Author: James Traub
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780312426743
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 534
Book Description
Traub recounts the dramatically entwined history of Kofi Annan and the U.N. from 1992 to the present. In Annan he sees a conscientious idealist given too little credit for advancing causes like humanitarian intervention, an honest broker crushed between American conservatives and Third World opponents, and a U.N. careerist who has absorbed that culture and cannot, in the end, escape its limitations.
The Best Intentions
Author: James Traub
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780312426743
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 534
Book Description
Traub recounts the dramatically entwined history of Kofi Annan and the U.N. from 1992 to the present. In Annan he sees a conscientious idealist given too little credit for advancing causes like humanitarian intervention, an honest broker crushed between American conservatives and Third World opponents, and a U.N. careerist who has absorbed that culture and cannot, in the end, escape its limitations.
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780312426743
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 534
Book Description
Traub recounts the dramatically entwined history of Kofi Annan and the U.N. from 1992 to the present. In Annan he sees a conscientious idealist given too little credit for advancing causes like humanitarian intervention, an honest broker crushed between American conservatives and Third World opponents, and a U.N. careerist who has absorbed that culture and cannot, in the end, escape its limitations.
Best Intentions
Author: Erika Raskin
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1250101239
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 252
Book Description
“Best Intentions is that rare novel that grows more gripping and emotionally rich with every turn of the page.” —Carla Buckley Marti Trailor—social worker on hold, mother of three, wife of a successful obstetrician, daughter of a Congressman—is ready to go back to work. She’s thrilled when the perfect opportunity falls in her lap. The catch? The job is at her husband's hospital and he seems not to share her enthusiasm. Undeterred, she takes the position counseling vulnerable young women as they prepare to give birth. Marti quickly begins to feel like she is making a difference in the lives of her clients. Soon, though, she finds herself caught up in the dark side of the medical center—with its long hours, overworked doctors and entrenched practices. When she witnesses something she can't unsee, Marti, who has always done her best to keep a low-profile, finds herself thrust under a dangerous spotlight with all of Richmond, Virginia watching. In her captivating domestic suspense novel Best Intentions, Erika Raskin weaves together high stakes hospital politics, the pressures of family life, and the consequences of trying to do the right thing, particularly in a city with a history as fraught as Richmond's.
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1250101239
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 252
Book Description
“Best Intentions is that rare novel that grows more gripping and emotionally rich with every turn of the page.” —Carla Buckley Marti Trailor—social worker on hold, mother of three, wife of a successful obstetrician, daughter of a Congressman—is ready to go back to work. She’s thrilled when the perfect opportunity falls in her lap. The catch? The job is at her husband's hospital and he seems not to share her enthusiasm. Undeterred, she takes the position counseling vulnerable young women as they prepare to give birth. Marti quickly begins to feel like she is making a difference in the lives of her clients. Soon, though, she finds herself caught up in the dark side of the medical center—with its long hours, overworked doctors and entrenched practices. When she witnesses something she can't unsee, Marti, who has always done her best to keep a low-profile, finds herself thrust under a dangerous spotlight with all of Richmond, Virginia watching. In her captivating domestic suspense novel Best Intentions, Erika Raskin weaves together high stakes hospital politics, the pressures of family life, and the consequences of trying to do the right thing, particularly in a city with a history as fraught as Richmond's.
