This book establishes a new, holistic framework for disaster recovery and mitigation, providing a multidisciplinary perspective on the field of risk management strategies and societal and communal resilience. Going beyond narrow approaches that are all too prevalent in the field, this work builds on an optimum combination of community-level networks, private market mechanisms and state-based assistance strategies. Its chapters describe best practices in the field and elucidate cutting-edge research on recovery, highlighting the interaction between government, industry and civil society. The book uses new data from a number of recent disasters across southeast and east Asia to understand the interactions among residents, the state, and catastrophe, drawing on events in Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Japan, China and Thailand. Grounded in theories of risk mitigation and empirical research, the book provides practical guidance for decision makers along with future research directions for scholars.

"The Asian region is highly prone to natural disasters which devastate large and mostly poor populations. This book deals with some of the root issues underlying the continued vulnerability of these societies to catastrophic shocks. The book is unusual in that it comprehensively covers resilience and fragilities from community levels to market mechanisms and governance and it analyses these issues in very different economic and structural settings. Recommended for development and disaster risk managers without question."

Professor Debarati Guha-Sapir

Director, Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED); Professor, University of Louvain, Research Institute Health and Society."

A comprehensive analysis of how European development policy was shaped, this book explores the role of former colonial officials in shaping the policy agenda and explores this example of 'recycled empire'. Veronique Dimier argues that this post-colonial agenda only changed as a result of pressure from the OECD and World Bank in the 1980s and 1990s."

Last year, Off the Grid News put out their first volume of The Big Book of Off the Grid Secrets and it was a wonderful success. As our readers know, Off the Grid News has been leading the way in hard-hitting news, practical help, and time-saving tips for getting "off the grid." Daily articles in their newsletter and on their website run the gamut from gardening to hunting, from alternative energy to bartering, from homesteading to self-defense, and from faith to politics. Now they're bringing you the The Big Book of Off the Grid Secrets, Volume 2, filled with fifty of the most-read and informative articles from 2012. Readers will find information on gardening, food storage and preparation, health, do-it-yourself, survival, self-defense, energy, and precious metals. In addition, they've included the transcripts from their ten most popular radio shows from 2012, which includes the police state, preparing to live on nothing at all, corruption in America, the John Birch Society, and Red diaper babies. Readers won't find this much information in one book anywhere else. If readers are really interested in being "off the grid," then this compilation will only be an added value in their preparation library.

At the end of the twentieth century, academics and policymakers welcomed a trend toward fiscal and political decentralization as part of a potential solution for slow economic growth and poor performance by insulated, unaccountable governments. For the last two decades, researchers have been trying to answer a series of vexing questions about the political economy of multi-layered governance. Much of the best recent research on decentralization has come from close collaborations between university researchers and international aid institutions. As the volume and quality of this collaborative research have increased in recent decades, the time has come to review the lessons from this literature and apply them to debates about future programming. In this volume, the contributors place this research in the broader history of engagement between aid institutions and academics, particularly in the area of decentralized governance, and outline the challenges and opportunities to link evidence and policy action.

James Crossland's work traces the history of the International Committee of the Red Cross' struggle to bring humanitarianism to the Second World War, by focusing on its tumultuous relationship with one of the conflict's key belligerents and masters of the blockade of the Third Reich, Great Britain.

Adopting a distinctive structural political economy approach, this book uniquely explains the blind spots of alternative political economy approaches to international aid, and presents an original framework for evaluating likely reformers' strength of commitment and potential alliances with donors.

Who should provide food, and through what relationships? Whose livelihoods should be protected? For over 20 years the peasant farmers of La Via Campesina have been engaged in the fight against injustice, hunger and poverty under the banner of food sovereignty, 'the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems'. They campaign for healthy, sustainable alternatives to an industrial food system controlled by agribusiness companies and the architects of unfair trade agreements. This book draws on grounded case studies of agrarian movements in the Americas and Europe as exemplars of a 'power shift,' as local opposition scales up to global action in an effort to wrest control of our food away from transnational corporations and back to communities.

Think about where you are right now. How well would you and your family fare if today, right now, you were suddenly faced with an enormous disaster-a massive earthquake, a sudden flood, a horrific hurricane, tornado, super storm, or other catastrophic event? If you and your family are not fully prepared to face the events after a disaster and you want to learn how to prepare for and survive when a disaster strikes, this book could save your life ... and the lives of your family. This book details lifesaving information and illustrations for you and your family, to help ensure your survival in the event of a disaster.

