This book explores new perspectives on how to improve the chances of success regarding capacity building in developing and emerging countries. Drawing on lessons learned in the course of six decades of capacity building research and practice, it identifies the required conditions for the success of capacity building efforts, and suggests that a radical change in mindset has become a critical aspect in developing countries. In addition, the book discusses capacity building in connection with entrepreneurship (especially female entrepreneurship), transnational diaspora remittances, and combating corruption, which it considers to be essential drivers of sustainable development in developing and emerging countries. The book’s contributing authors represent the leading minds in capacity building research and practice, and include researchers from prestigious universities in North America, Europe and Africa, as well as international development experts from institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, African Development Bank, and African Capacity Building Foundation. All authors have considerable expertise regarding capacity building issues, and represent 26 emerging and developing countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Caribbean Islands, North America and Europe.

This book presents over 40 cases of bamboo development across 22 major bamboo-industry countries and explores the knowledge gained from their successes and failures. It synthesises experiences and exchanges with country experts from international training courses and consultations, study tours, and seminars. Each case includes observations and summaries of discussions related to the development of bamboo-based industries in a healthy, sustainable way, and the facilitation of strategic and balanced development of bamboo in different global regions. Industrial and artisanal bamboo growing and processing is expanding worldwide and this book brings together key experiences to help inform future developments. This book provides an analysis of bamboo plant features, including strong renewability, fast-growing, and high biomass production. It also reviews important ecological functions of bamboos, such as water and soil conservation, carbon sink and storage, and adaptation to climate change, as well as addressing the diversified culture of bamboo and key issues affecting the sector. Highly illustrated and in full colour throughout, this book is an essential resource for all those interested in bamboo, from private sector investors to governmental and development agencies, academic researchers and students.

This book considers specific and practical ways in which NGO's can contribute to enabling people to build on the capacities they already possess. It reviews the types of social organisation with which NGO's might consider working and the provision of training in a variety of relevant skills and activities.

African countries need to improve the performance of their public sectors if they are going to achieve their goals of growth, poverty reduction, and the provision of better services for their citizens. Between 1995 and 2004, the Bank provided some $9 billion in lending and close to $900 million in grants and administrative budget to support public sector capacity building in Africa. This evaluation assesses Bank support for public sector capacity building in Africa over these past 10 years. It is based on six country studies, assessments of country strategies and operations across the Region, and review of the work of the World Bank Institute, the Institutional Development Fund, and the Bank-supported African Capacity Building Foundation.

There is a widespread concern that, in some parts of the world, governments are unable to exercise effective authority. When governments fail, more sinister forces thrive: warlords, arms smugglers, narcotics enterprises, kidnap gangs, terrorist networks, armed militias. Why do governments fail? This book explores an old idea that has returned to prominence: that authority, effectiveness, accountability and responsiveness is closely related to the ways in which governments are financed. It matters that governments tax their citizens rather than live from oil revenues and foreign aid, and it matters how they tax them. Taxation stimulates demands for representation, and an effective revenue authority is the central pillar of state capacity. Using case studies from Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America, this book presents and evaluates these arguments, updates theories derived from European history in the light of conditions in contemporary poorer countries, and draws conclusions for policy-makers.

This book contributes to our understanding of a neglected and poorly-understood concept within the development field: ‘capacity development’ in the context of human and organisational sustainable development. Relating ‘capacity development’ to other perspectives in development thinking and practice and giving an account of the concept’s genesis, the book introduces readers to recent empirical research initiatives that help to elucidate the concepts of capacity, capacity development, and capacity management. While capacity development initiatives and programmes have been used by most international and national agencies over the course of the last five decades, the term means different things to different people and especially to different major players in the international community. This weakens its effectiveness. This book therefore strives first of all to set ground rules that can be utilised by international aid providers such as UNDP, OECD, World Bank, and CIDA and practitioners alike.

In October of 1992, the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies sponsored the Roger Revelle Memorial Symposium on Population and Environment. Two dozen eminent scientists who were Roger Revelle's friends, colleagues, and students presented papers that reflected the remarkable scope of Roger Revelle's professional and academic contributions during his lifetime. This volume is a selection of the papers presented at the symposium.

This book presents and analyses interesting recent developments in the field of community capacity building, in a variety of OECD and non-OECD countries. The focus is on how CCB has effected change in three major areas: social policy, local economic policy and environmental policy.

This book provides a systematic description and analysis of the development of national environmental policies in seventeen countries in terms of capacity building. It covers a broad spectrum of different types of countries, ranging from advanced industrial, newly industrializing and transition countries to developing countries, representing all continents. This allows the reader to draw conclusions about the chances of an effective global environmental policy, the interrelationship between economic and environmental development as well as the importance of globalization, new forms of governance, and democratization for sustainable development. The editors deliver a broad cross-national survey covering altogether thirty countries and focussing on the diffusion of environmental innovations, the globalization of environmental policy, and the worldwide convergence of basic environmental policy patterns.

Interrogates the idea of capacity building theoretically and explores the variety of meanings, constructions and practices of capacity building. This book examines capacity building in both developing and developed countries and takes the position that fragile communities are present in all societies.