The vast flow of information to be considered by policy and decision makers in national and local governments is continuing to expand during the 1990s, whilst budgets for staff to process the information are being tightened. This publication provides a forum for the examination of the problem. It aims to focus the efforts of researchers and practitioners more effectively in applying information technology to increase the performance of decision makers in public administration despite the limited resources. Topics explored include the following: design considerations and approaches for, and practical experiences with, communication and information processing infrastructure and applications at the workplace level; the design and implementation of support systems for individual or group decision making in governmental and municipal settings; modelling and model management techniques, based on case reports of successful and unsuccessful modelling efforts; concepts, approaches and models for re-designing tasks and processes in public administration; issues and challenges in integrating the information systems of several governmental bodies. The book is divided into two parts for the discussion of these themes - the first section deals primarily with theoretical and conceptual issues; the second part contains papers with a stronger emphasis on systems, their functionality and experiences in their development and application. The authors' affiliations (17 organizations from 8 different countries) indicates the international nature of the contributions. The ideas put forward in their papers show that research into supporting decision making in public administration is well on its way but that the research area is vast, with yet many hills to scale.

"L'intégration de l'Afrique dans une économie-monde multipolaire est ambivalente. S'inscrivant dans des mouvements centrifuges et centripètes, dans le temps et dans l'espace, l'insertion de ce continent dans les relations économiques et financières internationales se caractérise par une diversité des situations nationales. Dans le cadre d'une mondialisation multidimensionnelle, l'Afrique a longtemps été considérée comme marginalisée et contrainte de s'y adapter. Elle apparaît, désormais, comme un de ses acteurs. L'ouvrage interroge le sens et la portée de cette intégration. Quelles formes prend-elle ? Dans quelles dynamiques s'inscrit-elle ? La place de chaque pays et leur évolution y demeurent-elles contrastées, tant au plan quantitatif que qualitatif ? Dans ce contexte, l'ouvrage présente quatre thématiques se rapportant à des mutations qui contribuent à renforcer, sous diverses formes, les composantes de l'intégration des pays africains dans l'économie mondiale : les liaisons Afrique-Asie, les modalités de l'exploitation des matières premières, les partenariats renouvelés avec l'Union européenne et les mouvements migratoires."--P. [4] of cover.

In English and French. On cover and title page: Nuclear energy and information

Parallel main title: Documents de sâance. Parallel text in English and French

Use of and trade in wildlife is a fact of life for human society around the globe. Article IV of the CITES Convention requires that exporting countries restrict trade in Appendix II species to levels that are not detrimental either to species? survival, or to their role within the ecosystems in which they occur (known as the ?non-detriment finding?). Based on two workshops convened by IUCN to develop some pragmatic assistance for Scientific Authorities, this publication presents the background to the development of the non-detriment finding checklist and explains how the checklist itself is designed to work, in the hope that Scientific Authority staff will take and develop the parts of the approach that they find useful.