Development in Africa's Informal Settlements: Below the Proletariat

Angela R. Pashayan, American University

This book discusses the effectiveness of international development programs in African informal settlements (slums). It also represents the voices of slum dwellers and how they view the programs offered. With over 60% of Africans living in slums, the book intends to foster dialogue among development professionals to determine how to improve service to their clients, people experiencing extreme poverty. This book examines the critical thinking disconnect between development professionals and slum dwellers. It enables practitioners, professors, and their students to investigate the gap between the types of development programs offered versus what is most beneficial to reduce extreme poverty in slum communities. With a sample of 500 residents from Mukuru Slum in Nairobi, Kenya, and 100 development professionals with expertise in poverty reduction in slums, this book sheds light on the similarities and differences between various programs. Most importantly, this book provides a theoretical way forward (The Theory of Extreme Poverty Reduction) based on Freirean pedagogy to stimulate discussion on how to program new strategies for authentic dialogue with slum dwellers that leads to the critical consciousness necessary for successful poverty reduction.

Rethinking Territorial Development Policies: A new framework for territorial stakeholders

Theory, methods and implementations

Michel Felix, Skema Business School and Philippe Vaesken, Lille University, France

This book provides an analytical framework and toolkit for anyone involved — theoretically or practically — with the economic, social, ecological or cultural development of a territory. This work provides an overview of the various territorial development processes, inclusive of both individual and collective actions. In pursuance of its objectives, the book re-examines the classical concepts of governance and regulation in order to position them in an integrative model of the initiatives which contribute dynamically to territorial development. According to this model, the concepts of governance and regulation become two axes, revealing four main reference situations which differentiate between the local initiatives (ground-up) and public actions (top-down) that coexist in a territory. The model emphasizes the need to consider the place of territorial stakeholders in regulatory processes. The book enriches this concept, familiar in a legislative context, and describes it as an area of influence of and negotiation with stakeholders. It contributes to a territorial governance system which encourages development offers. It reveals the inseparable link between influence and development processes that lead to value creation. The logic of governance specifies the various sources of value creation, while the logic of regulation seeks to maximize the acceptability of such value creation by making it into an attractive proposition for stakeholders.

The Political Economy of the Space Age

How Science and Technology Shape the Evolution of Human Society

Andrea Sommariva, SDA Bocconi, Milan, Italy

This book provides answers to the questions of why human-kind should go into space, and on the relative roles of governments and markets in the evolution of the space economy. It adopts an interdisciplinary approach to answer those questions. Science and technology define the boundaries of what is possible. The realization of the possible depends on economic, institutional, and political factors. The book thus draws from many different academic areas such as physical science, astronomy, astronautics, political science, economics, sociology, cultural studies, and history. In the literature, the space economy has been analyzed using different approaches from science and technology to the effects of public expenditures on economic growth and to medium term effects on productivity and growth. This book brings all these aspects together following the evolutionary theory of economic change. It studies processes that transform the economy through the interactions among diverse economic agents, governments, and the extra-systemic environment in which governments operate. Its historical part helps to better understand motivations and constraints - technical, political, and economical - that shaped the growth of the space economy. In the medium term, global issues - such as population changes, critical or limited natural resources, and environmental damages – and technological innovations are the main drivers for the evolution of the space economy beyond Earth orbit. In universities, this book can be used: as a reference by historians of astronautics; for researchers in the field of astronautics, international political economy, and legal issues related to the space economy. In think tanks and public institutions, both national and international, this book provides an input to the ongoing debate on the collaboration among space agencies and the role of private companies in the development of the space economy. Finally, this book will help the educated general public to orient himself in the forest of stimuli, news, and solicitations to which he is daily subjected by the media, television and radio, and to react in less passive ways to those stimuli.

Intergenerational Responsibility in the 21st Century

Edited by Julia M. Puaschunder, The New School

Intergenerational responsibility is multi-faceted.This edited volume reflects intergenerational aspects in light of spatial, age and racial segregation, global warming, and the aging Western world population. Intergenerational global governance is addressed in the era of globalization and migration. The intergenerational glue, intergenerational crises resilience strategies and intergenerational responses to external shocks serve as innovative global responsibility implementation guidelines in the international arena. Fostering intergenerational harmony through intergenerational income mobility and intergenerational opportunities, environmental protection and sustainable development aids alleviate the most pressing contemporary challenges of humankind. Overall, this interdisciplinary and applied contribution to the scholarship on intergenerational responsibility supports the leadership and management of global governance agency in the private and public sectors.

Applied Economics for Development: Empirical Approaches to Selected Social and Economic Issues in Transition Economies

Edited by Mahmut Zortuk, Dumlupınar University, Turkey

Transition economies experience transformation of their economic system. Following the disintegration of the Soviet Union, a number of former socialist countries underwent transitions from central planning to a market economy. More generally, many rapidly growing economies undergo no less profound transformations of their economic systems. Contrary to common misconception, the transition process cannot be simply reduced to eliminating state intervention and liberalizing the economy. Economies under transition exhibit a unique set of policy challenges. Unlike developed market economies, missing markets or market failures abound. Economic transformation takes the form of rapidly evolving patterns of international trade and investment, industrial structure and consumption. These changes call for appropriate public policies. A continuing flow of investment hinges on suitable institutions, the provision of public infrastructure and other public goods. Adequate regulation can be central in ensuring that environmental resources are sustainably managed. And sophisticated production systems, call for corresponding social institutions in terms of education, health and welfare provisions. In all these cases, accurate empirical assessments are central to the design of effective policy. This book presents a selection of pressing economic and social issues in transition economies. Selected issues include the development of particular industrial sectors, the drivers and consequences of foreign direct investment, public finances, urbanization, social indicators, environmental policy and energy diversification. In each case an original empirical analysis is performed, using a variety of advanced quantitative methods, applied to recent data. The book will be of interest to economists studying transition economies, economic development or having a general interest in applied economics. It will be of particular interest to applied economists, policy analysts and policy makers in transition economies, concerned with the shape and direction of appropriate economic reforms.