"This book integrates policy, technology, and action research methods in providing new perspectives and tools for Asian village decision makers and planners who seek more effective uses of energy in important rural tasks. The cooperative research on which the book is based was motivated by two policy concerns: the supply instability and price uncertainty of petroleum-based fuels, fertilizers, and pesticides; and the environmental depletion associated with widespread dependency on firewood and farm residues for cooking fuel. The authors combine the voices and knowledge of women and men who produce and use rural energy with analyses and assessments by engineers, economists, agricultural scientists, and anthropologists to clarify these issues while filling serious information gaps about the use and substitution of fossil and biomass fuels. The book focuses initially on cooking fuel required to meet food and nutrition needs. It demonstrates research methods linking energy with farming systems to increase agricultural productivity and to support other income- and employment-generating activities in rural areas. The authors thereby establish a research agenda through which rural residents, interacting with specialists and policymakers, can build upon their own experience and values in organizing socially and environmentally appropriate rural energy systems."

This volume had its origin at a conference held in 1978 at the East- West Center that considered the short- and long-term energy problems of the Asia-Pacific region. That group of national energy policymakers, scientists, and technologists agreed that providing adequate energy for the rural areas of the developing countries looms large as one of the more critical problems of the region. Encouraged by this consensus, the East-West Resource Systems Institute obtained a grant from the Agency for International Development for the purpose of initiating a collaborative, multi-country study of rural energy problems. The National Research Council of Thailand and the East-West Center agreed to work closely together as twin foci for the coordination of the effort.

Relationships and alignments among the nations of the world's most populous and productive region, the Asia Pacific, are in flux. Current global political, economic and security uncertainty, heightened by 9/11 and the subsequent War on Terror, has fuelled a reassessment by many Asia Pacific nations about the structure and form of future economic and political cooperation and development. Featuring contributions from some of the most eminent and influential economists and political scientists in the Asia Pacific region, this book explores the forces reshaping the Asia Pacific economic order, and where these changes may lead. Focusing on the origins of the shift towards policy driven integration, the book examines what new structures may eventually emerge on both sides of the Pacific, the ways in which this shift will affect the progress of economic integration and how cross-Pacific relations will therefore be affected.

Relationships and alignments among the nations of the world's most populous and productive region, the Asia Pacific, are in flux. Current global political, economic and security uncertainty, heightened by 9/11 and the subsequent War on Terror, has fueled a reassessment by many Asia Pacific nations about the structure and form of future economic and political cooperation and development. This book, featuring contributions from some of the most eminent and influential economists and political scientists in the region, examines the forces reshaping the Asia Pacific economic order, and where they lead.
The questions this book seeks to answer are the origins of the shift towards policy driven integration, what new structures might eventually emerge on both sides of the Pacific, the ways in which that shift will affect the progress of economic integration and how cross-Pacific relations will therefore be affected. This discussion directs attention to the fact that economic cooperation and security are complementary.