曼谷京剧 街头琼楼玉宇

在泰国曼谷唐人街上,一个意大利摄影师顺着咿咿呀呀的中文歌声寻去,眼前竟俨然一场中国戏曲架势,灯火阑珊的街头仿佛错觉中出现了海市唇楼。鼓声响,二胡起,(?)儿(?)——一登场,大显身手。即使观众寥寥,也不影响幕后准备的细(?)入微。这群人在泰国各地游走着搭台演出,这一站在曼谷,明天的(?)一站谁又可知?     

Committing to vaccine R&D: a global science policy priority

The amount of vaccine R&D performed, especially that geared towards health issues affecting the developing world, is relatively modest. Despite immunisation representing the most effective tool for achieving disease eradication, and the general consensus being optimistic about the development of a vaccine capable of fighting AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis, neither private nor public entities are investing sufficiently in the field. Reasons can be associated both with a lack of market incentives as well as with the low priority that these diseases are given on Western political agendas. However, seen through a “Global Public Good” lens, it appears to be in the interest of high-income countries, and their governments in particular, to invest public resources – financial and infra-structural – in vaccine R&D for global pandemics. The paper suggests managing international cooperation through the creation of a global fund. It discusses a number of proposals put forward in the existing literature and offers a range of policy options.     

An evaluation study of youth participation in youth work: a case study in Southern Italy

In this paper an evaluation study of a public programme financing a regional network of 157 youth centres in the South of Italy is presented. A theory-based evaluation model was adopted to explore the causal links between different types of participation experience. Evaluation questions focused on three main issues are: the perception of empowerment of the team during the management of the centres, the empowering effect of participation in the organization of the youth centres and the decision-making abilities of the young people involved. Following an exploratory study, an on-line structured questionnaire was administered to all centres. New youth centres appear as striving to become sustainable enterprises. However, there is widespread difficulty in terms of integrating day-to-day management with sustainability strategies. Such difficulty appears less pronounced when project leaders participated in the design of the centres together with young people. Results thus confirm participation in the design phase as an empowering experience. This study warns, however, against a number of unwanted effects arising from participation. Indeed, participation processes represented a form of decorative consultation in half of the cases. Empirical evidence therefore suggests further research to focus on the creation of stable participation frameworks inside centres, avoiding the risk of participation processes void of any real effect on decision-making.