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.

On Vulnerability maps out an array of perspectives for critically examining the nature of vulnerability, its unequal patterning across different social groups, alongside the everyday social processes that render us vulnerable - interactions, identity and group dynamics. Each chapter equips the reader with a particular sensitising framework for navigating and questioning what it means to be vulnerable or how people cope amid vulnerability. From deviance, stigma and the spoiling or fracturing of identity, to perspectives such as intersectionality, risk, emotions and the vulnerable body, the book traces the theoretical roots of these different analytical lenses, before applying these through illuminating examples and case studies. Drawing on scholarship across more interpretative, analytic and critical traditions, the chapters combine into a multi-dimensional toolkit which will enable the study of the cultural meanings of vulnerability, the political-economic factors that shape its patterning, with a critical sensibility for 'unlearning' many assumptions, therefore challenging our sense of who is, or who can be, vulnerable. This book is designed to equip undergraduate and post-graduate students and researchers across the social, health and human sciences, aiding them as they study and question the experiences and structures of vulnerability in our social world.

Where can one get a synthesis of research findings on urban development planning in Africa? This book addresses this gap in knowledge by distilling existing research to provide insights into theories, research designs, empirical findings and approaches on urban development planning in Africa. Starting with the overall planning culture and strategies, the book chapters move on to specific themes such as governance, population, poverty, water, recreation, transport, agriculture, air quality and rural-urban linkages. This book reduces the prevailing risk of unnecessary duplication of research and the inadequate attention that is being given to extending research in new areas. This situation has partly been due to existing research remaining scattered in different organizations and publications and has not been subjected to critical synthesis to unearth any new developments that it contains. The book makes available research findings to be utilized in current and future urban development planning in Africa.

For the first time, here is the complete history of the International Finance Corporation (IFC). In the fifty years since the end of World War II, the world of development finance has grown rapidly. One of the many financial institutions which cropped up to help war-torn countries with their reconstruction was the IFC. International Business Expansion Into Less-Developed Countries examines the success of the IFC in its wide variety of public sector development activities. Covering thirty-five years of IFC operations, the book thoroughly evaluates the formulation of the concept of the IFC and its evolution as a viable global development finance agency. It is the most complete and up-to-date treatment available of the IFC.The administration and operational procedures are described in detail as are case examples of financial development in all regions. Problems encountered by the IFC and new and future activities of the IFC are discussed. Scholars of economic development and international financewill find the unusual way in which the IFC was established and the case examples presented a highly valuable reference, as will students of international studies and organizations.

Elinor Ostrom's Nobel Prize-winning work on common pool property rights has implications for some of the most pressing sustainability issues of the twenty-first century - from tackling climate change to maintaining cyberspace. In this book, Derek Wall critically examines Ostrom's work, while also exploring the following questions: is it possible to combine insights rooted in methodological individualism with a theory that stresses collectivist solutions? Is Ostrom's emphasis on largely local solutions to climate change relevant to a crisis propelled by global factors? This volume situates her ideas in terms of the constitutional analysis of her partner Vincent Ostrom and wider institutional economics. It outlines her key concerns, including a radical research methodology, commitment to indigenous people and the concept of social-ecological systems. Ostrom is recognised for producing a body of work which demonstrates how people can construct rules that allow them to exploit the environment in an ecologically sustainable way, without the need for governmental regulation, and this book argues that in a world where ecological realities increasingly threaten material prosperity, such scholarship provides a way of thinking about how humanity can create truly sustainable development. Given the inter-disciplinary nature of Ostrom's work, this book will be relevant to those working in the areas of environmental economics, political economy, political science and ecology.

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.

Sustainable development has been the basic goal of the European Union since the Treaty of Amsterdam. After an in-depth analysis of the concept, the book goes on to translate the concept into practicable and tangible opportunities for urban and regional sustainable development. Extensive lists of criteria and indicators have been developed for additional explanation and support. An entirely new and innovative system for sustainability planning is presented, based on the interdependence of the cities and their hinterlands' and on the conviction that the development of one or more key sectors usually has a better potential for success than striving for overall sustainability planning right from the start. Although the approach itself is fundamental, it has been guided throughout by practical applicability and realism. It has been tested in case studies in a number of European regions, with agriculture and forestry, small and medium sized industries, and tourism as key sectors. Detailed guidelines are given on how to apply the methodology in practice, how to embed existing practices within it, and how to manage the indispensable stakeholder participation. The chapter on European Union policies, activities and possible sources of funding completes the work. Readership: Required reading for all those involved in urban and regional sustainable development.

