The millennium drought, higher temperatures and an ageing tree population threatened the city of Melbourne with an environmental challenge. An important plank in the city’s response was the creation of an Urban Forest Strategy, which promised and delivered thousands of… Read more

When the City of Copenhagen introduced its Cycle Policy 2002-12, it had already introduced priority cycle lanes and green cycle routes. It wanted to build on these initiatives with a number of aims in mind: greater road safety, a cleaner… Read more

In the 1990s, New Zealand suffered a major epidemic of meningococcal disease. It resulted in nearly 250 deaths and left many of the survivors with serious disabilities. In 2004, the country’s Ministry of Health began an immunisation programme using a… Read more

Rheumatic fever is a serious illness than can lead to permanently damaging heart disease. It often results from a throat infection, and Māori and Pacific children are particularly susceptible. In order to reduce incidence of the disease, the New Zealand… Read more

Charging for entry to national museums has been a contentious issue since the 1960s. Successive governments have changed the policy, with Labour governments in favour of universal free admission and Conservative governments opposed to it. The Labour government of 1997… Read more

In 2009, New Zealand had a particular problem with abuse of the drug methamphetamine, best known as “crystal meth”, with its user rates being triple the global average. The government introduced its methamphetamine action plan, a multi-agency initiative to address… Read more

Chile has had one of the most unequal societies in the world, with a severe poverty gap. The Chilean government has developed a number of policies to address this problem over the last decade, among them the CCC programme. It… Read more

In 2007, London was suffering from major traffic congestion and its consequences, such as high levels of pollution and slow journey times. In 2010 it followed Paris and Brussels in introducing a cycle hire scheme, which enabled cyclists to hire… Read more

i3 is one of the many initiatives that were introduced under the umbrella of the Obama administration’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. It aims to encourage pupils from public schools to complete secondary education and progress to college,… Read more

Bhutan has only recently opened up to the international community, a process that reached a climax when the UN held its 2013 climate change conference in the country. The UN has also sought to learn from Bhutan’s most exportable political… Read more