This publication presents tools and techniques for measuring service delivery in health and education and people's experiences from the field in deploying these methods. It begins by providing an introduction to the different methodological tools available for evaluating the performance of the health and education sectors. Country specific experiences are then explored to highlight lessons on the challenges, advantages and disadvantages of using different techniques to measure quality in...

In the West, media coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan is framed by military and political concerns, resulting in a simplistic picture of ageless barbarity, terrorist safe havens, and peoples in need of either punishment or salvation. Under the Drones looks beyond this limiting view to investigate real people on the ground, and to analyze the political, social, and economic forces that shape their lives. Understanding the complexity of life along the 1,600-mile border between Afg...

This book provides a multi-disciplinary framework for developing and analyzing health sector reforms, based on the authors' extensive international experience. It offers practical guidance - useful to policymakers, consultants, academics, and students alike - and stresses the need to take account of each country's economic, administrative, and political circumstances. The authors explain how to design effective government interventions in five areas - financing, payment, organization, regu...

In Afghanistan under Taliban rule, women were forbidden to work or go to school, they could not leave their homes without a male chaperone, and they could not be seen without a head-to-toe covering called the burqa. A woman’s slightest infractions were met with brutal public beatings. That is why it is both appropriate and incredible that the sole effective civil resistance to Taliban rule was made by women. Veiled Courage reveals the remarkable bravery and spirit of the ...

We live in a world where seemingly everything can be measured. We rely on indicators to translate social phenomena into simple, quantified terms, which in turn can be used to guide individuals, organizations, and governments in establishing policy. Yet counting things requires finding a way to make them comparable. And in the process of translating the confusion of social life into neat categories, we inevitably strip it of context and meaning—and risk hiding or distorting as much as we re...

The Middle East in the 21st century has witnessed a game-changing rollercoaster ride that has transformed relationships across the boards. Turkey underwent the most dramatic changes of its democratic history, propelling it into the role of major regional actor. The "Arab Spring" cast the region into political and social turmoil. US-led wars devastated the lands and peoples of several countries with widespread, rippling repercussions. And the balance of global power shifted dramatically, br...

Every year a staggering number of unidentified shell corporations succeed in hiding perpetrators of terrorist financing, corruption and illegal arms trades, but the degree to which firms flout global identification standards remains unknown. Adopting a unique, experimental methodology, Global Shell Games attempts to unveil the sordid world of anonymous shell corporations. Posing as twenty-one different international consultants, the authors approached nearly 4,000 services in over 180 coun...

In this provocative and timely book, Middle East expert Lee Smith overturns long-held Western myths and assumptions about the Arab world, offering advice for America’s future success in the region.Seeking the motivation behind the September 11 attacks, Smith moved to Cairo, where he discovered that the standard explanation—a clash of East and West—was simply not the case. Middle East conflicts have little to do with Israel, the United States, or the West in general, but are endemic...

This volume's contributors evaluate the accomplishments, limits, and consequences of using quantitative metrics in global health. Whether analyzing maternal mortality rates, the relationships between political goals and metrics data, or the links between health outcomes and a program's fiscal support, the contributors question the ability of metrics to solve global health problems. They capture a moment when global health scholars and practitioners must evaluate the potential effectiveness...

The number of elderly people relying on formal long-term care services is dramatically increasing year after year, and the challenge of ensuring the quality and financial stability of care provision is one faced by governments in both the developed and developing world. This edited book is the first to provide a comprehensive international survey of long-term care provision and regulation, built around a series of case studies from Europe, North America and Asia. The analytical framework a...

One of the most important developments in the modern history of the Middle East, the so-called Arab Spring began in Tunisia in December 2010, bringing down dictators, sparking a civil war in Libya, and igniting a bloody uprising in Syria. Its long-term repercussions in Egypt and elsewhere remain unclear. Now one of the world's leading Islamic thinkers examines and explains it, in this searching, provocative, and necessary book.Time Magazine named Tariq Ramadan one of the most important inn...

Upon signing the Millennium Declaration in 2000, the international community committed itself to eight development goals with timebound targets and measurable indicators. The third of these eight goals was to "promote gender equality and empower women". The third Millennium Development Goal (MDG3) in the Millennium Declaration has spurred national and international efforts to improve women's situation around the globe. Equality for Women: Where Do We Stand on Millennium Goal 3? tracks co...