Best Intentions
Author: Simran Dhir
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 9354891594
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
'Lawyer-turned-author Simran Dhir's debut novel is the exciting airport read we often need in our lives.' -- The Telegraph 'This sharp, acute and accomplished debut novel ... carries deep insights into human relationships and the social schisms and fault lines that surround us.' -- Namita Gokhale Gayatri Mehra is tired of her parents trying to find her a suitable husband. She would much rather focus on the history journal she edits and leave the happily-ever-after to Nandini and Amar, her newly married sister and brother-in-law. But when the journal faces pressure to fall in line from the right-wing SSP, headed by a corrupt godman, Gayatri is forced to seek help from Akshay Grewal, Amar's brother and elder son of lawyer-turned-politician Gyan Singh Grewal. Gayatri finds Akshay arrogant and unprincipled; he thinks she is naive and self-righteous. Enter Vikram Gera, a self-made banker willing to go to any lengths to break into Delhi's elite circles, even if it means stringing Gayatri along. As Gayatri and Akshay come together to salvage the situation at the journal, they realize that their siblings' marriage is coming undone. Politics, ambition and hard truths collide, and familial bonds are tested. But as they navigate this complex world, Akshay and Gayatri learn that while some things can't be fixed, love often finds a way. Best Intentions is a sharply observed and compulsively readable novel of manners marking the arrival of an accomplished new voice.
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 9354891594
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
'Lawyer-turned-author Simran Dhir's debut novel is the exciting airport read we often need in our lives.' -- The Telegraph 'This sharp, acute and accomplished debut novel ... carries deep insights into human relationships and the social schisms and fault lines that surround us.' -- Namita Gokhale Gayatri Mehra is tired of her parents trying to find her a suitable husband. She would much rather focus on the history journal she edits and leave the happily-ever-after to Nandini and Amar, her newly married sister and brother-in-law. But when the journal faces pressure to fall in line from the right-wing SSP, headed by a corrupt godman, Gayatri is forced to seek help from Akshay Grewal, Amar's brother and elder son of lawyer-turned-politician Gyan Singh Grewal. Gayatri finds Akshay arrogant and unprincipled; he thinks she is naive and self-righteous. Enter Vikram Gera, a self-made banker willing to go to any lengths to break into Delhi's elite circles, even if it means stringing Gayatri along. As Gayatri and Akshay come together to salvage the situation at the journal, they realize that their siblings' marriage is coming undone. Politics, ambition and hard truths collide, and familial bonds are tested. But as they navigate this complex world, Akshay and Gayatri learn that while some things can't be fixed, love often finds a way. Best Intentions is a sharply observed and compulsively readable novel of manners marking the arrival of an accomplished new voice.
Despite the Best Intentions
Author: Amanda E. Lewis
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190250879
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273
Book Description
On the surface, Riverview High School looks like the post-racial ideal. Serving an enviably affluent, diverse, and liberal district, the school is well-funded, its teachers are well-trained, and many of its students are high achieving. Yet Riverview has not escaped the same unrelenting question that plagues schools throughout America: why is it that even when all of the circumstances seem right, black and Latino students continue to lag behind their peers? Through five years' worth of interviews and data-gathering at Riverview, John Diamond and Amanda Lewis have created a rich and disturbing portrait of the achievement gap that persists more than fifty years after the formal dismantling of segregation. As students progress from elementary school to middle school to high school, their level of academic achievement increasingly tracks along racial lines, with white and Asian students maintaining higher GPAs and standardized testing scores, taking more advanced classes, and attaining better college admission results than their black and Latino counterparts. Most research to date has focused on the role of poverty, family stability, and other external influences in explaining poor performance at school, especially in urban contexts. Diamond and Lewis instead situate their research in a suburban school, and look at what factors within the school itself could be causing the disparity. Most crucially, they challenge many common explanations of the 'racial achievement gap,' exploring what race actually means in this situation, and why it matters. An in-depth study with far-reaching consequences, Despite the Best Intentions revolutionizes our understanding of both the knotty problem of academic disparities and the larger question of the color line in American society.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190250879
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273
Book Description
On the surface, Riverview High School looks like the post-racial ideal. Serving an enviably affluent, diverse, and liberal district, the school is well-funded, its teachers are well-trained, and many of its students are high achieving. Yet Riverview has not escaped the same unrelenting question that plagues schools throughout America: why is it that even when all of the circumstances seem right, black and Latino students continue to lag behind their peers? Through five years' worth of interviews and data-gathering at Riverview, John Diamond and Amanda Lewis have created a rich and disturbing portrait of the achievement gap that persists more than fifty years after the formal dismantling of segregation. As students progress from elementary school to middle school to high school, their level of academic achievement increasingly tracks along racial lines, with white and Asian students maintaining higher GPAs and standardized testing scores, taking more advanced classes, and attaining better college admission results than their black and Latino counterparts. Most research to date has focused on the role of poverty, family stability, and other external influences in explaining poor performance at school, especially in urban contexts. Diamond and Lewis instead situate their research in a suburban school, and look at what factors within the school itself could be causing the disparity. Most crucially, they challenge many common explanations of the 'racial achievement gap,' exploring what race actually means in this situation, and why it matters. An in-depth study with far-reaching consequences, Despite the Best Intentions revolutionizes our understanding of both the knotty problem of academic disparities and the larger question of the color line in American society.
