Technology has always played a decisive role in humanity's progress, although the positive impacts technology has on human development may become tainted by the risks it entails. ""Information Communication Technologies and Human Development: Opportunities and Challenges"" emphasizes the need to consider the geographic, historic, and cultural context of an information communication technology (ICT) for development initiative, and includes several real examples that show some of the key success factors that have to be taken into consideration when using ICTs for development. ""Information Communication Technologies and Human Development: Opportunities and Challenges"" is a tool for practitioners, providing a wide knowledge of several important ICTs for development experiences that have been conducted all over the developing world.

The East Asian peace is a mystery of the modern age. To many theorists and analysts alike, the post-Cold War calm has been seen as a temporary anomaly, potential military conflicts dominating predictions for the future. Despite this, two decades have passed in which a relative peace has been sustained and it is time to question existing forecasts. Comparing the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea and the Korean Nuclear conflict, the author explores the informal processes that can help explain the persistence of peace, leading to hope for a future era of stability.

This collection explores the productive potential of uncertainty for people living in Africa as well as for scholars of Africa. Eight ethnographic case studies from across the continent examine how uncertainty is used to negotiate insecurity, create and conduct relationships, and act as a source for imagining the future.

This study provides a comprehensive analysis of state-society development in the most volatile region of the world. In the Middle East, various anti-systemic movement and radical Islam often clashed and resisted the political, cultural, economic, and military domination of the region by the world's major imperial powers. Emadi investigates state, revolution, and development in the Middle Eastern states of Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and Syria in the immediate post-World War II period. Maintaining that the state is an instrument of class domination, exhibiting a certain degree of autonomy in the creation and design of domestic development programs, he details the role of class in an attempt to provide a better understanding of the diverse factors at work. Politics of the Dispossessed provides an alternative analysis of development in regional politics and its context in world politics, aspects that are generally neglected by most mainstream studies. It examines state formation, internal development strategies, and how class conflict and ideology led to class alliance on an international basis, as well as the external interference in the internal affairs of these societies. It also explores the process of political and ethnic integration of the Middle East into the global economic system and the resulting counter-strategies of the nationalist and Islamic resistance to the increasing superpower domination of the international system.

This handbook addresses the historical background of the Islamic world and reviews its basic past intellectual achievements. It studies social progress of these regions and sub-regions in comparison with other parts of the world. It uses large data sets and well established statistically weighted Indexes in order to assess the nature and pace of the multiple facets of social change in member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). The handbook extensively discusses the main challenges confronting the Islamic nations in the social, economic, political, and ideological fields. Though it is recognizable that social change in the Islamic World is generally positive, it remains highly variable in pace and there is room to speed it up to the benefit of millions of deprived Muslim people. Hence, the book studies the different propositions and programs of action, such as the United Nations' Millennium Development Campaign and the OIC's Ten-Year Programme of Action to present an integrated and comprehensive agenda of action to help improve the situation in the Islamic World.

In this work, scholars, political leaders and experts in international development issues offer their responses to the need for up-to-date information about the linkages between population growth and three significant environmental issues: global warming, land use, and natural resource management. Collectively, the chapters in this volume look at the demographic facts and their interpretations, and beyond these facts to theories about consumption, technological development, and collective behaviour. Of particular concern throughout are the issues of poverty and the implications for the health and welfare of the poor people whose very lives are at stake in the global discussion about population growth and environment.

Based on fieldwork largely collected during the CPA interim period by Sudanese and European researchers, this volume sheds light on the dynamics of change and the relationship between microscale and macroscale processes which took place in Sudan between the 1980s and the independence of South Sudan in 2011. Contributors' various disciplinary approaches-socio-anthropological, geographical, political, historical, linguistic-focus on the general issue of "access to resources." The book analyzes major transformations which affected Sudan in the framework of globalization, including land and urban issues; water management; "new" actors and "new conflicts"; and language, identity, and ideology.

Politicians, business leaders and citizens look with hope to the Latin American middle class for political stability and purchasing power, but the economic position of the middle class remains vulnerable. The contributors document the remarkable emergence of this middle group in Latin America, whose measurement turns out not to be an easy task.

This book brings together thirteen selected papers presented in the Third International Seminar on Science and Geopolitics of Arctic-Antarctic-Himalaya, held in India in September 2015. The papers and have been grouped according to the Seminar's three main themes: a) Geopolitics of the Polar Regions, b) Global Climate Change and Polar Regions, and c) Climate Change and Himalayan Region.

A systematic reassessment, by two leading figures in the field, of the paradigm of international development in both theory and practice. It offers an overview and critique of development theory and strategy, and a new framework for the analysis of global inequality, poverty and development in an era of globalization.

Upton examines the U.S. policy process toward the five multilateral development banks-the World Bank Group, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the African Development Bank, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development-as a case study in how the United States manages its participation in multilateral institutions. The management of the U.S. role in these institutions is significant primarily because these institutions play an increasingly important role in the U.S. relationship with the developing world and because, for the most part, they are mature institutions being called upon to adapt their roles and operating styles to new financial and political realities. After examining the evolving role of the MDBs from the U.S. perspective, Upon describes the U.S. policy process toward the banks and assesses its strengths and weaknesses. She then sets out recommendations for improving the process and looks at the broader, more general lessons for U.S. policy formulation on multilateral institutions. An important assessment for scholars, researchers, and policy makers involved with international relations and economic policy.

