This thesis analyzes the possible influence of social capital on the levels of fear of crime perceived by residents of Bogotá. The thesis focuses on the potential role of social networks and the individual perception of collective efficacy of neighborhoods in the metropolitan area of the Colombian capital. According to current theoretical developments, people who belong to social networks and actively participate in them expect reciprocity from their peers in case of a criminal event. Thus, they will benefit from an inhibiting effect on their individual levels of fear of crime. Following the statistics, the security situation in the city of Bogotá has improved during the last years. For example, the homicide rates have ostensibly dropped in the last 20 years and other crimes, such as robberies and burglaries, have stabilized within normal occurrence rates compared to the historical average. Nevertheless, citizens of Bogotá feel more insecure and perceive higher risks of being a victim of crime than 10 years ago. This seemingly paradoxical situation suggests a gap between the subjective feelings of citizens and objective criminal rates registered by different authorities. As most of the theoretical and empirical research has focused on the study of facilitators of fear of crime, using quantitative methodologies, this thesis will focus on the study of inhibitors of fear. To understand levels of fear of crime in neighborhoods of Bogotá it adopts a qualitative methodology. In addition, it inquires for the most relevant factors that produce fear of crime and suggests policy recommendations to make people feel safer in the city. The results show that the role of social networks in inhibiting individual levels of fear of crime depends on the quantity and quality of pooled resources that a community has. Neighborhoods with more social, economic and institutional resources provide environments and milieus where people feel safer. This perception of collective efficacy to advance communal goals plays a pivotal role in the inhibition of fear of crime and is stronger in more cohesive and organized neighborhoods. Finally, high levels of fear of crime lead to less participation in neighborhoods where illegal armed groups exert de facto control of the territory, hampering the already low levels of social capital in these communities.

Ship-source oil spills are amongst the major sources of oil affecting coastal areas. An end-to-end marine oil spill analysis may provide a model to better allocate response resources or prepare contingency plans for highly vulnerable zones. A consequence assessment, a key aspect of this type of analysis which considers economic, social and environmental aspects of a geographic area, is presented in this study as a GIS index tool, which can be applied in the context of Atlantic Canada. A theoretical framework and conceptual model is developed based on a literature review of oil spill state-of-the-art analysis using Exploratory Network Analysis; and tested on a realistic case study (Halifax Harbour, NS). The novel approach for reviewing the literature provided sound criteria for the conceptual model, which fits the end-to-end marine oil spill analysis, segregating elements regarding exposure and oil behaviour. Furthermore, oil spill management indicators were tailored using expertise from Atlantic Canada’s oil spill responders, and many gaps were identified to potentially refine the model later. Finally, this model considers the range of aspects that influence the consequences of a ship-based oil spill, using readily available information and considering relevant stakeholder’s interests.

Desde 2013, la Subgerencia Cultural del Banco de la República inició un gran proyecto llamado “La paz se toma la palabra”, cuyo objetivo es “Consolidar una red de mediadores que, a través de la apropiación y activación de objetos culturales, contribuya al fortalecimiento de las culturas de paz en el país”. En el marco de esta iniciativa surgió y se desarrolló “Los niños piensan la paz”, un proyecto de lectura y escritura, desarrollado entre 2014 y 2015, cuyo fin fue “Escuchar lo que los niños piensan sobre la paz”. Para tal fin, se desarrollaron talleres pedagógicos en 22 de los 29 centros culturales del Banco de la República, en los que se recogieron las percepciones, definiciones, sueños, imágenes y deseos de los niños colombianos sobre la paz. Estos talleres estuvieron guiados por el escritor Javier Naranjo y la Corporación Rural Laboratorio del Espíritu. El proyecto contó con la participación de cerca de 900 niños y jóvenes. Como resultado de este proyecto, en 2015 se publicó el libro Los niños piensan la paz, en el que se compila una selección de los testimonios recogidos en los talleres. En palabras de Ángela María Pérez, subgerente cultural del Banco de la República: “Este libro está hecho para que tenga muchos usos. La inocencia inteligente de los niños dibujará sonrisas y su dolor nos avergonzará. Servirá para leerlo a pedazos o completo, para usarlo como fuente de investigación o como lectura que se mantiene en la mesita de noche. Servirá para comentarlo en congresos de sicología, de sociología, de pedagogía, de estudios de paz; o en el almuerzo de familia. Gracias a la metodología de trabajo que explica el editor, maestros y promotores de lectura podrán replicar los talleres con otros niños, pero, ante todo, este libro servirá para invitar a niños y adultos a continuar el diálogo para que entre todos nos permitamos un futuro en el que los niños tengan una realidad diferente para reflejar”.