This book focuses on critical approaches to the state and state theory in the Global South. In light of the reemergence of the post-colonial and peripheral state as a crucial institution and actor in the 21st century's capitalist world-system, the book examines the nature, functions and development dynamics of the state in the periphery, as well as its constituting interests and struggles. Drawing on the works of Poulantzas and Gramsci, dependency and world-systems theory, as well as the regulation school and the German Ableitungsdebatte, stategraphy and critical realism, it analyzes the development of different theoretical perspectives on the state, elaborates on their theoretical, ontological and epistemological presuppositions, and illustrates their methodological, practical and ethical implications. The book is divided into three parts, the first of which provides an overview of recent global capitalist developments and challenges for state theory and lays the theoretical, ontological and hermeneutic foundation for studies of the state and statehood in the Global South. In turn, the second part introduces readers to different schools of state theory, including critical theory and materialism, as well as approaches derived from postcolonial, anthropological, and feminist thought. Lastly, the third part presents various empirical studies, highlighting concrete methodological and practical experiences of conducting critical state theory.

This contributed volume explores the status of women in the economies of countries at various developmental stages. Issues covered include, first, evidence of economic and social inequality throughout the world. Second, gender inequality in many societies can be explained by inadequate investment in human capital. Third, by overlooking women's nonmarket output, countries generally overlook women's economic contributions to a nation. Finally, with economic progress women become healthier as well as better educated and trained. Part I addresses the interaction of economic development and gender inequality, while Part II discusses women in France, Mexico, Nigeria, and Turkey. Part III considers some special concerns facing women.

Part I addresses the interaction of economic development and gender inequality. Chapters explore gender inequality in newly industrialized countries, the effects of economic development on employment status in less developed countries in the Western Hemisphere, and the economic development and status of women in South Korea. Part II discusses the economic status of women in France, Mexico, and Nigeria. This section also presents models used to estimate labor force participation and earnings of men and women in Turkey. Part III covers special concerns facing women in several countries, including health issues, the status of women during the economic transition in Poland, the gap between actual and official labor force participation of women in Pakistan, and the impact of social technology on the economic status of women in India.

This book focuses on interregional relations across the Atlantic and the possible evolution of a new, distinctive Atlantic space for international relations. It provides a comprehensive insight into the overlapping linkages of interregionalism in the wider Atlantic space. Additionally, it raises the question of relevance, currently the main question in this field of research: Is interregionalism important because it brings about something new that really matters or is it simply a (perhaps unavoidable) by-product of regionalism? The book conducts an analysis of six interregional relations criss-crossing the Atlantic space, accounting for the multitude of interregional connections within a potential Atlantic macro region and analysing the differences, conflicts and convergences between regional organizations. It engages with the issue of agency in interregional relations, and argues that interregional processes and agendas are always driven and constructed by certain actors for certain purposes.

This book discusses how to develop green transitions which benefit, include and respect marginalised social groups. Diversity and Inclusion in Environmentalism explores the challenge of taking into account issues of equity and justice in the green transformation and shows that ignoring these issues risks exacerbating the gap between the rich and the poor, the marginalised and included, and undermining widespread support for climate change mitigation. Expert contributors provide evidence and analysis in relation to the thinking and practice that has prevented us from building a broad base of people who are willing and able to take the action necessary to successfully overcome the current ecological crises. Providing examples from a wide range of marginalised and/or oppressed groups including women, disabled people, Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) people and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning and others (LGBTQ+) community, the authors demonstrate how the issues and concerns of these groups are often undervalued in environmental policy-making and environmental social movements. Overall, this book supports environmental academics and practitioners to choose and campaign for effective, equitable and widely supported environmental policy, thereby enabling a smoother transition to sustainability. This volume will be of great interest to students, scholars and practitioners of environmental justice, social and environmental policy, planning and environmental sociology.

Globalization is everyone's business, asserts Kiggundu in this comprehensive examination of globalization's influences on transition economies. Globalization presents challenges to developed and developing countries alike, and these challenges can and must be managed. Countries making the move from state-run to market-driven economies were faced with formidable obstacles even before globalization's effects were fully felt. Kiggundu argues that we, the incipient global society comprised of governments, corporations, NGOs, and individuals, must take a strategic approach to managing globalization. He explores strategies in the fields of public sector reform, governmental use of technology, foreign direct investment and international trade policy, the evolving World Trade Organization, cultures of entrepreneurship, labor standards, and environmental protection.

Strategies for managing globalization are not merely to achieve and maintain dominance or competitiveness, but also to integrate the concerns voiced by globalization's harshest critics and most disenfranchised victims: ethics, equity, inclusion, physical and psychological human security, sustainability, and development. Kiggundu contends that these values, summarized in a 1999 United Nations Development report, should go hand in hand with the mantras we hear from the management literature: profitability and maximizing shareholder value, among other traditional corporate goals. Providing a broad variety of examples, from Chile's management of financial crisis to the vision statements of Botswana and Malaysia, Kiggundu delineates the many ways in which developing countries are successfully managing the vagaries of globalization.

