Investing in health, particularly that of the poor, is central to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. In support of this strategy, WHO's Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean is actively promoting in countries of the Region community-based initiatives like Basic Development Needs, Healthy Cities, Healthy Villages and Women in Health and Development. These approaches are based on the principle that good health status -- an important goal in its own right -- is central to creating and sustaining capabilities of poor people to meet their basic needs and to escape from poverty. The Community-based Initiatives Series is aimed at facilitating the management of such initiatives. Users of the series may include government authorities, community representatives, WHO and other international agencies and nongovernmental organizations.

Improvements in health cannot be achieved in isolation as they require an integrated, multisectorial development approach. The WHO's Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean has introduced the following community-based initiatives: basic development needs approach; healthy villages programme; healthy cities programme; women in health and development. These community-based initiatives have provided a stimulus for health and human development. This training manual provides material to help develop trainers; update the knowledge of field managers; and reinforce leadership and management skills.

An effective state is essential to achieving socio-economic and sustainable development. With the advent of globalization, there are growing pressures on governments and organizations around the world to be more responsive to the demands of internal and external stakeholders for good governance, accountability and transparency, greater development effectiveness, and delivery of tangible results. Governments, parliaments, citizens, the private sector, NGOs, civil society, international organizations and donors are among the stakeholders interested in better performance. As demands for greater accountability and real results have increased, there is an attendant need for enhanced results-based monitoring and evaluation of policies, programs, and projects. This Handbook provides a comprehensive ten-step model that will help guide development practitioners through the process of designing and building a results-based monitoring and evaluation system. These steps begin with a OC Readiness AssessmentOCO and take the practitioner through the design, management, and importantly, the sustainability of such systems. The Handbook describes each step in detail, the tasks needed to complete each one, and the tools available to help along the way."

Discussing global society entails discussing the predominant characteristics of knowledge-based activities in all walks of life. Its main characteristics are based on creativity, innovation, freedom, and networking. The emergence of such a society poses several challenges to all disciplines of social sciences. Within such a context, sociologists must have practical encounters to the theoretical, methodological, and empirical challenges imposed within contemporary global society. In this vein, studying creative cities from an interdisciplinary perspective helps provide critical readings of the phenomenon and the different levels of the concept in reality. The Handbook of Research on Creative Cities and Advanced Models for Knowledge-Based Urban Development provides global models and best practices of creative cities worldwide and illustrates different theoretical blueprints for the better understanding of contemporary global society. While defining key concepts of creative cities, global society, and creative class, the book also clarifies the main differences between hubs, parks, and precincts and their contributions to knowledge-based development. Covering topics that include knowledge economy, social inclusion, and urban mobility, this comprehensive reference is ideal for sociologists, urban planners/designers, political scientists, economists, anthropologists, historians, policymakers, researchers, academicians, and students.

Traditional methods of supervision and evaluation focus on teachers' inputs: their lesson plans, instruction, and classroom management practices. But what matters most is the outcome they achieve: learning. This book introduces Performance-Based Supervision and Evaluation (PBSE), a data-driven and teacher-directed approach proven to build educators' analytical and instructional capacity to address the learning needs of their students. It's a move away from disconnected annual goals and outside-in improvement initiatives, and toward the full integration of teacher evaluation, strategic professional development, and school improvement planning. Supervision for Learning is an important resource for school leaders looking to * Honor the judgment of teachers while targeting student performance in areas of essential knowledge and skills articulated in standards; * Empower all teachers to use performance data as the basis for instructional decisions and monitor the effectiveness of these decisions through action research; * Develop meaningful collaborative relationships with and among teachers; and * Acquire authentic evidence of teacher and student growth. Authors James M. Aseltine, Judith O. Faryniarz, and Anthony J. Rigazio-DiGilio explain the best-practice foundations of their approach and provide guidelines for its implementation. Sample artifacts and illustrative vignettes bring the PBSE process to life, clarifying the supervisor's role, the teachers' responsibilities, and the students' gains. You'll also find a planning and monitoring tool that maps milestones within the development and evaluation cycle, along with strategies for reconciling this approach with district reporting requirements and budget realities. Note: This product listing is for the reflowable (ePub) version of the book.

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.