This report examines the role of incentives, trust, and engagement as critical determinants of service delivery performance in MENA countries. Focusing on education and health, the report illustrates how the weak external and internal accountability undermines policy implementation and service delivery performance and how such a cycle of poor performance can be counteracted. Case studies of local success reveal the importance of both formal and informal accountability relationships and the...

The overlapping crises of COVID-19, climate change, and rising levels of conflict are exacerbating global inequalities. This report offers a definition and framework for social sustainability as well as examples and guidance on how development can foster progress toward it.

Whether understood as a long-run historical process or an intentional political project, international development transforms not only societies and economies but also key ideas about how the world works and how problems should be solved.In this compelling book, Michael Woolcock demonstrates that achieving peace and prosperity for all is supremely contingent and often contentious: the means and ends of development are often perceived as alien, unjust, and disruptive, its benefits a...

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY 3.0 IGO International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. The notion of development influences and is influenced by all aspects of human life. Social science is but one representational option among many for conveying the myriad ways in which development is conceived, encountered, experienced, justified, courted, and/or resis...

This book seeks to narrow two gaps: first, between the widespread use of case studies and their frequently 'loose' methodological moorings; and second, between the scholarly community advancing methodological frontiers in case study research and the users of case studies in development policy and practice. It draws on the contributors' collective experience at this nexus, but the underlying issues are more broadly relevant to case study researchers and practitioners in all fields. How does...

Although the academic study of development is well established, as is also its policy implementation, less considered are the broader, more popular understandings of development that often shape agendas and priorities, particularly in representative democracies.Through its accessible and provocative chapters, Popular Representations of Development introduces the idea that while the issue of ‘development’ – defined broadly as problems of poverty and social deprivation, and ...

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Governments play a major role in the development process, and constantly introduce reforms and policies to achieve developmental objectives. Many of these interventions have limited impact, however; schools get built but children don't learn, IT systems are introduced but not used...

This report examines the role of incentives, trust, and engagement as critical determinants of service delivery performance in MENA countries. Focusing on education and health, the report illustrates how the weak external and internal accountability undermines policy implementation and service delivery performance and how such a cycle of poor performance can be counteracted. Case studies of local success reveal the importance of both formal and informal accountability relationships and the ro...

Previous efforts at legal development have focused almost exclusively on state legal systems, many of which have shown little improvement over time. Recently, organizations engaged in legal development activities have begun to pay greater attention to the implications of local, informal, indigenous, religious and village courts or tribunals, which often are more efficacious than state legal institutions, especially in rural communities. Legal pluralism is the term applied to these situatio...

Foreword by Michael Woolcock (World Bank & Lecturer at Harvard University)“An accessible, radical and rare example of the aliveness and relevance of both the Old and New Testaments. Allow your faith to be energised and made passionate by reflecting on the insights that are brought to you in this book.”— Ann Morisy, Community Theologian and AuthorAs human beings we are continually seduced by the thought of appearing more im...

For decades, public service organizations have been under constant and growing pressure from citizens and stakeholders to provide more integrated, effective and accountable programs and services. Governments are beginning to acknowledge that they can’t own every issue and increasingly look to collaboration, networking and consultation at many levels as they design and develop polices, programs and service delivery mechanisms. Building Better Public Services explores the challenges facing publ...

In The Ethics of Immigration, Joseph Carens synthesizes a lifetime of work to explore and illuminate one of the most pressing issues of our time. Immigration poses practical problems for western democracies and also challenges the ways in which people in democracies think about citizenship and belonging, about rights and responsibilities, and about freedom and equality. Carens begins by focusing on current immigration controversies in North America and Europe about access to citiz...