Conference Agenda

Since the 15th century, the governance of frontiers by major powers has undergone a profound evolution from military colonization to flexible governance, with its forms dynamically shifting from the coexistence of maritime and continental frontiers to the dominance of maritime frontiers and the rise of space frontiers. During the colonial era, the power of frontier governance expanded continuously; the Cold War period saw a turn toward geopolitical confrontation; and the post-Cold War era has witnessed multidimensional characteristics in frontier governance. Five centuries of practice reveal core laws of frontier governance: the transformation of governance logic, the mutual construction of technology and institutions, and the reconfiguration of civilizational dimensions. The historical evolution and laws of major powers' frontier governance hold significant implications for China, including the construction of a "resilient frontier" system to advance ecological-security infrastructure, the implementation of a "cultural coding" strategy to integrate historical narratives with the modern transformation of intangible heritage, and the establishment of a "technological frontier" system to lay out space frontiers. In the future, China should explore a new paradigm of frontier governance that combines strategic resolve with institutional resilience through initiatives such as "digital border defense," "cultural enrichment of frontiers," and "flexible frontiers."

The modern global humanitarian aid system that was started with the founding of International Red Cross Society in the shadows of Battle of Solferino in 1859 seems to be increasingly fraught with politicization and meddling by individual nation-states. The framework of neutrality in war situations, while complex, has been dismantled totally in many instances of recent wars such as in Gaza. While military aid continues to flow to Israel, humanitarian aid to Gaza has been severely restricted.

This paper will take a closer look at Gaza and analyze how and why humanitarian aid has been used as a bargaining chip, by those in power. The laws, norms of governance around aid including neutrality have been repeatedly set aside and recipients of aid have been denied to a situation where were facing a famine, according to UN agencies and multiple humanitarian actors. This paper will examine how the bureaucracy involved in the conflict has not acted swiftly, to end the horrific suffering. The paper raises important questions and seeks to offer some recommendations.

Keywords: humanitarian aid, neutrality, Gaza, genocide, bureaucracy

References

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Moral panics are commonly researched and discussed in academic fields such as sociology, criminology, and communication and media studies (Cohen, 2002). The disciplines frequently examine how media, public opinion, and social structures contribute to the formation and persistence of moral panics within society. However, the existing body of public administration literature offers limited theoretical and empirical investigation on the roles of administrations and government in creating and sustaining moral panics. Public administration-especially through state-sanctioned authorization-plays a central and multifaceted role in upholding, applying, and enforcing the laws and policies that have been created because of a moral panic.

Problem statement and purpose: The Government of Lesotho (GoL) faces several challenges, such as non-achievement of the original Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), lack of progress made with achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and creation of a stable democracy in the country. In the space of five years for instance, Lesotho held three elections and experienced the collapse of two coalition governments. The high turnover of members of Parliament (MPs) after each election exacerbates the detriment to governance and parliamentary performance and make new MPs dependent on institutionalised roles and procedures because the majority of them do not possess the knowledge and political maturity to make full use of their legal power. Against this background, Members of Parliament became reliant on parliamentary staff for the necessary guidance and advice. The purpose of this study was therefore to make recommendations on an appropriate training and development framework for staff at the Parliament of Lesotho (PAL).

Methodology: The ontological and epistemological underpinnings of this study are derived from interpretive social science; hence, related to a qualitative paradigm. A case study research approach was conducted, and purposive sampling was employed to identify twenty-four (24) participants from the total population of two hundred and seventy (270) officials of the PAL. Data was collected through interviews and documentary analysis. In analysing the data, thematic analysis was used, as well as NVivo, which is a qualitative data analysis software package. In relation to authenticity, the researcher transcribed the recorded interviews through NVivo. Triangulation of data collection techniques, comprising interviews and documentary analysis, was undertaken to ensure consistency and truthfulness of the findings.

Findings: Firstly, it was revealed that training at the PAL is inadequate, haphazard and misapplied. Secondly, there is lack of compliance with the legal framework on training and development which also impacts negatively on the success of training programmes. Thirdly, there are no motivational factors related to undergoing training and development initiatives and, as a result, skilled, knowledgeable and competent parliamentary officials are not recognised, promoted or rewarded based on their performance. The fourth and last, but not least, is that there is a lack of leadership and management support for training and development initiatives for parliamentary officials, and this hinders the attainment of anticipated results from training and development. This means that the skills gap in leadership and management styles of the management contributes to the ineffectiveness of training and development of parliamentary officials in Lesotho. As a result, this study has developed a training and development framework for parliamentary officials.

Proposal: The training and development framework presents the processes involved in planning, monitoring, implementing and evaluating performance-based training and development interventions that could enhance improved performance, morale and motivated officials. It is proposed that the framework be implemented to enhance the effectiveness of the Parliament of Lesotho.

The prevalence of food insecurity has increased among Palestinian households since 2018 (MAS, 2021). Disaggregating the data at the regional level indicates that food security conditions have deteriorated between 2018 and 2020 in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. While the share of the moderately and severely food insecure categories has remained relatively constant between 2018 and 2020 in the West Bank, the status of food security in the Gaza Strip worsened in 2020, with the share of food insecure households reaching 64.4%, more than 20 times higher than in the West Bank (MAS. 2021).

Tracking gender disparities in household headship and food security is critical to understanding the unique challenges faced by FHHs in Palestine as well as how international assistance can mitigate it. Targeted interventions are needed to improve their access to productive resources, economic opportunities and basic services to enhance food security. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to measure the relative effectiveness of different kind of assistance in food security, especially during the COVID-19 crisis. We will also uncover potential heterogeneous effects between male-headed and female-headed households in Palestine from 2018 to 2020. This study will also provide targeted policy recommendations to improve the implementation of food security projects by different stakeholders. This study will contribute to a better understanding of food security determinants with a specific focus on gender disparities (Quisimbung et al., 2008; Klasen et al., 2015; Kairiza et al., 2019). It also contributes to the literature on (food) aid effectiveness and hetereogeneity between donors (Ferrière and Suwa-Eiseinman, 2015; Dreher et al., 2024).

the official definition of food security may allow for more detailed analysis focusing on food insecurity incidence and severity, we opt to use a binary classification of food security: Households that were classified as food secure vs those marginally food secure or worse (FS_i). We will test the robustness of the study to the definition of food security by including or excluding marginally food secure household. Our main independent variable of interest will be a binary variable equal to one if the household has received assistance. We should also be able to estimate the amount of assistance provided by all types of actors (NGOs, Public, UN,). We will address the potential endogeneity of receiving assistance by implementing an instrumental analysis. To do so, we will build a pseudo-panel by localization and assume that all households in the same area have access to the assistance provided in the area.In a second step we will use previous SEFSec (in panel) to better understand the general dynamics of food security determinants and the importance of foreign assistance, outside the pandemic crisis. It would allow us to understand to what extent changes in endowments, like access to land, education, or employment status, explain the differences in food security rates between household types.