Institutions Taking Root
Institutions Taking Root

Author: Naazneen H. Barma

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2014-09-09

Total Pages: 415

ISBN-13: 146480270X

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Building and operating successful public institutions is a perennial and long-term challenge for governments, which is compounded by the volatile conditions found in fragile settings. Yet some government agencies do manage to take root and achieve success in delivering results earning legitimacy and forging resilience in otherwise challenging contexts. Drawing on mixed-method empirical research carried out on nine public agencies in Lao PDR, Sierra Leone, The Gambia, and Timor Leste, this volume identifies the shared causal mechanisms underpinning institutional success in fragile states by examining the inner workings of these institutions, along with the external operational environment and sociopolitical context in which they exist. Successful institutions share and deploy a common repertoire of internal and external operational strategies. In addition they connect this micro-institutional repertoire to the macro-sociopolitical context along three discernible pathways to institutional success. Institutional development is a heavily contextual, dynamic, and non-linear process but certain actionable lessons emerge for policy-makiers and development partners.

Institutions Taking Root
Institutions Taking Root

Author: Naazneen H. Barma

Publisher:

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 415

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Building and operating successful public institutions is a perennial and long-term challenge for governments, which is compounded by the volatile conditions found in fragile settings. Yet some government agencies do manage to take root and achieve success in delivering results earning legitimacy and forging resilience in otherwise challenging contexts. Drawing on mixed-method empirical research carried out on nine public agencies in Lao PDR, Sierra Leone, The Gambia, and Timor Leste, this volume identifies the shared causal mechanisms underpinning institutional success in fragile states by exa.

The Green Belt Movement
The Green Belt Movement

Author: Wangari Maathai

Publisher: Lantern Books

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 166

ISBN-13: 9781590560402

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Wangari Maathai, founder of The Green Belt Movement, tells its story including the philosophy behind it, its challenges, and objectives.

Inclusion Matters
Inclusion Matters

Author: World Bank

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2013-11-26

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 1464800111

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Social inclusion is on the agenda of governments, policymakers, and nonstate actors around the world. Underpinning this concern is the realization that despite progress on poverty reduction, some people continue to feel left out. This report aims to unpack the concept of social inclusion and understand better how policies can be designed to further inclusion. First, the report offers a definition of social inclusion as the "process of improving the terms for individuals and groups to take part in society." It unpacks different domains of society that excluded groups and individuals are at particular risk of being left out of -- markets, services, and spaces. Second, the report discusses the most important global mega-trends such as migration, climate chnage, and aging of societies, which will impact challenges and opportunities for inclusion. Finally, it argues that despite these challenges, change towards inclusion is possible and offers examples of inclusionary policies.

Communities in Action
Communities in Action

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2017-04-27

Total Pages: 583

ISBN-13: 0309452961

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In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.

The Nature of Home
The Nature of Home

Author: Greta Claire Gaard

Publisher: University of Arizona Press

Published: 2007-11-15

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 9780816525768

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ÒAs long as humans have been around, weÕve had to move in order to survive.Ó So arises that most universal and elemental human longing for home, and so begins Greta GaardÕs exploration of just precisely what it means to be at home in the world. Gaard journeys through the deserts of southern California, through the High Sierras, the Wind River Mountains, and the Northern Cascades, through the wildlands and waterways of Washington and Minnesota, through snow season, rain season, mud season, and lilac season, yet her essays transcend mere description of natural beauty to investigate the interplay between place and identity. Gaard examines the earliest environments of childhood and the relocations of adulthood, expanding the feminist insight that identity is formed through relationships to include relationships to place. ÒHomeÓ becomes not a static noun, but an active verb: the process of cultivating the connections with place and people that shape who we become. Striving to create a sense of home, Gaard involves herself socially, culturally, and ecologically within her communities, discovering that as she works to change her environment, her environment changes her. As Gaard investigates environmental concerns such as water quality, oil spills, or logging, she touches on their parallels to community issues such as racism, classism, and sexism, uncovering the dynamic interaction by which Òhumans, like other life on earth, both shape and are shaped by our environments.Ó While maintaining an understanding of the complex systems and structures that govern communities and environments, GaardÕs writing delves deeper to reveal the experiences and realities we displace through euphemisms or stereotypes, presenting issues such as homelessness or hunger with compelling honesty and sensitivity. GaardÕs essays form a quest narrative, expressing the process of letting go that is an inherent part of an impermanent life. And when a person is broken, in the aftermath of that letting go, it is a place that holds the pieces together. As long as we are forced to moveÑby economics, by war, by colonialismÑthe strategies we possess to make and redefine home are imperative to our survival, and vital in the shaping of our very identities.

The Social Roots of Risk
The Social Roots of Risk

Author: Kathleen Tierney

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2014-07-23

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 0804791406

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“This book about risk and disaster—and how they get amplified—is fascinating and hugely important as we face an ever-more-turbulent world.” —Rebecca Solnit, award-winning author of A Field Guide to Getting Lost The first decade of the twenty-first century saw a remarkable number of large-scale disasters. Earthquakes in Haiti and Sumatra underscored the serious economic consequences that catastrophic events can have on developing countries, while 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina showed that first world nations remain vulnerable. The Social Roots of Risk argues against the widespread notion that cataclysmic occurrences are singular events, driven by forces beyond our control. Instead, Kathleen Tierney contends that disasters of all types—be they natural, technological, or economic—are rooted in common social and institutional sources. Put another way, risks and disasters are produced by the social order itself—by governing bodies, organizations, and groups that push for economic growth, oppose risk-reducing regulation, and escape responsibility for tremendous losses when they occur. Considering a wide range of historical and looming events—from a potential mega-earthquake in Tokyo that would cause devastation far greater than what we saw in 2011, to BP’s accident history prior to the 2010 blowout—Tierney illustrates trends in our behavior, connecting what seem like one-off events to illuminate historical patterns. Like risk, human resilience also emerges from the social order, and this book makes a powerful case that we already have a significant capacity to reduce the losses that disasters produce. A provocative rethinking of the way that we approach and remedy disasters, The Social Roots of Risk leaves readers with a better understanding of how our own actions make us vulnerable to the next big crisis—and what we can do to prevent it. “Brilliant . . . Drawing on a trove of timely case studies, Tierney analyses how factors such as speculative finance and rampant development allow natural and economic blips to tip more easily into catastrophe.” —Nature

Capturing Institutional Change
Capturing Institutional Change

Author: Himanshu Jha

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2020-09-10

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 0190991224

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Institutions are norms that undergird organizations and are reflected in laws and practices. Over time, institutions take root and persist as they are path dependent and thus change resistant. Therefore, it is puzzling when institutions change. One such puzzle has been the enactment of the Right to Information (RTI) Act in India in 2005, which brought about institutional change by transforming the 'information regime'. Why did the government upend the norm of secrecy, which had historically been entrenched within the Indian State? This book uses archival material, internal government documents, and interviews to understand the why and how of institutional change. It demonstrates that the institutional change resulted from 'ideas' emerging gradually and incrementally, leading to a 'tipping point'. About the IDSA Series: This series interrogates the interplay between globalization, the state, and social forces in the making and un-making of institutions in South Asia. Why do institutions persist and change? Do we need to transcend materialism and dwell in ideas and culture as well to understand why institutions perform and fail? The first book in the Institutions and Development in South Asia series, this volume studies the historical institutionalism in the information regime in India by presenting an alternative narrative about the evolution of the RTI Act.