The Best Intentions
Author: Committee on Unintended Pregnancy
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309556376
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 393
Book Description
Experts estimate that nearly 60 percent of all U.S. pregnancies--and 81 percent of pregnancies among adolescents--are unintended. Yet the topic of preventing these unintended pregnancies has long been treated gingerly because of personal sensitivities and public controversies, especially the angry debate over abortion. Additionally, child welfare advocates long have overlooked the connection between pregnancy planning and the improved well-being of families and communities that results when children are wanted. Now, current issues--health care and welfare reform, and the new international focus on population--are drawing attention to the consequences of unintended pregnancy. In this climate The Best Intentions offers a timely exploration of family planning issues from a distinguished panel of experts. This committee sheds much-needed light on the questions and controversies surrounding unintended pregnancy. The book offers specific recommendations to put the United States on par with other developed nations in terms of contraceptive attitudes and policies, and it considers the effectiveness of over 20 pregnancy prevention programs. The Best Intentions explores problematic definitions--"unintended" versus "unwanted" versus "mistimed"--and presents data on pregnancy rates and trends. The book also summarizes the health and social consequences of unintended pregnancies, for both men and women, and for the children they bear. Why does unintended pregnancy occur? In discussions of "reasons behind the rates," the book examines Americans' ambivalence about sexuality and the many other social, cultural, religious, and economic factors that affect our approach to contraception. The committee explores the complicated web of peer pressure, life aspirations, and notions of romance that shape an individual's decisions about sex, contraception, and pregnancy. And the book looks at such practical issues as the attitudes of doctors toward birth control and the place of contraception in both health insurance and "managed care." The Best Intentions offers frank discussion, synthesis of data, and policy recommendations on one of today's most sensitive social topics. This book will be important to policymakers, health and social service personnel, foundation executives, opinion leaders, researchers, and concerned individuals. May
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309556376
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 393
Book Description
Experts estimate that nearly 60 percent of all U.S. pregnancies--and 81 percent of pregnancies among adolescents--are unintended. Yet the topic of preventing these unintended pregnancies has long been treated gingerly because of personal sensitivities and public controversies, especially the angry debate over abortion. Additionally, child welfare advocates long have overlooked the connection between pregnancy planning and the improved well-being of families and communities that results when children are wanted. Now, current issues--health care and welfare reform, and the new international focus on population--are drawing attention to the consequences of unintended pregnancy. In this climate The Best Intentions offers a timely exploration of family planning issues from a distinguished panel of experts. This committee sheds much-needed light on the questions and controversies surrounding unintended pregnancy. The book offers specific recommendations to put the United States on par with other developed nations in terms of contraceptive attitudes and policies, and it considers the effectiveness of over 20 pregnancy prevention programs. The Best Intentions explores problematic definitions--"unintended" versus "unwanted" versus "mistimed"--and presents data on pregnancy rates and trends. The book also summarizes the health and social consequences of unintended pregnancies, for both men and women, and for the children they bear. Why