Africa can achieve self sufficiency in food production through adoption of innovations in the agriculture sector. Numerous soil fertility and crop production technologies have been generated through research, however, wide adoption has been low. African farmers need better technologies, more sustainable practices, and fertilizers to improve and sustain their crop productivity and to prevent further degradation of agricultural lands. The agricultural sector also needs to be supported by functional institutions and policies that will be able to respond to emerging challenges of globalization and climate change.

This open access book is an encyclopaedic analysis of the current and future energy system of the world’s most populous country and second biggest economy. What happens in China impacts the planet. In the past 40 years China has achieved one of the most remarkable economic growth rates in history. Its GDP has risen by a factor of 65, enabling 850,000 people to rise out of poverty. Growth on this scale comes with consequences. China is the world’s biggest consumer of primary energy and the world’s biggest emitter of CO2 emissions. Creating a prosperous and harmonious society that delivers economic growth and a high quality of life for all will require radical change in the energy sector, and a rewiring of the economy more widely. In China’s Energy Revolution in the Context of the Global Energy Transition, a team of researchers from the Development Research Center of the State Council of China and Shell International examine how China can revolutionise its supply and use of energy. They examine the entire energy system: coal, oil, gas, nuclear, renewables and new energies in production, conversion, distribution and consumption. They compare China with case studies and lessons learned in other countries. They ask which technology, policy and market mechanisms are required to support the change and they explore how international cooperation can smooth the way to an energy revolution in China and across the world. And, they create and compare scenarios on possible pathways to a future energy system that is low-carbon, affordable, secure and reliable.

This open access book seeks effective strategy to realize a rice Green Revolution in sub-Saharan Africa based on more than ten years of research team’s inquiries into determinants and consequences of new technology adoption in rice farming in seven countries in this region. Rigorous statistical analyses are carried out by using valuable household data of rice farmers. The book is actually sequel to the two earlier books on the same subject published by Springer and edited by K. Otsuka and D.F. Larson, An African Green Revolution published in 2013 and In Pursuit of an African Green Revolution in 2016. The main message of the first book was that rice is the most promising cereal crop in SSA because of the high transferability of Asian rice technology, whereas that of the second book was that rice cultivation training programs are effective in significantly increasing rice yield in SSA. This third book has wider coverage in terms of topics, study periods, and study sites. It continues to show the significant impacts of rice cultivation training on productivity and newly demonstrates the high sustainability of the productivity impact of the training and the existence of spillover effects from trainees to other farmers by using panel data. We newly assess the important role of mechanization in intensification of rice farming, high returns to large-scale irrigation schemes, and the critical role of rice millers in improving the quality of milled rice. Based on these studies, this book provides clear pathways toward full-fledged Green Revolution in rice farming in sub-Saharan Africa.

Thirty years ago, when compared to the U.S., England, France, and Sweden, Japan had the lowest life expectancy for males and females. Today, Japan has the highest life expectancy and is the world’s most rapidly aging society. Public Policy and the Old Age Revolution in Japan captures the vitality of Japanese policymakers and the challenges they face in shaping a modern society responding to its changing needs. The rapid transition to an aging society poses a set of complex policy and resource dilemmas; the responses taken in Japan are of great value to policymakers, professionals, and students in the fields of gerontology, Asian and Japanese studies, sociology, public policy, administration and management, and anthropology in other industrial aging societies. Readers of Public Policy and the Old Age Revolution in Japan will discover the array of social and economic implications that comes with an increasingly aged society. Such a change in demographics affects pension expenditures and pension contributions, capital formation and savings rates, health costs, service systems, tax bases, labor pools, career counseling, training, advertising, and marketing. This book does not stop with these topics, however. Readers also learn about: how older Japanese workers are staying employed and employable policies in Japan for a smooth transition from work to retirement Japan’s Silver Human Resource Centers the new direction of health services in Japan the Japanese financing system for elderly health care the expansion of formalized in-home services for Japan’s aged Japanese housing policy and the concept of universal design the Gold Plan, a comprehensive ten-year plan to promote health care and welfare for the aged the concept of ikigai--promoting feelings of purpose and self-worth in the aged Public Policy and the Old Age Revolution in Japan is one of only a handful of books prepared in English by American and Japanese authors for an international audience about aging and social policy in Japan. The book’s recent collection of articles by leading scholars on the subject makes it a unique and timely source of information. Above all, Public Policy and the Old Age Revolution in Japan makes it clear that the rest of the world has many valuable lessons to learn by studying Japan’s approach to its rapidly aging society.

The "rags to riches" story of Karol Jakubowicz's involvement in the work of the Council of Europe took him from the role of an awestruck newcomer from Poland in 1990 to that of the Chairman of the Steering Committee on the Media and New Communication Services (2005-06). Along the way, he was elected, delegated by the Steering Committee, and invited by the Council of Europe Secretariat to serve in a number of other capacities. In all of them, he contributed a wide variety of papers, reports and studies to assist the steering committee and other bodies in collecting information and formulating ideas in the general field of freedom of expression, creation of free and democratic media systems (including the issue of public service media), regulation of transfrontier television, the adjustment of Council of Europe human rights standards to the conditions of the information society, and the development of broadcasting legislation in Council of Europe member states.The present collection of these papers and reports is published in the conviction that they retain their value and relevance. It provides the additional benefit of offering a glimpse of the work preceding the formulation of Committee of Ministers recommendations and declarations, as well as resolutions of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly.

Agriculture in southern Asia has undergone a radical transformation in recent years, one that continues to alter the political economy of the area. Beyond the familiar elements of the green revolution, there has been an increase in resource exploitation for food production, and a rise in the economic and political strength of food producers, as wel