARY : A system dynamics model has been developed for the power sector of Mauritius, which captures a range of complex interactions between the economic, social and environmental aspects of the national economy, with deeper emphasis on the role of energy in these interactions. The model has been validated by replicating the historical trends of key development indicators, and its results were compared to the projections of the national utility company. The validation process shows that the model provides a faithful representation of the actual electricity sector of Mauritius, and can be easily adapted to the use of different assumptions. This paper describes the main characteristics of the model and its results as compared to electricity demand projections carried out by the Central Electricity Board to 2022. The results suggest that further analysis could be done to test alternative low carbon investment scenarios.
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    Towards a systemic assessment of gendered energy transition in urban households
    (MDPI, 2021-11) Musango, Josephine Kaviti; Bassi, Andrea M.
    Assessment of gendered energy transition at an urban scale has emerged as a challenging issue for researchers, policy makers and practitioners. With municipalities becoming players in the energy markets, their involvement raises policy issues that need to be better assessed in supporting gendered energy transition. This paper, therefore, contributes to gendered energy transition assessments at urban household level from a policy maker perspective. We developed a system dynamics model to assess the effects of urban energy policy interventions on household energy consumption and gendered measures using Drakenstein Municipality as a case study. The study used secondary data from various sources for the model parameters. We tested three hypothetical policy scenarios: the business-as-usual, the energy subsidy policy and the energy efficiency policy. The results show that understanding the changes in urban household energy consumption and gendered measures due to energy transition interventions is essential for urban policy planning. The energy subsidy policy scenario was observed to increase total energy consumption but also resulted in socio-environmental impacts that might increase inequality and impair human health. Urban household energy transition interventions need to consider a systems approach to develop decision support tools that capture the cross-sector impacts and inform the development of interventions that promote gendered household energy transition.