does unintended pregnancy occur? In discussions of "reasons behind the rates," the book examines Americans' ambivalence about sexuality and the many other social, cultural, religious, and economic factors that affect our approach to contraception. The committee explores the complicated web of peer pressure, life aspirations, and notions of romance that shape an individual's decisions about sex, contraception, and pregnancy. And the book looks at such practical issues as the attitudes of doctors toward birth control and the place of contraception in both health insurance and "managed care." The Best Intentions offers frank discussion, synthesis of data, and policy recommendations on one of today's most sensitive social topics. This book will be important to policymakers, health and social service personnel, foundation executives, opinion leaders, researchers, and concerned individuals. May
The Best Intentions in the World
Author: Gabriel Malika
Publisher: Éditions Intervalles
ISBN: 2369561599
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 330
Book Description
Immediate embarkation for the United Arab Emirates Gabriel is a young and ambitious designer. After reaping the benefits of successful business deals in Saudi Arabia, he moves to Dubai to kick start a career in photography. There he befriends the patriarch of the Al Firas family, the owner of most shoppings malls in town and whose saga mirrors the exponential growth of the Arabian metropolis. One day, Khalid Al Firas decides to organise a lottery which rewards the winners with a luxury holiday cruise on the Strait of Hormuz. Six people, from France, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, the US, Lebanon and Iran, get the golden ticket. Aboard the “Safineth”, the passengers are informed that a tsunami coming from the Iranian coast is fast heading their way. While the ship weathers the storm, the lucky winners can only witness the destruction of Dubai from the deck. The artificial ‘The World’ island and the Atlantis hotel are soon submerged by the huge wave. The whole world watch flabbergasted and wonder how this natural disaster could ever have occurred. Convinced that such a catastrophe is not a coincidence, Al Firas asks Gabriel to enquire about the passengers’ lives. So, Christophe, Samana, Toni, Sharon, Saeed and Gamzeh are going to reveal their family stories and the reasons which have driven them to Dubai. The account of their existence draws an impressive mosaic of the Middle East plunging the reader in the traditions of this part of the world. Their moving testimonies feature Dubai as a city where feelings and human relations are put to the test and where love inevitably crashes onto its immaculate shores. The novel is a hyperbole that depicts the grandness and decadence of a city built on sand that tries ever so hard to portray a different image of the Arabian world at the expense of losing its soul, identity and integrity. A brilliant psychological novel, between censorship and realism EXTRACT “This is up to me.” “If you say so,” answered cousin Remy, as he dropped me off in front of Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle airport, Terminal C. I was not entirely sure what I was signing up for. A terrorist group had rampaged through the Saudi capital a short while ago. Westerners no longer felt safe. The consulates were frantic and garlands of barbed wires had bloomed around every compound. What better time for me to move to Jeddah, a city near the Red Sea, a crucial milestone for traveling pilgrims on their way to Mecca. There, they said, laid Eve, Hawwa. My family had tried to talk me out of it, but it was too late. All the contracts were signed, my suitcases packed and ready to go. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Gabriel Malika has been living in the Middle East for more than a decade. From Beirut through Jeddah to Karachi, he has absorbed the beauty and complexity of this tumultuous region. After the success of With the Best Intentions in the World, published in 2011 by editions Intervalles, his second novel, Qatarina was published in 2014.