This book analyzes the contents and consistency of the British New Humanitarianism and its application to Sierra Leone, investigating the effectiveness of policy implementation and the capacity of humanitarian assistance addressing broader political objectives. Placing the experience of Sierra Leone in context with other countries--Sudan and Iraq, Tanja Schumer draws key conclusions regarding the future for international humanitarian policy.

Hundreds of millions of tenants live in Third World cities. In many cities, they constitute the majority of households. Despite the numerical importance of this segment of the population, there exists only limited information on who these people are and their living conditions. Information is even more limited on those who provide rental accommodation.
"Landlord and Tenant" is the first book written in English to discuss rental housing in the developing world, particularly in Latin America. The book summarizes and analyzes current knowledge about rental housing in Latin America, and compares this information with the situation in other areas of the developing world.
The authors use survey data and in-depth interviews to compile a detailed portrayal of landlords and tenants in Mexico. They explore the reasons that landlords invest, or fail to invest, in rental housing and the reasons that tenants move into rental housing and into peripheral self-help ownership. The relationship between landlords and tenants is examined, with an explanation of how the state intervenes in that relationship. "Landlord" "and Tenant" also reviews Mexican housing policy, with its clear bias towards increasing home ownership, and explores ways of improving the quality and stock of rental accommodation.

Drawing on field-based data and experiences from the practice of democratic decentralization and local governance over the last three decades in Ghana, this book examines whether and how democratic decentralization and local governance reforms in developing countries have produced the anticipated development outcomes. In seventeen related contributions, the authors present four relevant focal themes, including conceptual and historical trajectories of decentralization and local governance; institutional choice, democratic representation, and poverty reduction; local governance, resource capacity, and service delivery; and non-state actors, local governance and sustainable development. The book blends perspectives of scholars, practitioners, and policy-makers to provide a holistic analysis of linkages between decentralization, local governance, and sustainable development efforts, presenting a novel and useful guide for science, policy, and practice of bottom-up governance and development. It provides relevant lessons and experiences for scholars, policy-makers, and development practitioners in Africa in particular and developing countries in general.

Retailing in the Third World occurs in a wide range of contexts. In some places it is literally a matter of life and death--concerned with the distribution of the most basic foodstuffs. Elsewhere it is at the forefront of economic development.
This volume explores some of the factors which explain the variety of retail structures and modes of consumer behavior that characterize retailing in developing countries. Geographical variations are seen to be the product of cultural forces as well as economic ones; the interface between culture and consumer behaviour is shown to be as potent a force within retailing as structural changes in distribution channels and retail outlets. Analysis of retail environments in developing countries points to the need for a dynamic framework capable of capturing the interaction between world economic influences and social and economic formations specific to particular places. Containing a broad cross-section of case studies, the volume aims to be both international and interdisciplinary and will appeal to anyone with an interest in retailing and marketing in developing countries.

This book examines the challenge of reform of the urban water supply sector in developing countries, based on case studies of state-owned water companies in Ghana, India, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe. The growing public private partnership for urban water supply is analyzed, focussing on the concession contract model. The implications for meeting the water needs of the urban poor, for the regulatory role of the state and for state capacity building are also discussed.

Mental health has always been a low priority worldwide. Yet more than 650 million people are estimated to meet diagnostic criteria for common mental disorders such as depression and anxiety, with almost three-quarters of that burden in low- and middle-income countries. Nowhere in the world does mental health enjoy parity with physical health. Notwithstanding astonishing medical advancements in treatments for physical illnesses, mental disorder continues to have a startlingly high mortality rate. However, despite its widespread neglect, there is now an emerging international imperative to improve global mental health and wellbeing. The UN's current international development agenda finalised at the end of 2015 contains 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including SDG3, which seeks to ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages. Although much broader in focus than the previous eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the need for worldwide improvement in mental health has finally been recognised. This Handbook addresses the new UN agenda in the context of mental health and sustainable development, examining its implications for national and international policy-makers, decision-makers, researchers and funding agencies. Conceptual, evidence-based and practical discussions crossing a range of disciplines are presented from the world's leading mental health experts. Together, they explore why a commitment to investing in mental health for the fulfilment of SDG3 ought to be an absolute global priority.

