This book is a cornerstone resource for a wide range of organizations and individuals concerned with sustainable development at national or local levels, as well as for international organizations concerned with supporting such development. Whilst the focus is on integrated strategies for sustainable development, the approaches and methods covered are equally relevant to poverty reduction, environmental and sectoral strategies, programme development and review. Agenda 21 called for all countries to develop sustainable development strategies. For such strategies to be effective there needs to be a real commitment. In every country, government at all levels, the private sector, and civil society, must work together in a true partnership, in transparent ways which enable genuine stakeholder participation. The necessary mechanisms and processes need to be coordinated to enable continuous learning and improvement. This resource book provides flexible, non-prescriptive guidance on how to develop, assess and implement national sustainable development strategies. It sets out principles and ideas on process and methods, and suggests how these can be used. It is based on an analysis of past and current practice, drawing directly from experience in both developed and developing countries. Following a discussion of the nature and challenges of sustainable development and the need for strategic responses to them, the heart of the book covers the main tasks in strategy processes. Individual chapters offer a rich range of guidance, ideas and case studies.

Jacqueline Best argues that the 1990s changes in IMF, World Bank and donor policies, towards what some have called the 'Post-Washington Consensus,' were driven by an erosion of expert authority and an increasing preoccupation with policy failure. Failures such as the Asian financial crisis and the decades of despair in sub-Saharan Africa led these institutions to develop governance strategies designed to avoid failure: fostering country ownership, developing global standards, managing risk and vulnerability and measuring results. In contrast to the structural adjustment era when policymakers were confident in their solutions, this is an era of provisional governance, in which key actors are aware of the possibility of failure even as they seek to inoculate themselves against it. Best considers the implications of this shift, asking if it is a positive change and whether it is sustainable. This title is available as Open Access on Cambridge Books Online and via Knowledge Unlatched.

Despite the considerable economic growth of the Asia-Pacific, poverty continues to be a major problem. One key way to create sustainable livelihoods and to provide poor households an escape route from poverty is microfinance. Since the early 1980s, microfinance practitioners have proven that the poor are creditworthy, capable of utilizing scarce capital efficiently in viable incom-generating projects and able to pay back their loans. This book collects the experience of microfinance practitioners in 11 countries in the Asia-Pacific region to describe the present state of the art. It is designed to provide an overview of the subject: why it is so essential to poverty reduction; what is the best practice; what kind of policy framework and regulatory environment is required. It offers both an extensive survey of the academic literature and a selection of case studies, all from authors who have been active practitioners in microfinance for many years. The case studies cover four key countries in South Asia and three countries in East Asia in which microfinance had become particularly important. There is also a regional chapter covering the Pacific islands.

This book presents a comprehensive overview of managers and management in Vietnam, based on extensive original research, including interviews with a large number of managers in Vietnam. It shows how management in Vietnam is best understood from the perspective of Vietnamese managers themselves, rather than in terms of Western or Asian models of management. It discusses the range of enterprises in the Vietnamese economy, which, until 1986, was dominated by large state-owned enterprises and Soviet-style central economic planning, and where there is now a much greater variety, with a mix of privatised state-owned enterprises, foreign-owned companies, joint ventures and a very large number of relatively small private companies, all operating in a social market economy where Party ideology emphasises a balance between economic growth and workers’ rights. The book demonstrates how the tensions arising from this economic landscape are reflected in the views and actions of managers as they balance economic and social goals in their work, and how their activities are constrained further by the enduring influence of local culture which is not always amenable to imported ideas and methods. As many managers have worked in different kinds of companies, the book also reveals a great deal about management in different contexts and also about how companies have changed as the reform process has evolved.

This book uses Alan Winters’ analytical framework to investigate the effects of trade liberalisation on economic growth and poverty in Vietnam. The country launched a programme of economic and trade reforms, known as Doi Moi, in the mid-1980s which placed the economy on a transitional path from central planning to a market economy. Since then Vietnam has attained a number of remarkable achievements in terms of economic growth and poverty reduction. Although some formidable problems (such as inequality and inflation) remain, it is apparent that trade liberalisation has been associated with a big reduction in poverty. The analysis in the book focuses on the microeconomic (household) level, and there is an emphasis on tracing the effects of trade liberalisation through the four separate channels identified by Winters. Such in-depth and micro-level analyses yield new insights that support important policy lessons and recommendations for Vietnam in particular and, more generally, for similar developing countries.

Featuring over 1900 references, drawings, and tables and drawing on disciplines as diverse as political economics, public management, and urban affairs, this versatile text offers comprehensive information on major policy and managerial issues important to local and national economic development. Pulling together the work of over 40 researchers, the book examines the role of government in economic advances and reform, provides a complete, up-to-date survey of the literature on local and national economic development, details local and regional economic progress in the US, adopts an innovative interdisciplinary approach to the study of economic expansion, and more.

This report reviews progress in implementation of the World Bank's poverty reduction strategy during fiscal 1996-97. Chapter 1, "The World Bank's Poverty Reduction Strategy and Future Directions," outlines elements in the poverty reduction strategy: policies to promote broad-based labor-demanding growth and increase the productivity and economic opportunities of the poor; policies and institutions to improve access to social services, especially basic education, primary health care, and nutrition; and safety nets and poverty-targeted programs for those who are heavily risk-prone or who cannot take advantage of income opportunities. Chapter 2, "Progress in Fiscal 1996 and 1997," examines progress in the preparation and quality of poverty assessments and country assistance strategies; reviews the Bank's poverty-targeted lending; and discusses the Bank's recent work on project participation by stakeholders, gender issues, and poverty monitoring in various regions of the world. Chapter 3, "Safety Net Programs: Lessons from Country Experience," examines recent experiences in safety net programs, which complement the main strategy of broad-based growth and investment in human capital. Appendix A describes the Bank's analytical work on poverty and presents summaries of poverty assessments for 32 countries. Appendix D describes objectives of the Program of Targeted Interventions (PTI) and lists 156 PTI projects with details on their specific objectives and strategies; 75 of these addressed human capital development. Education projects focused on female literacy, skills for the informal sector, teacher education, provision of school materials, and educational facilities construction. Other appendices provide further details on poverty assessments, poverty-focused structural adjustment loans, poverty-focused emergency recovery loans, annual lending to selected sectors, regional plans for poverty monitoring, and projects and adjustment operations with safety net components. Contains 29 references and 19 data tables. (SV)