Describes approaches for effectively applying science, technology, and innovation to achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Outlines core areas for policy action, including a focus on platform or generic technologies, defining infrastructure services as foundations for technology, placing universities at the centre of local development and improving science education, spurring entrepreneurial activities, improving the policy environment and focusing on areas of under-funded research for development.

This book argues that Africa can feed itself in a generation and help contribute to global food security despite its history of persistent food shortages and the rising threat of climate change. To achieve this, the continent must harness scientific and technological advances, invest in infrastructure, foster higher technical training, and create regional markets. It must also foster a new crop of entrepreneurial leaders dedicated to the continent's economic improvement. This new edition provides ideas on how to place agriculture at the center of the continent's long-term economic transformation. It demonstrates how policy coordination can help realize agriculture's full potential as a motherboard for other economic activities. Incorporating lessons from academia, government, civil society, and private industry, The New Harvest outlines how African countries can work together at regional levels to generate new knowledge and resources, harness technological advancement, encourage entrepreneurship, increase agricultural output, create markets, and improve overall economic performance.

We're bombarded by messages telling us that more, bigger, and better things are the keys to happiness-but after we pile up the stuff and pile on the hours, we end up exhausted and broke on a planet full of trash. Sarah van Gelder and her colleagues at YES! Magazine have been exploring the meaning of real happiness for eighteen years. In this much-needed volume, they marshal fascinating research, in-depth essays, and compelling personal stories that lead to a life-altering conclusion: what makes us truly happy are the depth of our relationships, the quality of our communities, the contribution.

Managing the ability of agriculture to meet rising global demand and to respond to the changes and opportunities will require good policy, sustained investments, and innovation - not business as usual. Investments in public Research and Development, extension, education, and their links with one another have elicited high returns and pro-poor growth, but these investments alone will not elicit innovation at the pace or on the scale required by the intensifying and proliferating challenges confronting agriculture. Experience indicates that aside from a strong capacity in Research and Development, the ability to innovate is often related to collective action, coordination, the exchange of knowledge among diverse actors, the incentives and resources available to form partnerships and develop businesses, and conditions that make it possible for farmers or entrepreneurs to use the innovations. While consensus is developing about what is meant by 'innovation' and 'innovation system', no detailed blueprint exists for making agricultural innovation happen at a given time, in a given place, for a given result. The AIS approach that looks at these multiple conditions and relationships that promote innovation in agriculture, has however moved from a concept to a sub-discipline with principles of analysis and action. AIS investments must be specific to the context, responding to the stage of development in a particular country and agricultural sector, especially the AIS. This sourcebook contributes to identifying, designing, and implementing the investments, approaches, and complementary interventions that appear most likely to strengthen AIS and to promote agricultural innovation and equitable growth. It emphasizes the lessons learned, benefits and impacts, implementation issues, and prospects for replicating or expanding successful practices. The information in this sourcebook derives from approaches that have been tested at different scales in different contexts. It reflects the experiences and evolving understanding of numerous individuals and organizations concerned with agricultural innovation, including the World Bank. This information is targeted to the key operational staff in international and regional development agencies and national governments who design and implement lending projects and to the practitioners who design thematic programs and technical assistance packages. The sourcebook can also be an important resource for the research community and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).

Education as if people and planet mattered In Transformative Learning, Satish Kumar reflects on the legacy of Schumacher College, a beacon of innovation that fosters an ecological-based, holistic model of higher education built around the college's unique "learn by doing," head, heart, and hands pedagogy. Over fifty current and former instructors and alumni, including Vandana Shiva, David Orr, Kate Raworth, Fritjof Capra, Bill McKibben, Mary Evelyn Tucker, and Jonathon Porritt, paint a rich picture of education for human well-being and the ecological health of the planet. Contributions delve deeply into the nature of transformational learning and holistic education, present a wealth of alumni experiences of working towards an ecological society, and detail the expansion of the Schumacher model to Belgium, Brazil, India, Japan, and beyond. The result is a rich tapestry of ideas and educational methods packed with insights and experience for practitioners and activists looking to build a just, ecological society.