Offering insights from pioneering new perspectives in addition to well-established traditions of research, this Handbook considers the activities not only of advocacy groups in the environmental, feminist, human rights, humanitarian, and peace sectors, but also the array of religious, professional, and business associations that make up the wider non-governmental organization (NGO) community. Including perspectives from multiple world regions, the book takes account of institutions in the Global South, alongside better-known structures of the Global North. International contributors from a range of disciplines cover all the major aspects of research into NGOs in International Relations to present: a comprehensive overview of the historical evolution of NGOs, the range of structural forms and international networks coverage of major theoretical perspectives illustrations of how NGOs are influential in every prominent issue-area of contemporary International Relations evaluation of the significant regional variations among NGOs and how regional contexts influence the nature and impact of NGOs analysis of the ways NGOs address authoritarianism, terrorism, and challenges to democracy, and how NGOs handle concerns surrounding their own legitimacy and accountability. Exploring contrasting theories, regional dimensions, and a wide range of contemporary challenges facing NGOs, this Handbook will be essential reading for students, scholars, and practitioners alike.

Recent global appropriations of public spaces through urban activism, public uprising, and political protest have brought back democratic values, beliefs, and practices that have been historically associated with cities. Given the aggressive commodification of public re- sources, public space is critically important due to its capacity to enable forms of public dis- course and social practice which are fundamental for the well-being of democratic societies. Public Space Reader brings together public space scholarship by a cross-disciplinary group of academics and specialists whose essays consider fundamental questions: What is public space and how does it manifest larger cultural, social, and political processes? How are public spaces designed, socially and materially produced, and managed? How does this impact the nature and character of public experience? What roles does it play in the struggles for the just city, and the Right to The City? What critical participatory approaches can be employed to create inclusive public spaces that respond to the diverse needs, desires, and aspirations of individuals and communities alike? What are the critical global and comparative perspectives on public space that can enable further scholarly and professional work? And, what are the futures of public space in the face of global pandemics, such as COVID-19? The readers of this volume will be rewarded with an impressive array of perspectives that are bound to expand critical understanding of public space.

The book focuses on voices of displaced women who constitute a critical part of the migration process through an unravelling of the engendered displacement. It draws attention to the various processes, methods and approaches by national and international human rights and humanitarian laws and principles, and the experiences of the relevant communities, organisations towards peaceful co-existence. The contributions to this volume embellish the argument that there is a direct correlation between an academic researcher's positionality, methods and trajectories of critical knowledge production. In particular, feminist epistemologies with specific emphasis on post-coloniality utilized in conjunction with scholarship related to transnational migration studies constitute a distinctly powerful vantage point for challenging methodological nationalism and the syndrome of 'seeing like the state' in the area of forced migration studies.

"This book is concerned with the political and economic obstacles encountered by states in the Middle East seeking to rebuild their national economies after their devastation by violent upheaval, or invasion. Economic devastation is at once the cause and the consequence of partial or total state failure. But, given the type of regime which is likely to seize power under such conditions, it is doubtful that the rulers will defer to the logic of economic growth at the cost of diminishing their own power. The resultant political dilemma is the most challenging obstacle to the rebuilding of devastated economies in the Middle East."--BOOK JACKET.

"Cultural Change and Persistence "addresses the complex challenge of pursuing development while safeguarding cherished aspects of deeply-rooted cultural practices and beliefs. Through cases from multiple world regions, the authors tackle the thorny problem of how to define and identify cultural aspects worthy of persistence. They document how leaders and activists use culture to shape development and vice versa, with examples ranging from the use of historical understandings to promote or critique economic development strategies, to efforts to modify cultural practices in order to prevent their decline. The cases provide penetrating insights into effective strategies for pursuing both cultural integrity and development.

West Africa (1977) surveys the first century of European enterprise – rivalry, and exploitation – in West Africa. It examines the achievements of the Portuguese during the century following their exploration of its shores, and the successive attempts of its rivals – Castilians, the French and English – to disrupt the commercial monopoly claimed by Portugal in West African waters.

When it was published in 2002, the first edition of African Economic Development offered an authoritative statement about economic growth on the continent. Its multidisciplinary regional studies built an analytic framework that served as a cornerstone of the field for over a decade. The second edition offers a new collection of authoritative articles for a new age. In a sweeping survey of African economies, leading scholars offer the latest research into the biggest current influences on African growth and development, taking account of relevant institutional contexts as well as significant or unique problems that have slowed Africa's progress. Despite recognizing the factors that have resulted in underdevelopment, however, the contributors paint a hopeful picture of the efforts being made to overcome barriers, and they suggest that a significant reduction of poverty is possible in the near future. Each chapter singles out a particular problem-be it related to demography, geography, politics, climate change, agriculture, or industrialization-and proposes pragmatic solutions that put Africans' needs and capabilities first. Balancing theory and empiricism, and eschewing vague ideological or political language, this book provides an important vantage point from which to herald Africa's elusive dawn. For its rigorous scholarship, its unique breadth, and its actionable suggestions for the near future, the second edition of African Economic Development is a must-read for students, researchers, and practitioners of international development.