SOCIAL SCIENCE / Developing & Emerging Countries
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A New Weave of Power, People and Politics
Lisa VeneKlasen, Valerie Miller
This field manual provides a well-tested approach for promoting citizen participation. It breaks down the traditional boxes separating human rights, rule of law, development, and governance, and reconnects them in order to create an integrated approach to rights-based political empowerment. A New We...
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Sharing Power for Development
Decentralisation and good local governance are often identified as necessary precursors to effective pro-poor development work. In this publication, the authors examine case studies from the work of Swiss development organisation Helvetas and its local partners in the Philippines, Cameroon, Mali, Vi...
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Springs of Participation
Learning from others in the form of fusion and adaptation of existing tools and approaches is very much part of evolving new participatory methods, and is a key component of the process of creating fresh approaches to new challenges. Springs of Participation brings together the experiences and refle...
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The Sustainability Handbook for Design & Technology Teachers
Most people are now aware of their eco-footprint and the need to cut carbon emissions. Local councils have set up recycling schemes and people are encouraged to reduce travel emissions, but this is not enough. Designers need to incorporate sustainability considerations into their work, and this book...
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Trail Bridge Building in the Himalayas
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....
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Village Savings and Loan Associations
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...
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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...
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Water Supply and Sanitation Services for the Rural Poor
Safe drinking water near to the home and adequate household sanitation save poor households time, reduce illness and increase a sense of well being and dignity. Gram Vikas, a non-government organization working in one of the poorest states in India, recognized this key role and encouraged villages t...
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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...
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Where There is No Artist
A simple to use catalogue, containing a wealth of illustrations, with a unique combination of written text and visual aids.Visual aids can provide information, provoke discussion and discovery, and make difficult ideas easy to understand. They can also improve the accessibility of a book or a poster...