Reconstructing Agriculture in Afghanistan

Jacky Sutton, Adam Pain

The book raises critical questions relating to both humanitarian intervention and development agendas in crisis states. It supports a growing literature that interrogates past and present interventions, but does so by putting food security at the heart of both short- and long-term responses to crisi...

What's Wrong with Microfinance?

Thomas Dichter, Malcolm Harper

Microfinance has been a long-lived development fashion and in 2005 it enjoyed the accolade of a UN International Year. Many of the world's biggest multinational banks are now eagerly committing quite substantial sums to it, for business as well as public relations purposes. However, there are some i...

What's Wrong with Microfinance?

Thomas Dichter, Malcolm Harper

Microfinance has been a long-lived development fashion and in 2005 it enjoyed the accolade of a UN International Year. Many of the world's biggest multinational banks are now eagerly committing quite substantial sums to it, for business as well as public relations purposes. However, there are some i...

Voices from the Margins

Roger Lewins, Stuart Coupe, Francis Murray

Describes the work of Practical Action in introducing consensus-based planning approaches in villages that are poor even by Bangladesh standards, where 90 per cent of people live under the poverty line and over 60 per cent are illiterate. These methods work on raising the voice and confidence of the...

Village Savings and Loan Associations

Hugh Allen, Mark Staehle

While many banks and microfinance institutions provide valuable services to the poor in the developing world, they are most successful in economically dynamic urban or peri-urban areas. 30 years since the start of the microfinance revolution, poor people who live in many rural areas and urban slu...

Trail Bridge Building in the Himalayas

Artha Tuladhar

A co-publication with Helvetas in their Experience and Learning in International Cooperation series, this publication describes the rural infrastructure support work conducted by Swiss development agency Helvetas in Nepal and Bhutan where over 4000 trail bridges have been built in the last 40 years....

Small-scale Mining, Rural Subsistence, and Poverty in West Africa

Gavin Hilson

This book aims to facilitate a radical change in the way in which policies and support services are implemented for ASM by underscoring the importance of improving understanding of the industry’s population and industry dynamics. Focusing upon the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS),...

The State They're In

Matthew Lockwood

Two years on from the Gleneagles G8: What has been achieved? What has changed? In July 2005 the first edition of Matthew Lockwood’s The State They’re In asked the key questions of the moment: What are the roots of poverty in Africa and what should now be done about it? How can a better understanding...

Urban Futures

Nabeel Hamdi

Poverty and economic growth are intrinsically related but are not always synonymous. Human wellbeing is as important to economic growth as growth is to wellbeing. Poverty is multi-dimensional, encompassing both income and non-income related factors. Mobility, aspiration, dignity, respect, knowledge,...

Small Customers, Big Market

Malcolm Harper

Sukhwinder Arora

This book shows commercial bankers that they can profitably provide microfinance services to the poor. It illustrates, through the experience of particular banks, why banks have become involved and how they have made a success of their involvement. The eighteen case studies all show that banks can...