Publisher: Éditions Intervalles
ISBN: 2369561599
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 330
Book Description
Immediate embarkation for the United Arab Emirates Gabriel is a young and ambitious designer. After reaping the benefits of successful business deals in Saudi Arabia, he moves to Dubai to kick start a career in photography. There he befriends the patriarch of the Al Firas family, the owner of most shoppings malls in town and whose saga mirrors the exponential growth of the Arabian metropolis. One day, Khalid Al Firas decides to organise a lottery which rewards the winners with a luxury holiday cruise on the Strait of Hormuz. Six people, from France, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, the US, Lebanon and Iran, get the golden ticket. Aboard the “Safineth”, the passengers are informed that a tsunami coming from the Iranian coast is fast heading their way. While the ship weathers the storm, the lucky winners can only witness the destruction of Dubai from the deck. The artificial ‘The World’ island and the Atlantis hotel are soon submerged by the huge wave. The whole world watch flabbergasted and wonder how this natural disaster could ever have occurred. Convinced that such a catastrophe is not a coincidence, Al Firas asks Gabriel to enquire about the passengers’ lives. So, Christophe, Samana, Toni, Sharon, Saeed and Gamzeh are going to reveal their family stories and the reasons which have driven them to Dubai. The account of their existence draws an impressive mosaic of the Middle East plunging the reader in the traditions of this part of the world. Their moving testimonies feature Dubai as a city where feelings and human relations are put to the test and where love inevitably crashes onto its immaculate shores. The novel is a hyperbole that depicts the grandness and decadence of a city built on sand that tries ever so hard to portray a different image of the Arabian world at the expense of losing its soul, identity and integrity. A brilliant psychological novel, between censorship and realism EXTRACT “This is up to me.” “If you say so,” answered cousin Remy, as he dropped me off in front of Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle airport, Terminal C. I was not entirely sure what I was signing up for. A terrorist group had rampaged through the Saudi capital a short while ago. Westerners no longer felt safe. The consulates were frantic and garlands of barbed wires had bloomed around every compound. What better time for me to move to Jeddah, a city near the Red Sea, a crucial milestone for traveling pilgrims on their way to Mecca. There, they said, laid Eve, Hawwa. My family had tried to talk me out of it, but it was too late. All the contracts were signed, my suitcases packed and ready to go. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Gabriel Malika has been living in the Middle East for more than a decade. From Beirut through Jeddah to Karachi, he has absorbed the beauty and complexity of this tumultuous region. After the success of With the Best Intentions in the World, published in 2011 by editions Intervalles, his second novel, Qatarina was published in 2014.
Best Intentions
Author: Robert Sam Anson
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307756998
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 238
Book Description
A complex, poignant exploration of racial attitudes in America, as illumined by the case of Edmund Perry. Perry, a seventeen-year-old black honors student from Harlem, was fatally shot by a young white plainclothes policeman in 1985 in an alleged mugging attempt. Perry had recently graduated from Philips Exeter Academy and was to attend Stanford University that fall. The shooting and the subsequent case, in which Edmund's elder brother Jonah, an undergraduate at Cornell University, was accused, tried, and found not guilty, drew national headlines and was the subject of heated debate among black and white communities alike. Using interviews with Perry's parents, friends, and former teachers in Harlem and at Exeter, journalist Robert Sam Anson has written a compelling account of a boy caught between two worlds and a profound portrait of the state of race in America.
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307756998
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 238
Book Description
A complex, poignant exploration of racial attitudes in America, as illumined by the case of Edmund Perry. Perry, a seventeen-year-old black honors student from Harlem, was fatally shot by a young white plainclothes policeman in 1985 in an alleged mugging attempt. Perry had recently graduated from Philips Exeter Academy and was to attend Stanford University that fall. The shooting and the subsequent case, in which Edmund's elder brother Jonah, an undergraduate at Cornell University, was accused, tried, and found not guilty, drew national headlines and was the subject of heated debate among black and white communities alike. Using interviews with Perry's parents, friends, and former teachers in Harlem and at Exeter, journalist Robert Sam Anson has written a compelling account of a boy caught between two worlds and a profound portrait of the state of race in America.
