2012 New Titles

The Challenges of Urban Ecological Sanitation

Lessons from the Erdos Eco-Town project

Arno Rosemarin, Jennifer R McConville, Amparo E Flores, and Zhu Qiang

The need for improved sanitation around the world is becoming a crisis, and the situation is particularly critical in urban and peri-urban areas in developing countries. Here the population is growing rapidly, and where sanitation is provided, the means to treat and dispose of waste safely is neglected, with huge environmental and public health consequences. Sanitation solutions are needed that are safe for the user and interlinked with other urban services which can treat waste as a resource. This book describes an attempt to create modern, multi-storey urban dwellings that incorporate ecological sanitation into their design, resulting in a clean living space, and deriving safe agricultural inputs from human organic waste. The book highlights the experience of implementing the Erdos Eco-Town Project in Inner Mongolia, China.

£15.95 /€23.95 / $31.95 | July 2012, 120 pages, paperback | ISBN: 978-1-85339-768-4

Every Last Drop

Rainwater harvesting and sustainable technologies in rural China

Zhu Qiang, Li Yuanhong, and John Gould

Over the past two decades a quiet revolution has been taking place in the countryside of China where hundreds of millions of people have been lifted out of poverty. Key to this has been mobilizing the population and their expeditious use of rainwater harvesting both to dramatically improve crop yields and provide households with reliable domestic water supplies. Challenges have been overcome by, for example, the development of simple low-cost solar cookers, the construction of low-cost greenhouses, and subsequent supply of vegetables and cash crops to local markets.This book focuses on some of the practical actions and clever use of appropriate technologies which have been at the heart of this positive grassroots-driven change in rural Gansu Province. The real significance of this case study is that most of the approaches described are based on universal principles of sustainable development.

£17.95 /€26.95 / $35.95 | July 2012, 176 pages, paperback | ISBN: 978-1-85339-738-7

Provocations for Development

Professor Robert Chambers

Provocations for Development is an entertaining and unsettling collection of writings that questions concepts, conventions and practices in development. It is made up of short and accessible writings by Robert Chambers.

‘An intoxicating cocktail of thought and practice, people and things, Chambers pokes and provokes us to reflect on the hubris and hypocrisy with which the “development profession” is stuffed. I shall mine this book – like a rich, nutty fruit cake – to help me understand the messy, iterative world of which we’re part.’ Camilla Toulmin, Director, International Institute for Environment and Development, London

£9.95 /€14.95 / $19.95 | 2012, 98 pages, paperback | ISBN: 978-1-85339-733-2

Communicating Financial Management with Non-finance People

John Cammack

This book helps people speak and write financial information better, avoiding jargon, and preventing their listeners from ‘switching off’. It explains why messages about finance may not be received as they were intended when working cross-culturally and outlines how information can be tailored to different audiences.

£15.95 /€23.95 / $31.95 | 2012, 128 pages, paperback | ISBN: 978-1-85339-732-5

Gender, Roads and Mobility in Asia

Edited by Kyoko Kusakabe

Gender, Roads and Mobility in Asia is a collection of case-based research in developing countries exploring the inter-relations between gender, poverty and mobility.

‘Finally, a book that does not compromise the complexity of mobility in a transport context. Drawing on mobility as capability, Gender, Roads, and Mobility in Asia brings a variety of much-needed Asian voices to the growing discourse of mobility and social justice, underscoring how the free movement of some is often guaranteed by the immobility of others..’ David O. Kronlid is Docent of Ethics and Senior Lecturer in Curriculum Studies at Uppsala University, Sweden

£17.95 /€26.95 / $35.95 | 2012, 240 pages, paperback | ISBN: 978-1-85339-734-9

Climate Change and Threatened Communities

Edited by A. Peter Castro, Dan Taylor and David W. Brokensha

This book explores human interactions in environments ranging from subarctic tundra to equatorial rain forest, from oceanic lagoons to inland mountains. Authors consider the potential of archaeology, phenomenology, controlled comparisons, historical analysis, gender analysis and other analytical approaches to shed light on the experiences of communities and their members.

‘Climate Change and Threatened Communities is a timely wake-up call and reminder of the local-level practical,
theoretical and ethical issues raised by climate change. Scholarly and accessible, it illuminates the rights, interests, needs, and capacities of the many vulnerable and marginalized communities threatened by climate change. For all concerned with how communities can adapt to the mounting stresses, shocks, and uncertainties of climate change, Climate Change and Threatened Communities will be a rich source of insight.’ Professor Robert Chambers, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex

£24.95 /€37.95 / $49.95 | 2012, 224 pages, paperback | ISBN: 978-1-85339-735-6

Sustainable Cities

Edited by Mélanie Robertson

The book’s diverse case studies present the findings of participatory action research projects funded by IDRC’s ECOPOLIS Graduate Research and Design Awards in urban poverty. The studies, conducted in the growing urban and peri-urban areas of Peru, Senegal, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, the Philippines, Thailand, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, outline concrete strategies for sustainable urban living and design, developed in partnership with low-income
city dwellers.

‘This book is an excellent testimony to the necessary integration of disciplines and actors so as to achieve urban sustainability.’ Oumar Cissé, Director of the Institut Africain de Gestion Urbaine (IAGU), Dakar

£15.95 /€23.95 / $31.95 | 2012, 170 pages, paperback | ISBN: 978-1-85339-723-3

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Poor People's Energy Outlook 2012

Practical Action

This second report in the PPEO reintroduces the concept of Total Energy Access as a progressive framework to measure how people use energy in a healthy and productive way. PPEO 2012 will be of interest to anyone seeking to better understand energy access and its role in development at a human scale.

It is great to see such a clear voice coming out of Practical Action on behalf of the poor; I pray the world listens!
Abeeku Brew-Hammond, Director, The Energy Centre, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana

£12.95 / €19.95 / $25.95 / 2012, 108 pages, paperback / ISBN: 978-1-85339-731-8

From Poverty to Power

How active citizens and effective states can change the world

Duncan Green

World news has been full of stories reflecting a profound sense of uncertainty about the global future and need for transformation. People living in poverty must have a voice in deciding their own destiny and holding the state and the private sector to account, and history shows that no country has prospered without a state structure that can actively manage the development process.With the added urgency of climate change we need to build a more secure, fair, and sustainable world. This new edition of From Poverty to Power has been fully revised and now includes a new chapter with an in-depth analysis of the human impact of the global financial and food crises.

‘A tour de force…At once shocking, realistic and radical, this book takes us further on the road to understanding the challenges of development and what needs to be done…It should inform and inspire all who are committed to policy and practice for a better world.’ Robert Chambers, Institute of Development Studies

£18.95 /€28.95 / $37.95 | October 2012, 522 pages, paperback | ISBN: 978-1-85339-741-7

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