The economic performance of African countries south of the Sahara generally has been poor during the past two decades. External factors such as high oil prices, deteriorating terms of trade, and wars, and formidable internal factors such as corruption, chauvinism, authoritarianism, and violence have continued to plague the region. Whereas in the 1980s the Subsahara was overwhelmed by drought, devaluation, and debt, the 1990s have brought the paradox of civil strife and a complex transition to democracy. This volume surveys the major political, economic, social, ecological, and gender related aspects of Subsaharan Africa's struggle toward democracy. Its essays pose two fundamental sets of ideas: that the internal equilibrium can be restored only through institutional changes with these countries; and that the political and economic dilemmas in the region are closely related to issues of gender and the environment. The volume will be of interest to scholars and students of comparative politics, developmental economics, and African studies.

Disasters, Gender and Access to Healthcare: Women in Coastal Bangladesh emphasizes women's experiences in cyclone disasters being confined with gendered identity and responsibilities in developing socio-economic conditions with minimum healthcare facilities. The study is situated in the coastal region of Bangladesh, considered as one of the most disaster-prone regions in the world. Bangladesh has been working on disaster management for a long time; however, considering gender perspective, the book reveals gaps in plans and raises serious questions about the successful implementation of healthcare strategies after disasters. The book also describes the pre-during-after disaster periods showing the full picture of a disaster attack in victims' own words. Case studies of seriously affected victims give the reader an opportunity to understand the situations created for women during a disaster attack in a remote area with poor transport and healthcare facilities. These unique research findings will contribute to the broader context of gender, disaster and health studies. This book will be helpful for university staff and students of different disciplines including Anthropology, Disaster Management, Gender Studies and Geography and South Asian Regional Studies and be invaluable reading for disaster managers, policy makers, aid workers, development partners, NGOs and government, especially in disaster-prone countries.

"Williams's past experience as a community organizer for havenots' is clearly apparent in this carefully researched book, as his conviction that neighborhood organizations can play a key role in revitalizing urban life. After examining the setting for neighborhood organizations and discussing how neighborhoods change, he delves into the internal dynamics of those organizations. Chapters are devoted to various problems that neighborhood organizations have defined, such as crime and education; a final section analyzes neighborhood groups as conflict managers and mediators. The book offers a good survey of literature on neighborhood organizations, both theoretical and applied, and provides readers a unique bibliography of selected materials, with brief comments about each major topic; each chapter also has extensive notes and bibliography. Both grass-roots organizers and professionals in social work and city management will find this book useful." Choice

In 1994, BRAC, the world's largest NGO, made headlines by putting women's rights centre stage in Bangladesh, one of the poorest countries in the world. The Gender Quality Action Learning (GQAL) Programme was one of the very first large-scale efforts to mainstream gender equality and aimed to weave objectives of gender equality throughout its own microfinance, education and health services. Advancing Gender Equality in Bangladesh describes the history, implementation, and outcome of this major 20-year initiative and discusses the lessons learnt throughout the fight to achieve gender equality outcomes in an effort to provide a tangible framework for future organizations interested in promoting gender equality and social inclusion. At a time when many gender equality programmes are still relatively young, this book offers a unique opportunity to track 20 years of intervention within a theoretical and cultural context and provides a platform for ongoing discussion about the roles of empowerment and gender transformation as agents for social change. This book provides an in-depth analysis of how strategies for change have operated in practice and will be of considerable interest to students, researchers and practitioners of international development, gender studies and social justice theory as well as those interested in a new practical methodology of the gender role framework.

Investigating the capacity of sport to act both as a conduit for traditional development assistance activities and as an agent for change in its own right, this book argues that sport can contribute to the development process, particularly where traditional development approaches have difficulty in engaging with communities.

Free market policies have been in operation across Africa for the past twenty-five years, yet they have failed to reverse deepening poverty on the continent. This book explores why such policies continue to be implemented, despite their failure, and the ways in which they have been reinvented by socialization, depoliticization, regionalization and securitization. The impacts of these policies on security are traced through case studies of Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and South Africa, and ways to transcend neoliberalism on the continent are also explored.

Although the Genocide Convention was already adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1945, it was only in the late 1990s that groups of activists emerged calling for military interventions to halt mass atrocities. The question of who these anti-genocide activists are and what motivates them to call for the use of violence to end violence is undoubtedly worthy of exploration. Based on extensive field research, Anti-genocide Activists and the Responsibility to Protect analyses the ideological convictions that motivate two groups of anti-genocide activists: East Timor solidarity activists and Responsibility to Protect (R2P)-advocates. The book argues that there is an existential undercurrent to the call for mass atrocity interventions; that mass atrocities shock the activists' belief in a humanity that they hold to be sacred. The book argues that the ensuing rise of anti-genocide activism signals a shift in humanitarian sensibilities to human suffering and violence which may have substantial implications for moral judgements on human lives at peril in the humanitarian and human rights community. This book provides a fascinating insight into the worldviews of activists which will be of interest to practitioners and researchers of human rights activism, humanitarian advocacy and peace building.