Think about where you are right now. How well would you and your family fare if today, right now, you were suddenly faced with an enormous disaster-a massive earthquake, a sudden flood, a horrific hurricane, tornado, super storm, or other catastrophic event? If you and your family are not fully prepared to face the events after a disaster and you want to learn how to prepare for and survive when a disaster strikes, this book could save your life ... and the lives of your family. This book details lifesaving information and illustrations for you and your family, to help ensure your survival in the event of a disaster.

This book reviews the remarkable growth, diversity and challenges of child sponsorship. It features the latest progress in child sponsorship practice and necessary tensions experienced by some organisations as they seek to maximise impact.

The new growth patterns and shifting wealth in the world economy fundamentally alter the basis for Western aid. This book demonstrates how Western development aid has been transformed over time, in particular in the 1990s, when the West enjoyed world hegemony. Western aid, once a helping hand to other countries' development strategies, has increasingly been seen as a tool for large-scale attempts to transform states, societies and minds according to Western models. The authors claim that this has made aid more complex and less useful to poor countries in their fight against poverty.
Emerging economies, such as China, have demonstrated that other paths to growth and poverty alleviation are available. They are attractive partners in development, offering collaboration without paternalism. Most poor countries experience growth, and are able to finance development with homegrown resources or in collaboration with non-Western partners. Having other options, they may increasingly challenge and reject Western aid if it is accompanied with goals of transforming the recipients based on Western blueprints.
The authors claim that aid has a role in the fight against poverty in the future, but only if Western donors are willing to adapt to the new world order, leave paternalism behind and rethink their role in development. Donors must change the way they relate to poor sovereign states, redefine the meaning of 'development', and reinvent aid to make it simpler and more manageable.

Natural disasters that have struck Asian countries in recent years have brought global attention to the work of local Buddhist communities and international humanitarian groups operating on Buddhist principles. Buddhist monks and nuns, even in the most conservative tradition, have engaged with survivors and families of the deceased in difficult contexts and are making active contribution to the development of civil society. Contributors of this volume have conducted research in India, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and Cambodia and examine both local Buddhist communities and international organizations engaged in a variety of relief work in China, Taiwan and Japan. They explore the variety of ways in which Buddhist traditions and organizations are being reconstructed through local and international aid work in ways more engaged with and more relevant to human problems in the contemporary world.

Development cooperation is a comparatively new concept in international relations. The aims of and motives for development cooperation have since changed significantly. Besides pursuing short- and longer-term objectives in their own economic, foreign policy and other interests, donors usually have a recognisable and genuine interest in assisting countries in their processes of development. In the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the international community has an acknowledged frame of reference for global objectives, which play a major role not least in development cooperation.

Academics and practitioners alike recognize that global governance institutions suffer from a democratic deficit. Many have looked to transnational civil society as a means of remediation. Yet a clear gap has begun to emerge between normative hopes and empirical reality. Using new data from civil society engagements with the World Bank, this book shows how transnational civil society organizations prioritize pre-existing mission over responsiveness to claimed stakeholders, undertake activism in line with financial incentives, achieve impacts using elite channels of influence, and undercut the authority of developing country governments. It explores the structural roots of these patterns and examines their impact on democratic representation. It also offers practical advice for how these negative patterns can be moderated through new practices at the Bank and new norms within civil society.

Not many people realize it, but the world is coming apart-and it's probably not going to get better anytime soon. Terrorism, natural disasters, economic collapses, riots, and civil unrest continue to spread throughout cities, states, and nations. It's more important than ever to prepare to survive such events.

David Browne, a Vietnam veteran who was assigned to the CIA and flew out of Udorn Thailand along the Ho Chi Minh trail with Air America, relies on his experiences during the war and after to help you survive the tough times ahead. As the former operator of Pioneer Survival School, he has lived "off the grid" with his family for twelve years, and he's an expert on survival.

This guidebook to family preparedness can teach you how to survive riots and civil unrest; decide when to ignore governmental orders; plan an escape from the city where you live; and protect your family even when you don't have guns.

You'll also learn what foods and other tangible goods to have on hand in order to keep yourself and your loved ones alive. When the going gets tough, this guide can help you to survive this new millennium.