The Best Intentions
Author: Ingmar Bergman
Publisher: Arcade Publishing
ISBN: 9781559702492
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 312
Book Description
In this original, extraordinarily moving, and highly personal novel, world-renowned stage and film director Ingmar Bergman goes back to the time of his parents and grandparents, to the years shortly before, during, and just after World War I. Set in the decade beginning in 1908, The Best Intentions is, ultimately, a love story on many different levels: a man and woman in love; parents and children; and love as miracle, that love which is overriding and, so often, inexplicable. Bergman was inspired to write this loosely biographical novel when he began rummaging through the voluminous family picture albums. That, plus family letters and records, and his own memories and unique imagination, helped him recreate this lost world in evocative and graphic detail. Henrik is a poor divinity student. Anna is the much loved but slightly pampered daughter of bourgeois parents. They fall in love and, after a long and tortuous courtship, marry, despite the objections of Anna's parents - especially of Anna's mother, Karin. Karin uses everything in her power, including deceit, first to prevent the marriage, then to break it up. Yet, even her basest actions are never monstrous but filled with good intentions. In fact, all the characters act with the "best intentions", however wrongheaded their behavior. "That Bergman can extend sympathy to such behavior is a great and generous gesture, one that allows him to create characters of astonishing depth", wrote Caryn James in the New York Times. Incorporating some of the elements of stage and screen, including filmic dialogues and personal "asides", which he weaves artfully into the narrative flow, Bergman has written a novel of great beauty and uncompromisinghonesty, a work filled with joy and sadness, sacrifice and reconciliation - and above all, abiding love.
Publisher: Arcade Publishing
ISBN: 9781559702492
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 312
Book Description
In this original, extraordinarily moving, and highly personal novel, world-renowned stage and film director Ingmar Bergman goes back to the time of his parents and grandparents, to the years shortly before, during, and just after World War I. Set in the decade beginning in 1908, The Best Intentions is, ultimately, a love story on many different levels: a man and woman in love; parents and children; and love as miracle, that love which is overriding and, so often, inexplicable. Bergman was inspired to write this loosely biographical novel when he began rummaging through the voluminous family picture albums. That, plus family letters and records, and his own memories and unique imagination, helped him recreate this lost world in evocative and graphic detail. Henrik is a poor divinity student. Anna is the much loved but slightly pampered daughter of bourgeois parents. They fall in love and, after a long and tortuous courtship, marry, despite the objections of Anna's parents - especially of Anna's mother, Karin. Karin uses everything in her power, including deceit, first to prevent the marriage, then to break it up. Yet, even her basest actions are never monstrous but filled with good intentions. In fact, all the characters act with the "best intentions", however wrongheaded their behavior. "That Bergman can extend sympathy to such behavior is a great and generous gesture, one that allows him to create characters of astonishing depth", wrote Caryn James in the New York Times. Incorporating some of the elements of stage and screen, including filmic dialogues and personal "asides", which he weaves artfully into the narrative flow, Bergman has written a novel of great beauty and uncompromisinghonesty, a work filled with joy and sadness, sacrifice and reconciliation - and above all, abiding love.
Good Intentions, Bad Outcomes
Author: Santiago Levy
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0815701632
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 377
Book Description
Despite various reform efforts, Mexico has experienced economic stability but little growth. Today more than half of all Mexican workers are employed informally, and one out of every four is poor. Good Intentions, Bad Outcomes argues that incoherent social programs significantly contribute to this state of affairs and it suggests reforms to improve the situation. Over the past decade, Mexico has channeled an increasing number of resources into subsidizing the creation of low-productivity, informal jobs. These social programs have hampered growth, fostered illegality, and provided erratic protection to workers, trapping many in poverty. Informality has boxed Mexico into a dilemma: provide benefits to informal workers at the expense of lower growth and reduced productivity or leave millions of workers without benefits. Former finance official Santiago Levy proposes how to convert the existing system of social security for formal workers into universal social entitlements. He advocates eliminating wage-based social security contributions and raising consumption taxes on higher-income households to simultaneously increase the rate of growth of GDP, reduce inequality, and improve benefits for workers. Go od Intentions, Bad Outcomes considers whether Mexico can build on the success of Progresa-Oportunidades, a targeted poverty alleviation program that originated in Mexico and has been replicated in over 25 countries as well as in New York City. It sets forth a plan to reform social and economic policy, an essential element of a more equitable and sustainable development strategy for Mexico.