The promotion of an enterprise culture and entrepreneurship in India in recent decades has had far-reaching implications beyond the economy, and transformed social and cultural attitudes and conduct. This book brings together pioneering research on the nature of India's enterprise culture, covering a range of different themes: workplace, education, religion, trade, films, media, youth identity, gender relations, class formation and urban politics. Based on extensive empirical and ethnographic research by the contributors, the book shows the myriad manifestations of enterprise culture and the making of the aspiring, enterprising-self in public culture, social practice, and personal lives, ranging from attempts to construct hegemonic ideas in public discourse, to appropriation by individuals and groups with unintended consequences, to forms of contested and contradictory expression. It discusses what is 'new' about enterprise culture and how it relates to pre-existing ideas, and goes on to look at the processes and mechanisms through which enterprise culture is becoming entrenched, as well as how it affects different classes and communities. The book highlights the social and political implications of enterprise culture and how it recasts family and interpersonal relationships as well as personal and collective identity. Illuminating one of the most important aspects of India's current economic and social transformation, this book is of interest to students and scholars of Asian Business, Sociology, Anthropology, Development Studies and Media and Cultural Studies.

This volume studies the outcomes of the two-way flow of investments and people between China and India, and Southeast Asia. These cross-border flows have led to new settlements in Southeast Asia from which new outlooks have emerged among locally born generations that have given rise to new forms of solidarity and identification.The advent of new generations of ethnic Chinese and Indians in Southeast Asia, with no ties to China or India, has spawned important debates about identity shifts which have not been registered by government leaders in Southeast Asia, China and India, as reflected in policy statements and investment patterns. Identity changes are assessed in forms where they best manifest themselves: in social life and in business ventures forged, or unsuccessfully nurtured, through tie-ups involving foreign and domestic capital. A state-society distinction is employed to determine how the governments of these rapidly developing countries envision development, through state intervention as well as with the employment of highly entrepreneurial ethnic groups, and the outcomes of this on their societies and on their economies. The chapters were originally published as a special issue in The Round Table.

During the last 15 years Latin American governments reformed their constitutions to recognize indigenous rights. The contributors to this book argue that these changes pose fundamental challenges to accepted notions of democracy, citizenship, and development in the region. Using case studies from Mexico, Guatemala, Bolivia, and Peru, they analyze the ways in which new legal frameworks have been implemented, appropriated and contested within a wider context of accelerating economic and legal globalization, highlighting the key implications for social policy, human rights, and social justice.

The eruption of Mount Pinatuba represented more than the smothering of America's Clark Air Force Base and many of President Corazon Aquino's development plans. It also served as a metaphor both for the collapse of Philippine-American base negotiations, presaging an end to nearly a century of strategic relations, and for Aquino's unsuccessful attempt to undo the colossal damage of the Marcos era and construct coherent development programmes. The story of the Aquino era is one of failing efforts to use the vast economic aid which poured into the country, and more successful efforts to put the lid on the communist insurgency in four-fifths of the nation's provinces. The reason for the success was that the unity of the security struggle went unmatched in the economic one, where it was every person for himself or herself. Even the presidential family had its fingers in the economic pie. This book explores the connections between two central functions of Third World governments - development and security - in an analysis of Corazon Aquino's six crisis-filled years as President of the Philippines. Information in the book is updated to reflect recent events, including the change of leaders

This book analyses the international development of the census by comparing the history of census taking on all continents and in many countries. The timeframe is wide, from male censuses in the Bible to current censuses covering the whole population. There is a focus on the efforts and destinies of census takers and the development of methods used to collect information into the census questionnaires. The book highlights international cooperation in census taking, as well as how computerized access to census data facilitates genealogical studies and statistical research on both historical and contemporary societies. It deals with such questions as "Why did the French and British gentry block efforts at census taking in the 18th century?"; "What role did German censuses play during Holocaust?"; Why were the Soviet census directors executed as part of the Moscow processes?"; "Why did US states sue the Census Bureau in the 1970s?"; "How do wars and revolutions affect census taking?". The text ends by discussing whether the days of the population census as we know it are numbered, since countries exceedingly construct censuses by combining information from population registers rather than with questionnaires.

