The United States' foreign assistance program has become an instrument of declining efficacy in foreign policy. The ebbing of Soviet-American competition offers an occasion to restructure U.S. foreign policy objectives and modernize those instruments most likely to support the execution of new foreign policy objectives. This book sets out to identify new approaches to the management of resources in the foreign assistance program that would permit the flexible manipulation of these resources to cope with the fast-breaking pace of international affairs.

This work challenges the generally accepted view of contemporary political realities by explicating the historical roots of the current foreign assistance program and identifying a new approach to foreign assistance through changes in resource management statutory authorities and procedures. It will be of interest to professionals and scholars in foreign affairs, foreign policy, and international relations.

Addressing the problem of the foreign debt of less developed countries, this book examines its impact on their development possibilities. It also analyzes the lessons that both economic theory and policy should draw from the debt crisis. The contributions are divided into four parts dealing with: traditional facts and new horizons in the theory of economic development, the theory and practice of the debt problem, the policies of structural adjustment recommended by international organizations, and the relationship between economic growth, democracy and a new international order.;Long-term sustainable development is the only way to avoid further economic crises in the Third World, but it can only be achieved by means of a comprehensive approach directly aiming at long-term growth and involving a re-thinking of trade relationships between low and high-income countries. The author's articles have appeared in "The Economic Journal, "History of Political Economy", "Australian Economic Papers", "Contributions to Political Economy", "History of European Ideas", "Economie Appliquee" and "Note Economiche".

This book places Oakland's public policy response (nine major ordinances) to building damage suffered in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in a full historical and intergovernmental context. Using a combined non-decision making and advocacy coalition approach, the book demonstrates how and why hazardous-structure abatement was kept off the local political agenda prior to the Loma Prieta disaster. The book then demonstrates how and why city government in Oakland became proactive on the problem of earthquake-damaged and, more importantly, earthquake-vulnerable buildings in general after the disaster.

Over the past decade, several major natural disasters have had devastating impacts throughout the United States and the world. Since larger populations now live and work on land vulnerable to various hazards, natural disasters can be expected to affect more people each year. As a result, the social work profession soon will be stretched to its limits as it attempts to respond to growing human needs in the wake of hurricanes, tornadoes, storms, floods, earthquakes, and human-made technological disasters. Research on Social Work and Disasters provides the essential strategies social work researchers, other social scientists in the area of disaster research, and emergency management personnel need to prepare for and recover from all forms of disaster.Focusing on hazard, risk, and disaster research, this book presents conceptual approaches and empirical findings in this emerging and important area of social work. It includes research on natural and technological disasters as they impact both rural and urban environments. Research on Social Work and Disasters offers conceptual and methodological guidelines for social work researchers and provides insight into the range of opportunities and issues relevant for disaster research. Specific topics you will learn about include: research design, methodology, and measurement community awareness and activism traumatic stress and stress debriefing funding and ethical issues vulnerable populations hazard education action researchResearch on Social Work and Disasters not only addresses effective strategies for responding in the aftermath of particular disasters, but also suggests significant ways in which the social work profession can become involved in prevention, mitigation, and preparedness activities. The book features examples of recent research on disasters chosen to illustrate a variety of types of disasters, theoretical approaches, methodologies, and levels of analysis. The implications drawn from this book are consistent in suggesting the responsibility of society to care for vulnerable populations and to share the burdens caused by catastrophic events.

Over the past decade, several major natural disasters have had devastating impacts throughout the United States and the world. Since larger populations now live and work on land vulnerable to various hazards, natural disasters can be expected to affect more people each year. As a result, the social work profession soon will be stretched to its limits as it attempts to respond to growing human needs in the wake of hurricanes, tornadoes, storms, floods, earthquakes, and human-made technological disasters. Research on Social Work and Disasters provides the essential strategies social work researchers, other social scientists in the area of disaster research, and emergency management personnel need to prepare for and recover from all forms of disaster.Focusing on hazard, risk, and disaster research, this book presents conceptual approaches and empirical findings in this emerging and important area of social work. It includes research on natural and technological disasters as they impact both rural and urban environments. Research on Social Work and Disasters offers conceptual and methodological guidelines for social work researchers and provides insight into the range of opportunities and issues relevant for disaster research. Specific topics you will learn about include: research design, methodology, and measurement community awareness and activism traumatic stress and stress debriefing funding and ethical issues vulnerable populations hazard education action researchResearch on Social Work and Disasters not only addresses effective strategies for responding in the aftermath of particular disasters, but also suggests significant ways in which the social work profession can become involved in prevention, mitigation, and preparedness activities. The book features examples of recent research on disasters chosen to illustrate a variety of types of disasters, theoretical approaches, methodologies, and levels of analysis. The implications drawn from this book are consistent in suggesting the responsibility of society to care for vulnerable populations and to share the burdens caused by catastrophic events.

