The many ideas and opportunities include: narrowing the gaps between words and actions; reducing demands on administrative capacity; using minimum rules, non-negotiables and downward accountability to transform power relations; finding new potentials for participation; improving scaling up; critical reflection and experiential learning; complementing rights-based with obligations-based approaches; pro-poor realism; and responsible well-being."

Heralded as a success that mobilized support for development, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) ushered in an era of setting development agendas by setting global goals. This book critically evaluates the MDG experience from the capabilities and human rights perspectives, and questions the use of quantitative targets as an instrument of global governance. It provides an account of their origins, trajectory and influence in shaping the policy agenda, and ideas about international development during the first 15 years of the 21st century. The chapters explore: • whether the goals are adequate as benchmarks for the transformative vision of the Millennium Declaration; • how the goals came to be formulated the way they were, drawing on interviews with key actors who were involved in the process; • how the goals exercised influence through framing to shape policy agendas on the part of both developing countries and the international community; • the political economy that drove the formulation of the goals and their consequences on the agendas of the South and the North; • the effects of quantification and indicators on ideas and action; and • the lessons to be drawn for using numeric goals to promote global priorities. Representing a significant body of work on the MDGs in its multiple dimensions, compiled here for the first time as a single collection that tells the whole definitive story, this book provides a comprehensive resource. It will be of great interest to students, researchers and policymakers in the fields of development, human rights, international political economy, and governance by numeric indicators.

In this book Ian Goldin shows how the understanding of how nations escape poverty and achieve economic and social progress has changed as the pendulum has swung from arguments for state-led development to a preoccupation with market forces.

An engaging history of how the idea of development has shaped Africa's past and present encounters with the West.

100 Ideas for Teaching Physical Development is the winner of a 2009 Practical Pre-School Gold Award! The book is packed with 100 inspirational ideas on teaching physical development in the Early Years, ranging from ways to provide child-initiated learning opportunities to enriching physical development with ICT. Using his wealth of experience, the author has produced a fantastic selection of ideas to enhance and facilitate learning. Practical and innovative, this book is an ideal companion for all practitioners working in an Early Years setting.

The global financial crisis of 2008–9 has changed the way people around the world think about development. The market-friendly, lightly regulated model of capitalism promoted by the United States is now at risk, and development thinking worldwide is at something of an impasse. Editors Nancy Birdsall and Francis Fukuyama bring together leading scholars to explore the implications of the global financial crisis on existing and future development strategies. In addressing this issue, the contributors contemplate three central questions: What effect has the crisis had on current ideas in development thinking? How has it affected and how will it affect economic policy and political realities in Latin America and Asia, including China and India? Will the financial collapse reinforce shifts in geopolitical power and influence, and in what form? Essays answering these questions identify themes that are essential as economic and political leaders address future challenges of development. To help move beyond this time of global economic turmoil, the contributors—the foremost minds in the field of international development—offer innovative ideas about stabilizing the international economy and promoting global development strategies. Contributors: Nancy Birdsall, Center for Global Development; Michael Clemens, Center for Global Development; Kemal Dervis, Brookings Institution; Larry Diamond, Stanford University; Francis Fukuyama, Stanford University; Peter S. Heller, Johns Hopkins University; Yasheng Huang, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Justin Yifu Lin, World Bank; José Antonio Ocampo, Columbia University; Mitchell A. Orenstein, Johns Hopkins University; Minxin Pei, Claremont McKenna College; Lant Pritchett, Harvard University; Liliana Rojas-Suarez, Center for Global Development; Arvid Subramanian, Johns Hopkins University

This second volume from the United Nations Intellectual History Project surveys the history of the UN's regional commissions and the ideas they have developed over the last 40 years. Each essay is devoted to one of the five regional commissions -- Europe, Asia and the Far East, Latin America, Africa, and Western Asia -- and how it has approached its mission of assessing the condition of regional economies and making prognoses about future conditions. The essays describe how each commission has added local perspectives to global debates over economic development and brought an authentic regional voice to the UN. Contributors are Adebayo Adedeji, Yves Berthelot, Leelananda de Silva, Blandine Destremau, Paul Rayment, and Gert Rosenthal.