"Popular struggles in the global south suggest the need for the development of new and politically enabling categories of analysis, and new ways of understanding contemporary social movements. This book shows how social movements in Africa, South Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East politicize development in an age of neoliberal hegemony"--

This book addresses the current state of economic and political development within Central Asia and the importance of European countries and organizations as international actors and supranational organizations for the Central Asian Region (CAR). It aims to provide a better understanding of Central Asia’s multi-faceted relations in rapidly evolving geostrategic dynamics and serves as a timely insight into the contours of Central Asian states’ policies, emerging trends, and significant features of these interactions. The aim is to analyze the main challenges for future between the Europe and Central Asia relations, to make recommendations for improvement, and to identify lines for future research on this matter. It highlights key aspects of current discourses in CAR vis-à-vis the role of European countries and China and other key players. It explores post-Soviet scenarios, considering recent drastic changes in the equation of international relations in general and, more particularly the role of Russia and China vis-à-vis Europe in the CARs. This book covers the different perspectives on the EU’s new strategy (2019), which will contribute to strengthening relations between the two growing regions. It will be beneficial for academics, practitioners, and policymakers.

This insightful and important new book explores the role played by Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in articulating concerns at the TRIPS Council, the WIPO, the WHO, the CBD-COP and the FAO that intellectual property rights can have negative consequences for developing countries. Duncan Matthews describes how coalitions of international NGOs have influenced the way that the relationship between intellectual property rights and development is understood, often framing the message as a human rights issue to emphasize these concerns and ensure that access to medicines, food security and the rights of indigenous peoples over their traditional knowledge are protected. Based on extensive research undertaken in Geneva and in developing countries, the book also reveals how NGOs and broader social movements in Brazil, India and South Africa have played a crucial role in addressing the negative impacts of intellectual property rights by using human rights law as a practical tool before national courts and when seeking to influence national legislation and government policy. Intellectual Property, Human Rights and Development will appeal to academics, practitioners, activists, international negotiators and to postgraduate students in intellectual property law, human rights law, the international political economy of intellectual property rights and development studies.

Standards are replacing tariffs as the main trade barriers facing African agro-food exports. This book examines the challenges and opportunities that new public and private standards present to African countries - focusing on food safety, environmental and climate change, and social and labour standards.

Across European cities the use of urban space is controversial and subject to diverging interests. On the one hand citizens are increasingly aware of the necessity for self-organising to reclaim green spaces. On the other hand local authorities have started to involve citizens in the governance of urban green spaces. While an increased level of citizen participation and conducive conditions for citizens' self-organisation are a desirable development per se, the risk of functionalising civil society actors by the local authority for neoliberal city development must be kept in mind. Drawing on qualitative and quantitative data collected in 29 European cities from all four European geographic regions, this book examines the governance of urban green spaces and urban food production, focusing on the contribution of citizen-driven activities. Over the course of the book, Schicklinski identifies best practice examples of successful collaboration between citizens and local government. The book concludes with policy recommendations with great practical value for local governance in European cities in times of the growth-turn. This book will be of great relevance to students, scholars, and policy-makers with an interest in environmental governance, urban geography, and sustainable development.

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.

The Kalahandi district in the state of Odisha in Eastern India is regarded as an iconic region of underdevelopment, and is often perceived to be the 'Somalia' of the country. It is also the site of a large number of governmental interventions. This book focuses on processes of governance in Odisha, and provides an ethnographic account of the changing forms of governmental actions in Kalahandi by analysing the implementation of WORLP (Western Orissa Rural Livelihoods Project), a new generation watershed development project. The book also shows the morphings of the forms of the state on the ground, and the ways in which it is perceived by the agents and objects of statist actions. Arguing that changes in the institutions and practices of the state in India over the last three decades are better understood through the conceptualisation of state-fabrication, rather than of state-formation, the author describes the governmental tactics related to emergent modes of governmental action. The book identifies an increasing convergence in the everyday practices of governmental and non-governmental organisations, and the growth of 'the social' as a terrain and object of governmental actions, as two important effects of the process of deployment of these tactics. It argues that the vernacular sphere of toutary is a key domain of sociality that frames the perceptions and actions of people related to the state in Odisha. As a domain, toutary is populated by social agents, called touters; toutary can be understood as the interstitial zone between state and society shaped by the increasing penetration by the state into society through social technologies. By providing an alternative analysis of state and politics in India, this book adds to the literature surrounding the everyday state by illuminating recent changes in state-society relations. It will be of interest to academics in the field of Political Science, Public Policy, Development Studies, Social Anthropology/Sociology, Social Work, and South Asian studies.