Series Information:
European Institute of Japanese Studies East Asian Economics and Business

Development aid is often ineffective and unsustainable. The scale of problems being faced by the Third World demands large scale, replicable solutions but the high rate of failure in aid projects is often ascribed to inadequate consideration of local culture and conditions. Can demands for actions be reconciled with location-specific solutions? "The Critical Villager" argues that community-based participatory research and "transfer of technology" are not rival models of development, but complementary components of effective aid. The eight practical principles for evaluation and action describes a call for students, development workers, policy makers and researchers to put themselves in the shoes of the intended beneficiaries of aid. "The Critical Villager" suggests that despite the wide range of cultures and circumstances, there are certain constant principles underlying how people select new technologies and practices which can guide how aid interventions are designed.

As Western aid budgets are slashed and government involvement with aid programmes reduced, NGOs in the voluntary sector are finding themselves taking an ever-increasing share of development work overseas. As they do so, they are forced to grow and to assume new responsibilities, taking more important and wide-ranging decisions - in many cases, without having had the chance to step back and review the options before them and the best ways of maximizing the impact they make. This collection of essays explores the strategies available to NGOs to enhance their development work, reviewing the ways that options can be understood, appropriate programmes and likely problems.

The book analyses the management of the internal displacement caused by activities of Boko Haram's terrorist insurgence in Nigeria. With over 3.1m persons displaced, the humanitarian crisis is at teeter ends with acute malnourishment, inadequate wash and non-relief materials, improper hygiene facilities, and lack of access to basic relief aid for displaced persons. The array of humanitarian organisations belies the concrete living conditions of displaced persons and calls to question the huge resources assumed to be expended on managing the humanitarian crisis in the northeast of Nigeria and the Lake Chad Basin in general. Based on ethnographic research in IDP camps, the book chronicles the concrete living conditions of displaced persons and argues that IDPs in Northeastern Nigeria have been victimised first by Boko Haram's terrorism, and then victimised again by inefficient, un-coordinated, and unsuitable displacement management programs. This book also explicate the roles played by the Nigerian government and international aid agencies in managing this displacement, vis-a-vis a comparative analysis of similar, but better managed displacement situations in Kenya, Lebanon, and Turkey.

Experts from inside and outside the USAID program evaluate the effectiveness of governmental intervention aimed at ensuring adequate agricultural production and food security in Third-World nations. They consider in depth the question of how best to assure food security with the least amount of investment of scarce resources, looking in particular at the results of the $1 billion annual expenditure on Third-World agriculture by the USAID program.

This short book reviews the provision of food bank and other emergency food aid provision with a specific focus on the UK, whilst drawing lessons from North America, Brazil and Europe. The authors look at the historical positioning of food aid and the growth of the food aid sector in the UK following the period of austerity 2007-2012, before addressing the causes of food insecurity and concluding that food banks are a symptom of austerity and government inaction which fail to tackle the underlying causes of food poverty. The research is timely, and considers a range of disciplines and practices. This book will appeal to researchers, policy makers and practitioners food economics, welfare economics, public policy, public health, food studies, nutrition, and the wider social sciences.

Legal governance of disaster brings both care and punishment to the upending of daily life of place-based disasters. National states use disasters to reorganize how they govern. This collection considers how law is implicated in disaster. The late modern expectation that states are to care for their population makes it particularly important to point out the limits to care - limits that appear less in the grand rhetoric than in the government reports, case-level decisionmaking, administrative rules, and criminalization that make up governing. The authors argue that government documents explaining disaster put the responsibility to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances on people - often on individuals - not on the government. Law is a causal force in what are commonly called natural disasters. When courts consider causation and property rights, often separated across cases and over time, they often defer to the importance of economic activity. Police forces charged with protection rapidly turn on those they are to protect, thinking that people need protection from the victims of disaster. These insightful essays feature leading scholars whose perspectives range across disasters around the world. Their findings point to reconsidering what states do in disaster, and how law enables and constrains action.

The book identifies the main international concepts and rules that are of special relevance in disaster settings and critically analyses how they are implemented in such contexts. It shows that, although the crucial and growing importance of disaster response has resulted in a complex framework of international obligations, it is nonetheless guided by certain general principles/values. In particular, through an in-depth analysis of sovereignty, international cooperation and solidarity, and their manifestations in disaster contexts, the book assesses the concrete scope and nature of the obligations of the state affected by the disaster, and those of the international community, respectively. Considerable attention is devoted to the applicable legal framework governing disaster response in mixed situations of disaster and armed conflict, and to the main problems and operational challenges entailed by the involvement of foreign military personnel and assets in disaster response. The book's overall objective is to provide an authoritative overview of the development, core issues and challenges in international law with regard to disaster scenarios, and to serve as a valuable and comprehensive reference guide.

