The Association for Social Advancement (ASA) of Bangladesh recently topped Forbes magazine's first-ever list of the world's best microfinance banks. This is an extraordinary achievement for an organization that started life as a revolutionary movement aiming to bring a peasant-led government to the newly created and desperately poor South Asian nation of Bangladesh. This book tells the story of how ASA's determined but practical-minded founder and leader, Shafiqual Haque Choudhury...

Nearly forty percent of humanity lives on an average of two dollars a day or less. If you've never had to survive on an income so small, it is hard to imagine. How would you put food on the table, afford a home, and educate your children? How would you handle emergencies and old age? Every day, more than a billion people around the world must answer these questions. Portfolios of the Poor is the first book to systematically explain how the poor find solutions to their everyday fin...

Covers key advances in breeding, including conventional, marker-assisted and transgenic breeding techniquesSummarises key advances in understanding bacterial, fungal and viral diseases of sugarcaneAssesses best practice in integrated disease, pest and weed management

A comprehensive guide to Russian-language instruction combining the latest research, pedagogy, and practice.The Art of Teaching Russian offers practitioners current research, pedagogical thinking, and specific methodologies for teaching the Russian language and culture in the twenty-first century. With contributions from the leading professionals in the field, this collection covers the most important aspects of teaching the Russian language.The book begins with an overview...

Winter tourism has seen increased levels of investment in recent times, in an effort to reduce economic risk, address environmental concerns and adapt to the effects of global warming. New ski destinations are developing and merging with traditional ones to increase spatial distribution, while many established leading resorts are adapting their management models. Climate change adaptation processes are supported by the reduction of CO2 emissions and energy consumption in ski resorts. Curre...

EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY licence.The COVID-19 pandemic transformed the landscape of voluntary action. Some volunteering projects had to be paused, while others were delivered in different ways, but across all four UK nations large numbers of people began volunteering for the first time.This book provides an overview of the constraints and opportunities of mobilising voluntary action across the four UK nations during the pandemic. Sector experts and ac...