Aurora Plomer explores international human rights, and its relevance to battles over intellectual property and science. Her work highlights the need for the benefits of scientific research to be fairly and equitably shared. Her work is an important original contribution to the literature on intellectual property, human rights, and the sociology of science.' - Matthew Rimmer, Queensland University of Technology, Australia'This remarkable book highlights and analyzes the inherent tensions and complementarities of patents with access to science, as materialized in the most prominent international human rights agreements. A must-read for anyone interested in one of the most crucial and debated questions of intellectual property, examined here from the perspective of its fascinating but complex interactions with human rights.' - Christophe Geiger, University of Strasbourg, France 'The relationship between patents, human rights and science raises fundamental questions for innovation and for access to the benefits of scientific endeavour. Yet the complexities of the underlying science and legal environment in which it operates cannot be underestimated. Aurora Plomer deftly navigates this terrain with great clarity and skill. The resulting book is timely, accessible and a thorough scholarly work that demystifies and throws new light on the interface between science and the law.' - Duncan Matthews, Queen Mary University of London, UK The new millennium has been described as 'the century of biology', but scientific progress and access to medicines has been marred by global disputes over ownership of the science by universities and private companies. This book examines the challenges posed by the modern patent system to the right of everyone to access the benefits of science in international law. Aurora Plomer retraces the genesis and evolution of the key Articles in the UN system (Article 27 UDHR and Article 15 ICESCR). She combines the historiography of these Articles with a novel perspective on the moral foundations of rights of access to science to draw out implications for today's controversies on patents in the life-sciences. The analysis suggests that access to science as a fundamental right requires both freedom from political and religious interference and the existence of enabling research institutions and educational facilities which promote the flow of knowledge through transparent and open structures. From this perspective, the global patent system is shown to fail spectacularly when it comes to the human rights ideal of universal access to science. The book concludes that a fundamental restructuring of patent institutions is required, in which democratic oversight of patent policies would ensure meaningful realization of the right of everyone to access the benefits of science. Students and scholars of international law, particularly those focusing on intellectual property and human rights, will find this book to be of considerable interest. It will also be of use to practitioners in the field.

This timely Handbook collates a range of evidence from top scholars in the field to help readers understand who microfinance reaches, how it helps, and why clients come back. It offers updated views on important concepts that enable a broader framework for understanding poverty and the corresponding financial needs of poor households. Chapters cover recent findings on social impacts, the role of gender, fairness of interest rates, financial resilience in emergencies, and financial education, to provide a thorough coverage of key areas of the field. The Handbook focuses on delivery mechanisms for financial services including group liability lending, agent banking, and digital finance, as well as the special role of value chain finance and insurance for smallholder agriculture. The case studies from both developed and developing countries and regions, illustrating the novel aspects of the link between microfinance, financial inclusion and development will make this a critical read for economics and development studies scholars. The practitioner views on the role of microfinance included in the Handbook will also make this a relevant and useful read for policy makers and practitioners in the area

An examination of the divergent developmental legacies of forced settlement and colonial occupation on both sides of the Black Atlantic world. The European powers that colonized much of the world over the last few hundred years created a variety of social systems in their various colonies. In Ruling Emancipated Slaves and Indigenous Subjects, Olukunle P. Owolabi explores the divergent developmental trajectories of Global South nations that were shaped by forced settlement, where European colonists imported African slaves to establish large-scale agricultural plantations, or by colonial occupation, which resulted in the exploitation of indigenous non-white populations. Owolabi shows that most forced settlement colonies emerged from European domination with higher levels of education attainment, greater postcolonial democratization, and favorable human development outcomes relative to Global South countries that emerged from colonial occupation after 1945. To explain this paradox, he examines the distinctive legal-administrative institutions that were used to control indigenous colonial subjects and highlights the impact of liberal reforms that expanded the legal rights and political agency of former slaves following abolition. Spanning three centuries of colonial history and postcolonial development, this is the first book to systematically examine the distinctive patterns of state-building that resulted from forced settlement and colonial occupation in the Black Atlantic world.

This volume describes American and European reactions to the Japanese supremacy in core technologies, focussing on the emerging idea of economic national security and an active role of the state in mediating enabling technologies. The "Strategic Defense Initiative" (SDI), the U.S. semiconductor program SEMATECH, and the European R & D initiative EUREKA serve as case studies on how states try to promote knowledge-based technologies in strategically relevant areas. A theoretical chapter analyzes changes in stateness and an emerging new type of political economy within the context of globally-oriented international competition.

In the years following the financial crash, two issues have become central to the debate in economics: inequality and the uneven nature of sustainable development. These two issues are at the core of this book which aims to explain three key questions: why inequality has increased so much in the last three decades; why most advanced economies are stagnating or are experiencing moderate economic growth; and why, even where economic growth is occurring, the quality of that growth is questioned. Inequality and Uneven Development in the Post-Crisis World is divided into three parts. The first part concerns the theoretical aspects of inequality, and ethical issues regarding economics and equality. The second part explores empirical evidence and policy suggestions drawing on the uneven levels of development and unprecedented levels of inequality experienced among advanced economies in the context of global financial capitalism. The third part focuses on sustainable development issues such as full employment, social costs of global trade liberalization, environmental sustainability and ecological issues. Along with inequality these issues are central for capitalism and for economic development. This volume is of interest to those who study political economy, sustainable development and social inequality.