Author, Mark Lutz, conveys true stories of the working poor he's met through the years. Lutz discovered that all they needed was a chance to help themselves. When given that opportunity, the author watched these innovative people undo the chains of poverty-often with a large ripple effect that impacted their communities.
In the 21st century, the world is faced with threats of global scale that cannot be confronted without collective action. Although global government as such does not exist, formal and informal institutions, practices, and initiatives—together forming "global governance"—bring a greater measure of predictability, stability, and order to trans-border issues than might be expected. Yet, there are significant gaps between many current global problems and available solutions. Thomas G. Weiss and Ramesh Thakur analyze the UN's role in addressing such knowledge, normative, policy, institutional, and compliance lapses. The UN's relationship to these five global governance gaps is explored through case studies of some of the most burning problems of our age, including terrorism, nuclear proliferation, humanitarian crises, development aid, climate change, human rights, and HIV/AIDS.
In 2000, at the United Nations Millennium Summit, world leaders agreed to the Millennium Declaration. The Declaration included development targets to be reached by 2015, which were to become known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Progress has been made towards the achievement of the MDGs, but poverty remains widespread. With the terminal year approaching, the international community has begun the process of determining the goals which might follow the MDGs. While the UN is driving the process, there has been very little introspection on its own organizational capacity to help countries to meet the goals and is being increasingly sidelined by other more effective development organizations and initiatives. Based on extensive original research that has critically examined the role and functions of the organizations of the UN development system, this book seeks to capture in a single volume a comprehensive review of the UN’s performance and prospects for development. The contributors each offer extensive experience and familiarity—as practitioners and researchers—with the UN and development; and the book will contribute to the urgently needed debate on the reform of the UN development system at a critical juncture. The main rationale for this book, and its timing, is the unusual opportunity provided by the 2015 threshold to re-think the UN development system and to empower it to support a new development agenda and will be of interest to students, scholars of International Organizations and development studies.
This book is an edited volume that focuses on international norms and normative change in some of the key areas of sustainable human development. This is an important and timely topic since the international community adopted a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in September of 2015. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development will guide international development efforts over the next fifteen years. For this reason, developing a deeper understanding of the SDGs, the international norms that underpin them, and any normative change they represent is vital for students, scholars, and development practitioners and professionals. This volume is designed to provide an account of some of the normative debates and normative change that the process of developing a set of SDGs has entailed. Its goal is to assess the origins, nature, extent, and implications of normative change in the context of the post-2015 development agenda. It also evaluates the extent to which the SDGs represent a significant change from established development norms and practices.
What does it mean to be poor in Britain and America? For decades the primary narrative about poverty in both countries is that it has been caused by personal flaws or ‘bad life decisions’ rather than policy choices or economic inequality. This misleading account has become deeply embedded in the public consciousness with serious ramifications for how financially vulnerable people are seen, spoken about and treated. Drawing on a two-year multi-platform initiative, this book by award-winning journalist and author Mary O’Hara, asks how we can overturn this portrayal once and for all. Crucially, she turns to the real experts to try to find answers – the people who live it.
This book explores fourteen case studies of state crime, crimes/immoralities of the powerful, including disasters caused by neglect, pharmaceutical fraud, state sponsored or instigated crime, corporate crime, organisational crime and state terrorism. The book offers a valuable contribution to critical social science perspectives on criminality, providing analysis which explores issues of accountability and social harm and linking these to wider structural contexts, particularly the role of neoliberal ideologies. At the same time, the book will provide a critical perspective on historical case studies which continue to have legacies in the present, and which help to shed light on histories of domination and inequalities and to illustrate continuities and changes in crimes of the powerful over time.
How does the US media propagate the myth of a "good" superpower waging war on "evil?" Can an open-ended "War on Terror" make the world safe? For whom? Another American Century? draws on our knowledge of the past decade to outline the effects and consequences of the USA's formidable power. It looks at how US policymakers understand their role in the world, and the ideologies that enable them to pursue policies with often harmful consequences for people outside North America.
This pioneering Research Handbook with contributions from renowned experts, provides an overview of the general doctrines making up the law of international organizations.The approach of this book is taken from a novel perspective: that of the tension between functionalism and constitutionalism. In doing so, this Handbook presents not only practically relevant information, but also provides a tool for understanding the ways in which internationalorganizations work. It has separate chapters on specific 'constitutional' topics and on two specific organizations: the EU and the UN. Research Handbook on the Law of international Organizations will be of particular interest to academics and graduate students in the fields ofinternational law, international politics and international relations.
This volume documents the influence of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs through its flagship publication, the World Economic and Social Survey. It provides valuable insights on global economic challenges as well as context for specific policy responses.
When thinking about the work of caring for others we often neglect the human cost born by those performing this care. Feminists have long talked about the ways in which unpaid work, particularly performed in the home, is habitually undervalued by society; but the work of caring for people, both paid and unpaid, can also take a toll on the health of individuals, households, and communities when we give more than we receive. This lopsided gap between outflows and inflows, as this book argues, is depletion. In Depletion, Shirin M. Rai examines the human costs of care work and how these are reproduced across the boundaries of class, race, gender, and generation. Depletion can be physical, as measured by the body mass index, exhaustion, sleeplessness, and vital health signs. It can also be mental, manifesting as self-doubt, guilt and apprehension, and the failure to take time for oneself, family, friends, and community. Moreover, depletion has effects that extend well beyond the individual, to households and communities. Including case studies from different parts of the world and building on various methodologies, Rai looks at the costs of care work, or what she calls "social reproduction" in several forms: biological reproduction, unpaid work in the home, and cultural and ideological work necessary to maintain social relations beyond the household. Various chapters examine the costs of commuting to work and for care, the value of unpaid work performed by women of different classes, the costs of household work performed by children, and the costs to communities when local economies are challenged by corporate interests. Lastly, Rai argues that depletion must be recognized in order for it to be reversed--the struggles to reverse depletion are struggles for a good life, generative of new imaginings of how care work, both draining and joyful, can be reorganized for a better future for all.