While Africa is the biggest recipient of aid globally, the terms, conditions and principles upon which aid is delivered are rarely defined by the people of Africa - although it is for them that this aid, at least rhetorically, is meant to create positive change. With the current global economic crisis and high-level meetings on aid effectiveness, the debate on aid to Africa is resurgent. Coming from the diverse perspectives of African social commentators, academics and activists including Demba Moussa Dembele, Patrick Bond, Samir Amin and Charles Mutasa, this comprehensive volume explores the premise, history and foundation upon which the concept of aid is based. It considers aid's relationship to the broader development discourse in Africa, the politics and power dynamics of aid mechanisms and how the emergence of powers such as China and India are redefining the global aid architecture. Aid to Africa considers how to create a more just aid system that contributes to Africa's development while also elaborating alternative approaches that understand the inherent inequity of aid. Critically, this book provides a framework not merely to render aid more effective, something which the current mainstream discourse is grappling to define, but to create an alternative African development paradigm from Pan-Africanist, feminist and other perspectives.

Overcoming state fragility is one of the most important international development objectives of the 21st century. Many fragile states have turned into failed states, where millions of people are caught in deprivation and seemingly hopeless conditions. Fragile states lack the authority, legitimacy, and capacity that a modern state needs to advance the development of its peoples, and present deep challenges for the design and implementation of development policy. For instance, how is aid to be designed and delivered in a way that will help people in fragile states if their governments lack capacity to absorb and use aid? And what can be done about adverse side-effects of fragile states on their neighbours and the global community, such as heightened insecurity, rising out-migration, displaced populations, and the destruction of natural resources? This book documents the far reaching global repercussions of state fragility and provides a timely contribution to the international discourse on three dimensions of fragile states: their causes, costs, and the responses required. It will appeal to scholars, policymakers, and donors who are concerned about conflict and development. Its aim is to contribute to our understanding of how strong and accountable states can be fostered-states where government and civil society progressively advance human wellbeing, underpin households' resilience in the face of shocks, and form effective partnerships to maximize the benefits of development assistance.

How can a place be built and managed so that it is safe for people to live? Ironically, many governments and citizens keep on asking the same question after every new disaster. Why, even with high levels of investment in increasing government's capacity to manage disasters, do the impacts of disasters continue to increase? What can the governments do differently? What is the role of local communities? Where should aid agencies invest? This book looks into these critical questions and highlights how current capacity development efforts might be resulting in the opposite-capacity crisis or capability trap. The book provides a new approach for the understanding and the developing of effective local capacity to reduce and manage future disaster impacts.

With growing awareness of the devastation caused by major natural disasters, alongside integration of governance and technology networks, the parameters of humanitarian aid are becoming more global. At the same time, humanitarian instruments are increasingly recognizing the centrality of local participation. Drawing on six case studies and a survey of sixty-nine members of the relief sector, this book suggests that the key to the efficacy of post-disaster recovery is the primacy given to local actors in the management, direction and design of relief programs. Where local partnership and knowledge generation and application is ongoing, cohesive, meaningful and inclusive, disaster relief efforts are more targeted, cost-effective, efficient and timely. Governing Disasters: Engaging Local Populations in Humanitarian Relief examines the interplay between law, governance and collaborative decision making with international, state, private sector and community actors in order to understand the dynamics of a global decentralized yet coordinated process of post-disaster humanitarian assistance.

Providing a detailed and comparative assessment of the humanitarian responses to a series of major disasters in Asia over the past two decades, including massive earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis, this book explores complex and changing understandings and practices of relief, recovery, and reconstruction. These critical investigations raise questions about the position and responsibilities of a growing range of stakeholders, and provide in-depth explorations of the ways in which local communities are transformed on multiple levels - not only by the impact of disaster events, but also by the experiences of rebuilding. This timely volume highlights how the experiences of Asia can contribute towards post-disaster responses globally, to safeguard future communities and reduce vulnerabilities. This is a valuable resource for academic researchers interested in post-disaster transformations and development studies, practitioners in NGOs, and government officials dealing with disaster response and disaster risk reduction.

For four consecutive days in early 2010, it was the number one news story in the world.

Ten Americans left the security and comfort of their homes, placed jobs on hold, and left family and friends behind to help Haitian children victimized by the January 12, 2010, earthquake. Despite their admirable intents, the Christians were charged with kidnapping, criminal association, and attempting to arrange "irregular" travel.

What Satan intended for evil, God used for good. Experience their unwavering faith. Experience their reliance on God's sustaining power, His endless grace, and His abiding presence. And trust, as they trust, that God will use their sacrifices to bring about meaningful change in Haiti. The full measure of their service is yet to be realized ...