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0815701632
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 377
Book Description
Despite various reform efforts, Mexico has experienced economic stability but little growth. Today more than half of all Mexican workers are employed informally, and one out of every four is poor. Good Intentions, Bad Outcomes argues that incoherent social programs significantly contribute to this state of affairs and it suggests reforms to improve the situation. Over the past decade, Mexico has channeled an increasing number of resources into subsidizing the creation of low-productivity, informal jobs. These social programs have hampered growth, fostered illegality, and provided erratic protection to workers, trapping many in poverty. Informality has boxed Mexico into a dilemma: provide benefits to informal workers at the expense of lower growth and reduced productivity or leave millions of workers without benefits. Former finance official Santiago Levy proposes how to convert the existing system of social security for formal workers into universal social entitlements. He advocates eliminating wage-based social security contributions and raising consumption taxes on higher-income households to simultaneously increase the rate of growth of GDP, reduce inequality, and improve benefits for workers. Go od Intentions, Bad Outcomes considers whether Mexico can build on the success of Progresa-Oportunidades, a targeted poverty alleviation program that originated in Mexico and has been replicated in over 25 countries as well as in New York City. It sets forth a plan to reform social and economic policy, an essential element of a more equitable and sustainable development strategy for Mexico.
Despite Good Intentions
Author: Thomas W. Dichter
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 328
Book Description
For more than thirty-five years, Thomas W. Dichter has worked in the field of international development, managing and evaluating projects for nongovernmental organizations, directing a Peace Corps country program, and serving as a consultant for such agencies as USAID, UNDP, and the World Bank. On the basis of this extensive and varied experience, he has become an outspoken critic of what he terms the "international poverty alleviation industry." He believes that efforts to reduce world poverty have been well-intentioned but largely ineffective. On the whole, the development industry has failed to serve the needs of the people it has sought to help. To make his case, Dichter reviews the major trends in development assistance from the 1960s through the 1990s, illustrating his analysis with eighteen short stories based on his own experiences in the field. The analytic chapters are thus grounded in the daily life of development workers as described in the stories. Dichter shows how development organizations have often become caught up in their own self-perpetuation and in public relations efforts designed to create an illusion of effectiveness. Tracing the evolution of the role of money (as opposed to ideas) in development assistance, he suggests how financial imperatives have reinforced the tendency to sponsor time-bound projects, creating a dependency among aid recipients. He also examines the rise of careerism and increased bureaucratization in the industry, arguing that assistance efforts have become disconnected from important lessons learned on the ground. In the end, Dichter calls for a more light-handed and artful approach to development assistance, with fewer agencies andexperts involved. His stance is pragmatic, rather than ideological or political. What matters, he says, is what works, and the current practices of the development industry are simply not effective.
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 328
Book Description
For more than thirty-five years, Thomas W. Dichter has worked in the field of international development, managing and evaluating projects for nongovernmental organizations, directing a Peace Corps country program, and serving as a consultant for such agencies as USAID, UNDP, and the World Bank. On the basis of this extensive and varied experience, he has become an outspoken critic of what he terms the "international poverty alleviation industry." He believes that efforts to reduce world poverty have been well-intentioned but largely ineffective. On the whole, the development industry has failed to serve the needs of the people it has sought to help. To make his case, Dichter reviews the major trends in development assistance from the 1960s through the 1990s, illustrating his analysis with eighteen short stories based on his own experiences in the field. The analytic chapters are thus grounded in the daily life of development workers as described in the stories. Dichter shows how development organizations have often become caught up in their own self-perpetuation and in public relations efforts designed to create an illusion of effectiveness. Tracing the evolution of the role of money (as opposed to ideas) in development assistance, he suggests how financial imperatives have reinforced the tendency to sponsor time-bound projects, creating a dependency among aid recipients. He also examines the rise of careerism and increased bureaucratization in the industry, arguing that assistance efforts have become disconnected from important lessons learned on the ground. In the end, Dichter calls for a more light-handed and artful approach to development assistance, with fewer agencies andexperts involved. His stance is pragmatic, rather than ideological or political. What matters, he says, is what works, and the current practices of the development industry are simply not effective.