Este documento estima las disparidades fiscales horizontales en municipios y departamentos de Colombia con datos de las Ejecuciones Presupuestales para el período 1985-2014. Además, se evalúa el efecto igualatorio de las transferencias condicionadas del Sistema General de Participaciones (SGP) y las no condicionadas del Sistema General de Regalías (SGR), con base en indicadores como el coeficiente de variación y de Gini. Como resultado, se encontró que las transferencias reducen las disparidades fiscales horizontales tanto en municipios como en departamentos, con un mayor efecto en los primeros. Por tipo de transferencia, los resultados son diferentes dado que el SGP reduce las disparidades, mientras que el SGR aumenta la desigualdad fiscal.

Magangué es la cuarta ciudad intermedia no capital más poblada de la región Caribe y un puerto fluvial de importancia nacional. Este documento describe las características del capital humano, la calidad de vida de sus habitantes y las finanzas públicas municipales. Los resultados muestran una alta pobreza asociada a bajo niveles de educación, alta informalidad y deficientes servicios públicos y estado de la vivienda. A su vez, el desempeño fiscal del municipio fue bajo e incluso crítico en tres años (2007, 2008 y 2011). Las finanzas públicas dependen en un gran porcentaje de las transferencias nacionales, ya que sus recursos propios son escasos. Sin embargo, se percibe la mejora desde el 2012 en varios indicadores del desempeño fiscal, como la capacidad administrativa y fiscal. La economía del municipio, basada en el comercio y el transporte, ha perdido dinamismo y predominan las actividades económicas informales.

Abstract: Human settlements have facilitated population growth and the accumulation of possessions, enabling their survival as a species. However, these positive effects have also brought along the generation of waste throughout history (Zapata&Hall, 2013). Local production of waste in urban centres has become a global issue, as an increasing population of 7 billion inhabitants (Worldometers, 2015) are daily discarding tonnes of objects and goods. By 2013, it was estimated that the generation of solid waste in the world had increased 10 times over the past century reaching 3.5 million tonnes per day (Jacquot, 2013). Two years later, this number is even higher. According with WasteAtlas (2015) we generate around 4.38 daily million tonnes of waste that usually end in dumpsites or landfills contrary to what happened in the nineteenth century, when practices of recycling and reusing were culturally and socially accepted. The culture of consumerism has come with a change on the perceptions of waste on the last decades by which we have adopted habits of throwing away, tied to constructed ideas about hygiene and the disposal of objects as a sign of prosperity and ease (Strasser, 2000). However, this new relation with waste has signified high social and environmental costs such as air and water pollution and emission of greenhouse gases (Hyman et al. 2013). Resumen: El concepto de basura responde a una clasificación definida por ideas construidas social y culturalmente. Así, prácticas como el reciclaje, anteriormente aceptadas, fueron, a través del tiempo, rechazadas por imaginarios sobre la higiene y por una sociedad de consumo. La cantidad de basura que se genera a diario en todas las ciudades del mundo, es sin duda uno de los mayores retos de nuestros tiempos. El manejo de residuos lleva consigo dinámicas ambientales y sociales que no pueden ser ignorados por la ciudadanía ni por el Estado. Esta investigación hace un análisis de algunas de las normas sobre el servicio público de aseo en Colombia y, en especial del caso de Bogotá desde el concepto de justicia ambiental, fundado en tres elementos: justa distribución de cargas y beneficios, reconocimiento y participación. Al encontrar que el modelo de aseo en Colombia ha estado basado principalmente en la generación de basuras y en la recolección y no en prácticas que contribuyan a la reducción, se presenta el caso de la Asociación de Recicladores de Bogotá y del manejo de residuos orgánicos para compostaje con el fin de conocer cómo la participación en estas dos alternativas puede contribuir a una ciudad ambientalmente más sostenible y sobretodo, más justa.

La obra analiza los productos culturales contemporáneos del choque entre la globalización y la violencia a través de la literatura, del cine, de la arquitectura y de la escultura. Examina las subjetividades que derivan de este contexto: los cuerpos residuales, es decir, remanentes de la generalizada violencia social, política y económica inherentes a las sociedades de consumo. El análisis está centrado en los textos "La virgen de los sicarios" de Fernando Vallejo, "Rosario Tijeras" de Jorge Franco y en sus adaptaciones al cine; también se centra el análisis en la obra plástica de Doris Salcedo y en las estructuras arquitectónicas del Palacio de Justicia y del Parque Tercer Milenio (Bogotá).