The Routledge Companion to Applied Performance provides an in-depth, far-reaching and provocative consideration of how scholars and artists negotiate the theoretical, historical and practical politics of applied performance, both in the academy and beyond. These volumes offer insights from within and beyond the sphere of English-speaking scholarship, curated by regional experts in applied performance. The reader will gain an understanding of some of the dominant preoccupations of performance in specified regions, enhanced by contextual framing. From the dis(h)arming of the human body through dance in Colombia to clowning with dementia in Australia, via challenges to violent nationalism in the Balkans, transgender performance in Pakistan and resistance rap in Kashmir, the essays, interviews and scripts are eloquent testimony to the courage and hope of people who believe in the power of art to renew the human spirit. Students, academics, practitioners, policy-makers, cultural anthropologists and activists will benefit from the opportunities to forge new networks and develop in-depth comparative research offered by this bold, global project.

In case studies and comparative analysis of Canada, the United States, France, Switzerland, and Belgium, a distinguished international group of scholars looks at how and why provinces, states, cantons, and large municipalities increasingly seek access to foreign sources of wealth and technological information. The first book to explore the subject, this new study examines the effects of these initiatives on the traditional conduct of foreign policy and foreign trade and the implications of the continued "perforation" of national boundaries already subject to an unprecedented flow of foreign products, cultural influences, and visitors, as well as environmental pollution from abroad.

Against the backdrop of the environmental impact of household electricity consumption and the history of cooling practices, Marlyne Sahakian considers how people keep cool, from Metro Manila to other mega-cities in Southeast Asia.

This book comprises chapters by leading international authors analysing the interface between intellectual property and foreign direct investment, development, and free trade. The authors search for a balance between the conflicting interests that inherently coexist in intellectual property law. The chapters dig deep into the subjects and notions that have become central in international intellectual property legal developments: i) flexibility, public interest and policy-space for implementation; ii) interfaces between the intellectual property regime and other legal regimes; and iii) the development of international intellectual property law and its influence on national legal orders, which includes the implementation of intellectual property undertakings.

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) are believed to contribute towards economic development of host countries through foreign direct investment (FDI), which results in poverty alleviation and human empowerment through linkages and spillovers with local stakeholders. However, earlier research demonstrates that the positive impact of FDI is often inconclusive. There is thus a gap in understanding the link between the activities of MNEs in developing countries and their impact on socio-economic development. This volume reports the results of a large international 'MNEmerge' research project, financed by the European Commission, and provides an understanding of the impact of MNEs on United Nations Millennium Development Goals and successive Sustainable Development Goals in developing countries.

Regional innovation systems and sustainable development: emerging technologies promotes scientific discussion on standards and practices of regional development, while also covering emerging research topics in regional innovation systems and sustained development. A leading source of information from experts in the field, this text demonstrates the capacity of regional innovation systems, information technology, management and sustainable development for the mutual understanding, prosperity and well being of all the citizens in the world.

This book presents an academically rigorous yet practical guide to efforts to understand how knowledge, policy and power interact to promote or prevent change. It offers a power analysis perspective on the knowledge-policy process, illustrated with rich empirical examples from the field of international development, combined with practical guidance on the implications of such an approach. It provides ways to identify and address problems that have hampered previous attempts to improve the space between knowledge and policy; such as difficulties in analysing political context, persistent asymmetric relationships between actors, ignorance of the contributions of different types of knowledge, and misconceptions of the roles played by intermediary organisations. Most importantly, the book gives readers the ability to develop strategies for negotiating the complexity of the knowledge-policy interface more effectively, so as to contribute to policy dialogues, influence policy change, and implement policies and programmes more effectively. The authors focus on the dynamics of the knowledge-policy interface in international development; offering novel theoretical insights and methodological approaches that are applicable to a broader array of policy arenas and their audiences, including academics, practitioners and students.

Focusing on the development agenda of selected developed and developing countries, the contributors in this volume show that the varying degrees of success or failure in the programs of different countries are due to the way they deal with human factor development. Each essay clearly shows that a nation cannot achieve development if it continuously fails to develop its own national human factor. The contributors maintain that what different parts of the world, particularly Southeast Asia, call a development miracle is not a miracle at all.

Countries such as Japan and Singapore have experienced significant development in recent decades because their programs have focused intently on building the human factor. Countries such as Mexico, Nigeria, Bolivia, and India, on the other hand, are struggling to develop because their ongoing development programs do not address the human factor. Nations that aspire to achieve sustained human-centered development in the 21st century should focus on human factor development now.

"This is the first book to offer a systematic analysis of human rights in the 21st century. The chapters, written from diverse methodological perspectives, provide rich and varied insights on vital questions concerning the resiliency, weaknesses, and prospects of human rights today"--Provided by publisher.

As a country, Taiwan is one of the most vibrant, exciting, colourful and entrepreneurial on earth. The contributors reveal what underpins the vitality of Taiwan, examining the relevance of its democratic politics, civil society and the presence of an existential threat from China, as well as the importance of its international business nexus.

With the current global crisis, high levels of volatility in trade, capital flows, commodity prices, aid, and the looming threat of climate change, this book brings together high-quality research and presents conceptual issues and empirical results to analyze the determinants of the vulnerability to poverty in developing countries.

This contributed volume examines development efforts in sub-Saharan Africa and the role privatization and foreign investment can play. The focus is on African and international capital mobility and recent experience in private investment in contemporary African states. While government in Africa continues to have a hand in economic and political matters, private enterprise, private investment, and market forces are becoming increasingly active. The volume reveals these new directions in development practice in Africa and analyzes the difficulties which government, while well-intended, has created in the past.

Contributors from the United States and Africa pose questions and examine scenarios for investment in sub-Saharan Africa. And while no single strategy is agreed upon, they provide overwhelming evidence that it has been the failure of prior central policies which has held these nations back, and that hope for the 1990's lies in the unleashing of the private sector. This work will be of interest to scholars and policy-makers in development economics, international trade and finance, and African studies.