Archives - Page 11

  • Public health policies
    No. 15 (1988)

    The Central American Institute of Public Administration (ICAP), the only regional center whose objective is to improve the public sector, began in 1987, through its Research Program, to carry out a project to study health policies. This study defined its area of research in the Central American isthmus, specifically in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica and Panama.

    Considering that health policies are complex, broad and varied, the need was perceived to delimit the project to maternal and child programs in the region, which constitute a point of interest in the strategic management of health management, because they are located in the health policy framework of each country, in terms of their insertion and organizational functioning. Likewise, their beneficiaries constitute the largest coverage and represent the most vulnerable group of the population.

    The study of maternal and child programs through government policies illustrates the analysis of public policies in general.

    The indicators selected in each country allow an analysis of the health situation in the last five years and make it possible to identify the main administrative problems affecting the program in question.

    The problems faced by maternal and child health programs are not only aspects of the functioning of the sector, in relation to its definition, strategy, standardization and implementation of the program, and the attitudes of the personnel, but also represent the articulation with other sectors in each country, emphasizing here the impact that the adjustment to international health policy has in tactical and budgetary terms.

    This volume includes a series of descriptive articles on each country in the area, written by national researchers as follows: 

    1. Guatemala by Dr. Warner Molina 2.

    2. El Salvador by Dr. Jorge Roberto Cruz

    3. Honduras by Licda. Concepción Mejía

    4. Nicaragua in charge of Dr. Edgar Muñoz

    5. Costa Rica in charge of Dr. Roberto Alvarado

    6. Panama in charge of Mrs. Marta Gómez de Denamps.

    This volume also includes a methodological description of the stage, a set of representative statistics of the study and a bibliographic base recorded in the reports of each country.

  • Housing policies
    No. 13-14 (1987)

    The Central American region suffers from the age-old problem of poverty. Taking this major problem as part of the phenomenon that studies have lately called "State-Society Relations", the Central American Institute of Public Administration concluded, at the end of 1985, the research study "State, Policies and Critical Poverty in Central America: State, Policies and Critical Poverty in Central America.

    The research was conceived to use the housing variable as an indicator of poverty, which allows us to introduce a subject intimately linked to the study of State-society relations: that of public policies. These are ultimately conceived as the adoption of a society with respect to certain problems.

    Public policies were studied on the basis of the analysis of a specific problem such as housing. Nevertheless, the aim was to go beyond a micro-analytical approach to the problem and place it in the context of the political project of those who have exercised power; in such a way that the Political Regime is approached and seen as influencing and, in turn, influencing decision-making in general and the development and execution of public policies in particular.

    Within this broad spectrum of the problem, we offer this special issue of the Revista Centroamericana with the purpose of putting on the table for discussion different ways to address this issue.

    The magnitude of the housing shortage and insufficiency problem is such that, for example, in Costa Rica in 1986, the housing deficit reached 130,000 homes. The inability of the economic structure in the region to produce and finance housing is becoming more acute day by day. Several structural factors converge in this problem, two of which are fundamental: the process of population movements and their spatial distribution - a product of the transformations in the productive structure - and the existence of a total imbalance in the distribution of social income. This last phenomenon determines that a significant sector of the population is outside the housing market due to their meager purchasing power and their inability to save, so that the housing problem becomes one more indicator of their situation of poverty and marginality.

  • Public Health Administration
    No. 12 (1987)

    The Central American region is going through a social, economic and political crisis of considerable magnitude.

    The international context of ideological and economic struggle largely conditions this crisis. On the other hand, the domestic scenario, characterized by limitations in the effectiveness and efficiency of the services provided by State institutions, has exacerbated the situation to extremes that seem very difficult to overcome.

    The health sector is no stranger to the consequences of the convulsive situation in the isthmus, and thus we find a series of unsatisfactory indicators.

    In some countries, life expectancy at birth does not reach 60 years, and infant mortality exceeds 80 deaths per thousand live births. Diseases of infectious origin coexist with those of chronic and degenerative evolution.

    Within the above panorama, the population is growing rapidly, without the State being able to give an adequate response to the demands that this situation provokes. Added to this is a new social problem: massive migration within and between countries, caused mainly by the armed conflicts affecting some of the Central American nations.

    The historical challenge that this situation poses for public administrations deserves to be addressed as a matter of priority and with concrete and adequate responses to the reality facing the region. Guided by this line of thought and aware of the mandate of the governments it represents, the Central American Institute of Public Administration, as part of its training programs, initiated in September 1986 a Postgraduate Program in Public Administration with emphasis on Health Administration. Likewise, within this strategy oriented to support the Public Health Sector in Central America, training, advisory and research programs have been initiated. In this issue of the Central American Journal of Public Administration, dedicated to the topic of Health Administration, we outline some questions and proposals to focus attention on the complex health problems of the Central American population. Thus, we want to emphasize initially the need for Central America to find its own concepts, design its own definitions and participate fully in the improvement of its health status from a global perspective and with an integral approach.

     

  • Information Systems Management
    No. 11 (1986)

    Information is a vital resource for the planning and execution of all aspects of public sector policy. From this perspective, public sector institutions must collect, process and disseminate better information if they are to manage their programs more effectively and efficiently.

    A problem in increasing efficiency and productivity in public sector institutions is the inadequate development of systems to collect data, organize it, and produce the information needed to make and execute decisions. In addition, there is a lack of knowledge about the information requirements that institutions have in order to execute their policies.

    Information is essential for the planning of public programs, which are crucial for the development of a country and for obtaining greater self-sufficiency. However, the availability of information is not always known, and access to it is not necessarily easy. Information is often out of date and its authenticity can be questioned. If we add to this the fact that what information is available on the different activities of society is generally incomplete and therefore of limited value for analytical purposes, the picture is not very rosy.

    A suitable way for public institutions to increase their effectiveness is to develop a knowledge base of the information needed to carry out their policies. The analysis of these requirements can serve as a basis for the planning and operation of systems and networks that provide essential information for public policy decision-making.

    Likewise, it should not be forgotten that scientific and technical information is a key element for development and that it is up to us to work so that this knowledge base exists and improves day by day.

     

  • Project Management
    No. 10 (1986)

    Project Management

    This edition is dedicated to the subject of projects, as it is considered to be of current importance and extremely useful in the implementation of governmental plans and programs in favor of the development of countries.

    Project management is important because it is a powerful tool that, when properly used, increases and allows measuring the efficiency and effectiveness of investments in the public sector.

    All stages of the project life cycle can be managed using the technical tools that have been developed.

    The principles of project formulation, evaluation and management and basic techniques, when properly applied, can be adapted to projects of different nature and magnitude, but their potential is closely linked to the possibility of analysis and the inclusion of the project management group's own conditions.

    Project management comprises the following five stages to achieve efficient and effective management.

    The first is the exact definition of the project's objectives, both in the execution and operation stages.

    The second is project planning, a qualitative stage in which the course of action for achieving the objectives is established, obtaining an orderly list of the tasks to be performed to achieve them.

    The third stage is the programming stage, in which resources are allocated to the planned activities.

    The fourth stage should define the role that each existing or ad-hoc organization will play in the implementation of the project planning and programming. The assigned human resources will be departmentalized in a certain way, adapting to the functional structures involved or creating new structures.

    Finally, the information and control system should establish how the project's progress will be measured, in order to detect deviations, forecast, make management decisions and prepare realistic reports.

51-55 of 64