Financial inclusion has become an important objective for policy makers and regulators around the world. This is perhaps due to greater access to financial services has been associated with promote more economic growth and sustainable development, therefore, greater inclusion is being considered as a fundamental tool to reduce poverty and as a key element to boost the economy, particularly in developing countries. However, despite the apparent benefits that it can bring to society, there are some aspects that are worth being considered in order to frame a clear vision that inspires better policies towards financial inclusion. An important question that emerges is what would be the challenges and the best alternatives to reach inclusion without going beyond what is necessary. Answering this question is perhaps the key point that regulators and policymakers should carefully consider before setting out new policies that seek better and greater access to financial services. The aim of this work is therefore highlight the emerging challenges and the possible alternatives that might have a positive impact in the enhancement of financial inclusion. To this end, it will provide a general overview of the current state of inclusion and it will present some figures of the progress achieved so far. It will also address two of the main issues that need to be overcome, specifically the shortcomings of regulations and the lack of financial literacy. This document will argue that the main challenge is to strike a balance between the interests of the different actors involved in the provision of financial services; therefore, the main role for regulators and policy makers should be set out a framework with fair condition for all participants and particular for those new actors, such as mobile network operators and correspondent banks, which are playing a fundamental role in the enhancement of financial inclusion. However, the shift towards proper inclusion might also require that these interventions are complemented by adequate education policies that promote a better use of financial services.

International recovery of illegal assets has received considerable attention in the last 25 years. International conventions against corruption, organized crime and terrorism have recognized its central importance for international and national security, development policy and the Rule of Law. International institutions such as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank (WB) have created special units and programs to deliver and implement policy recommendations on the issue. Moreover, private organizations such as Transparency International and the Basel Institute on Governance have also engaged in supporting efforts done by States and local NGOs around the world, especially in developing countries. However all these initiatives to design and implement a comprehensive and effective framework to identify, trace, freeze, confiscate and recover illegal assets from abroad have not fulfilled the expectations of victims, civil society, States and international community. Extensive literature claims that political, legal and operational problems impede an effective approach to international recovery of illegal assets in the context of the fight against organized crime. Yet, there are no studies that consider international asset recovery in the context of peace negotiations between the State and illegal armed groups, where cooperation, compromise and mutual concessions are essential features of such situation. I argue that a peace process is a special opportunity for international asset recovery because in this context parties can create the incentives to overcome the key obstacles of ordinary asset recovery. Still, this requires to rethink international asset recovery in terms of restorative justice. I argue that a peace process setting is an exceptional background to create complementary, temporal and exceptional mechanisms by which illegal armed groups can effectively map, identify and cooperate with State authorities in order to recover, repatriate and liquidate their illegal assets from abroad. By pursuing this, the State would not only comply with the international standards of asset recovery, but also could fulfil the obligations owed to victims of international crimes. I claim that we should examine this new dimension of international asset recovery because most illegal armed groups involved in peace negotiations are also involved in drug trafficking, money laundering and terrorism at a global scale. This dissertation aims to link the standard literature of international asset recovery with the field of restorative justice, peace-making and transitional justice to explore a new a research agenda that could have relevant policy implications. 

On the one hand food waste is generated in huge amounts throughout the food supply chain, which has environmental, economic and social consequences. On the other hand, consumers’ knowledge of safe food handling practices has an important role to play in preventing foodborne diseases which represent a growing public health issue all over the world. Though households are the largest contributor to these two issues, little is known about the effects that the consumers’ level of food safety knowledge can have on the production of food waste. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of consumers’ knowledge of safe food handling practices on the amount of food thrown away. A survey of 57 London consumers examined the level of food safety handling knowledge and practices as well as food waste behaviour. The results showed that respondents’ shopping behaviour tended to result in the production of food waste, yet there were some motivations that could decrease the likelihood of food being thrown out. For instance, they were aware of how much food they had at home and checked their cupboards before buying more food. Furthermore, it was found that economic status and feelings of guilt also contributed to respondents behaviour regarding food safety and waste. The findings indicated that most of the respondents (78%) always read the expiry dates but that their level of understanding of what these mean was low. Similarly, participants on the whole knew how to handle and store their leftover food correctly and knew the correct temperature at which a fridge or freezer should be set. However, their reported behaviour did not always match the knowledge that they demonstrated. Therefore, their responses suggested that some poor food handling practices due to knowledge not being implemented could lead to food going off before it could be eaten, thus increasing the amount of wasted food. This suggests that in order to improve consumers’ food safety handling practices and knowledge to reduce the amount of food waste, efforts should be made to develop food safety education strategies aimed at schools and households as well as new technologies to improve the interpretation of these practices.