Three years ago, award-winning actress Angelina Jolie took on a radically different role as a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Here are her memoirs from her journeys to Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Pakistan, Cambodia and Ecuador, where she lived and worked and gave her heart to those who suffer the world's most shattering violence and victimization. Here are her revelations of joy and warmth amid utter destitution, compelling snapshots of courageous and inspiring people for whom survival is their daily work and candid notes from a unique pilgrimage that completely changed the actress's worldview - and the world within herself.

Not many people realize it, but the world is coming apart-and it's probably not going to get better anytime soon. Terrorism, natural disasters, economic collapses, riots, and civil unrest continue to spread throughout cities, states, and nations. It's more important than ever to prepare to survive such events.

David Browne, a Vietnam veteran who was assigned to the CIA and flew out of Udorn Thailand along the Ho Chi Minh trail with Air America, relies on his experiences during the war and after to help you survive the tough times ahead. As the former operator of Pioneer Survival School, he has lived "off the grid" with his family for twelve years, and he's an expert on survival.

This guidebook to family preparedness can teach you how to survive riots and civil unrest; decide when to ignore governmental orders; plan an escape from the city where you live; and protect your family even when you don't have guns.

You'll also learn what foods and other tangible goods to have on hand in order to keep yourself and your loved ones alive. When the going gets tough, this guide can help you to survive this new millennium.

Veterans in rural communities face unique challenges, who will step up to help?
Beginning with a brief scenario of a more gentle view of rural life, the book moves through learned information about families, children, and our returning National Guard and Reserve civilian military members. Return experiences will necessarily be different in rural and frontier settings than they are in suburban and urban environments. Our rural and frontier areas, especially in Western states with more isolated communities, less developed communication and limited access to medical, psychological and social services remain an important concern. This book helps provide some informed direction in working toward improving these as a general guide for mental health professionals working with Guard and Reserve members and families in rural/frontier settings. An appendix provides an in-depth list of online references for Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).
Specific areas of concern include: Morale, deployment abroad, and stress factors Effects of terrorism on children and families at home Understanding survivor guilt Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and suicide Preventing secondary traumatization Resiliency among refugee populations and military families Adjustment and re-integration following the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars Vicarious trauma and its effects on children and adults How rural and remote communities differ from more urban ones following war experiences in readjusting military members Characteristics important in therapists/counselors working with returning military
Doherty's second volume in this new series "Crisis in the American Heartland" explores these and many other issues. Each volume available in trade paper, hardcover, and eBook formats.
Learn more at www.RMRInstitute.org
PSY022040 Psychology: Psychopathology - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
SOC040000 Social Science: Disasters & Disaster Relief
HIS027170 Military - Iraq War (2003-)

In the wake of the AIDS pandemic, legions of organizations and compassionate individuals from faraway places descended on Africa to offer help and save lives. Ann Swidler and Susan Cotts Watkins vividly describe the often mismatched expectations and fantasies of altruists who dream of transforming lives, of the villagers who desperately seek help, and of the brokers on whom both Western altruists and impoverished villagers must rely. Based on years of fieldwork in the heavily AIDS-affected country of Malawi, this incisive, irreverent book digs into the sprawling AIDS enterprise and unravels the paradoxes of policy and practice. All who want to do good-from idealistic volunteers to world-weary development professionals-depend on brokers as guides, fixers, and cultural translators. The mutual misunderstandings among these players create all the drama of a romance: longing, exhilaration, disappointment, heartache, and sometimes an enduring connection. A Fraught Embrace unveils the tangled relations of those involved in the collective struggle to contain an epidemic.

Barrie Ireton tells the unique history of Britain's international development efforts from colonial times to the present day set in a global context. He brings together original research material as well as his personal knowledge over a 40 year career in government. He argues that the Department, led by successive Ministers, continued to pursue its basic mission of poverty reduction in the poorest countries. He also acknowledges important deviations from this trend, particularly during the 1980s when the Aid and Trade Provision became an aggressive use of aid to win export orders at the behest of the interventionist Department of Trade and Industry under an otherwise not interventionist conservative government.

Today, a large number of scholars studying development understand this process as involving learning and capability building. Capability building is an active, not a passive, process. It requires a purposeful effort from the learner's side, with support and commitment on allocation of time and resources toward learning activities. This process implies the possibility of failure as well as success, as we also learn from failures. A global cast of academics and policy makers examines economic development as a process of learning and technological accumulation, showing how economic development is a process involving creative destruction. While markets and market competition play major roles in structuring the development process, non-market institutions and government policies matter.