The relationship between food and development has always been controversial. Over the last thirty years, development in the north and south has failed to deliver people a decent diet. While some people have too little food and die as a consequence, some people have too much food and die from associated diseases. Furthermore, some methods of food production create social dislocation and deadly environments where biodiversity is eroded and pollution is rampant. While guaranteeing enough food...

"A journalistic chronicle of how Christians survived the repressive Mao era as well as a glimpse into why their numbers are rising." — The Christian Science MonitorA Books & Culture Best Book of the YearWhen journalist Liao Yiwu first stumbled upon a vibrant Christian community in officially atheistic China, he knew little about Christianity. In fact, he'd been taught that religion was evil, and that those who believed in it were de...

This new edition of From Poverty to Power has been fully revised and now includes a new chapter with an in-depth analysis of the human impact of the global financial and food crises. From Poverty to Power argues that a radical redistribution of power, opportunities, and assets rather than traditional models of charitable or government aid is required to break the cycle of poverty and inequality. The forces driving this transformation are active citizens and effective states. Why active cit...

State failure takes many forms. Somalia offers one extreme. The country's prolonged civil war led to the collapse of central authority, with state control devolving to warlord-led factions that competed for the spoils of local commerce, political power, and international aid. Malawi, on the other hand, is at the other end of the scale. During President Bingu's second term in office, the country's economy collapsed as a result of poor policies and Bingu's brand of personal politics. On the ...

Seen as a successful ‘emerging economy’, Brazil walks tall on the world stage and its voice is growing louder. Its success, celebrated in the 2014 Football World Cup and the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, is attracting millions of foreign tourists. Yet Brazil also faces huge challenges: to combine economic growth with measures to reduce the huge social inequality inherited from its slave-owning past, to respect ethnic and cultural diversity, to ensure a popular say in government, to meet energy n...

'Development management' is an idea that blends the seemingly innocuous claims of managerialism with notions of modernity and utopian ideals of 'third world' progress. This book views both phenomena as problematic and modernizing interventions. In doing so, it overturns and reclaims such ideas as participation, community, governance, NGOs, and civil society. The contributors argue that the practices of development are often threaded together by the language of managerialism - reports, logf...

This book examines the effects of high and volatile food prices during 2007-08 on low-income farmers and consumers in developing, transition, and industrialized countries. Previous studies of this crisis have mostly used models to estimate the likely impacts. This volume includes actual evidence from the field as to how higher prices affected access to food and farm income among poor people. In addition to country and regional case studies, the book presents discussions of cross-cutting th...

It is 20 years since environmental issues were first put on the international agenda at the Stockholm Conference, and concern for planetary survival has shifted from desertification to acid rain to ozone depletion to biodiversity. The official responses to all the various crises, however, has largely been one of offering technological and managerial 'fixes,' which often fail to address or solve the basic ecological issues.Genuine, viable improvements can only be implemented at grou...

Most protected areas (e.g.national parks and nature reserves) have been created to protect wildlife and land- and seascape values. They currently cover over 13% of the world's land surface, around 12% of marine coastal areas and 4% of the marine shelf. Retaining and expanding these areas in the future will depend on showing their wider benefits for society.This book provides a concise and persuasive overview of the values of protected areas. Contributing authors from over fifty cou...

Do you want to want to spend time on the other side of the world, seeing how people in developing countries live, and doing something to ‘make a difference’? Do you want to get first-hand experience of grassroots development as you start a career in international development? Volunteer Voices is a guide for the critically minded volunteer and early career development worker. It is designed to help aspiring young change-makers engage with the complicated environment of international volunte...

Written by a leading expert in the field, this book provides a clear and incisive analysis of the different perspectives of the global response to HIV/AIDS, and the role of the different global institutions involved. The text highlights HIV/AIDS as an exceptional global epidemic in terms of the severity of its impact as a humanitarian tragedy of unprecedented proportion, its multi-dimensional characteristics, and its continuous evolution over more than two decades.The careful analy...

The book seeks to understand China's evolving political and economic role in Africa and assesses what impacts Chinese aid, trade and investment have on the politics of specific African countries, and the extent to which it excites geopolitical competition.