This publication examines the Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan---Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services National Community-Driven Development Program, which promotes women's participation and empowerment in the Philippines. The challenges and constraints observed in the program serve as lessons to enhance gender mainstreaming initiatives in community-driven development projects and programs.

This guidebook helps ensure that community training investments are optimized and yield the desired results. It provides learning facilitators with guidelines and tools for carrying out various phases of the training management cycle, including analysis, design, development, execution, monitoring, and evaluation. The guidebook was developed as part of the Department of Social Welfare and Development's Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan---Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services National Community-Driven Development Program, which conducts training to plan for and participate in community change initiatives in the Philippines.

This book offers a critical examination of ‘infrastructures for peace’, originally proposed as a framework of conflict transformation. Through an exploration of the statist ideological underpinnings of peace-building, it traces how the concept was transformed by institutional actors – international organisations and states – into a tool to further the state-building goals of liberal peace-building.

Disaster risk management is essential in the fight against poverty. Disasters can, in an instant, wipe out decades of hard-fought poverty reduction and development gains and push countless households into poverty. Disasters disproportionally affect the poor: Vulnerable and marginalized groups, including women, children, the elderly, and people with disabilities, are at particular risk. East Asia and the Pacific is the most disaster-stricken region in the world, suffering from small recurrent as well as rare high-impact events. East Asia is rapidly urbanizing, and cities are becoming disaster hotspots. Unplanned or poorly planned urbanization, which puts more people and assets in harm’s way, is the single largest driver of disaster risk. There is deep uncertainty about future disaster and climate risks, challenging our ability to adapt to new developments and changing the physical and natural environment. Decision makers can make a significant difference by effectively managing disaster risk and building resilience. With education and communication, preparedness, and investments, urbanization can be channeled as a tremendous positive force for development. By decreasing disaster exposure and vulnerability through systematic assessments and communication of risks, better land-use planning, and many other practical measures, the impacts of natural hazards can be reduced significantly. At the same time, it is necessary to recognize that the risks of disasters cannot be entirely eliminated, and countries need to plan for failure by considering different scenarios, especially within complex systems and networks. Preventive investments in risk reduction and emergency preparedness can be extremely cost-effective and can greatly reduce the impact of natural hazards. Governments can prioritize actions based on informed decisions about the level of risk to reduce the risks from disasters. Public investments, such as early-warning systems, retrofitting of critical infrastructure at risk, and mainstreaming systematic risk assessments into relevant public investment planning processes, can help to reduce poverty and promote sustainable economic growth. The World Bank supports countries around the world in mainstreaming a comprehensive and integrated approach to disaster risk management into development. The World Bank provides analytical and advisory services, helps to build climate and disaster resilience into core investments across sectors, and offers unique financial solutions to better manage the contingent fiscal risks from disasters.

Provides comprehensive coverage of major topics in urban and regional studies Under the guidance of Editor-in-Chief Anthony Orum, this definitive reference work covers central and emergent topics in the field, through an examination of urban and regional conditions and variation across the world. It also provides authoritative entries on the main conceptual tools used by anthropologists, sociologists, geographers, and political scientists in the study of cities and regions. Among such concepts are those of place and space; geographical regions; the nature of power and politics in cities; urban culture; and many others. The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies captures the character of complex urban and regional dynamics across the globe, including timely entries on Latin America, Africa, India and China. At the same time, it contains illuminating entries on some of the current concepts that seek to grasp the essence of the global world today, such as those of Friedmann and Sassen on ‘global cities’. It also includes discussions of recent economic writings on cities and regions such as those of Richard Florida. Comprised of over 450 entries on the most important topics and from a range of theoretical perspectives Features authoritative entries on topics ranging from gender and the city to biographical profiles of figures like Frank Lloyd Wright Takes a global perspective with entries providing coverage of Latin America and Africa, India and China, and, the US and Europe Includes biographies of central figures in urban and regional studies, such as Doreen Massey, Peter Hall, Neil Smith, and Henri Lefebvre The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies is an indispensable reference for students and researchers in urban and regional studies, urban sociology, urban geography, and urban anthropology.