The Commonwealth

The Commonwealth

The Commonwealth is a voluntary association of 56 independent and equal countries. It is home to 2.5 billion people, and includes both advanced economies and developing countries. 33 of our members are small states, including many island nations. Our member governments have agreed to shared goals like development, democracy and peace. Our values and principles are expressed in the Commonwealth Charter.

The Commonwealth Secretariat is the intergovernmental organisation that supports member countries to achieve the Commonwealth’s aims of development, democracy and peace. It publishes authoritative, evidence-based research and knowledge products for policymakers, academics, professionals and wider publics across the world. Our areas of focus and expertise include small and developing states; environment and climate change; democracy, law and government; and social issues concerning young people, gender, health and education.

George Bush's Foreign Aid

Carol Lancaster

Over the past seven years, the Bush administration has launched a revolution in U.S. foreign aid. At no time since the administration of President Kennedy have there been more changes in the volume of aid, in aid's purposes and policies, in its organization, and in its overall status in U.S. foreign relations. George Bush's Foreign Aid: Transformation or Chaos? analyzes in detail the array of recent reforms of U.S. economic assistance and the difficult issues these reforms raise, while placing the changes and the manner of their implementation in a historical and political context. Lancaster draws out the challenges and opportunities this transformation of U.S. aid offer for the next administration to engage the emerging world of the 21st century.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781933286273
  • Publication Date: Apr 2008
  • Availability: In Stock - Despatched Within 5-7 Working Days

Growing Pains in Latin America

Liliana Rojas-Suarez

This book tackles the complex issue of how to accelerate economic growth and ensure sustainability in Latin America. It first lays out the framework designed by experts in the economics and politics of growth in the region. Although simple and intuitive, the framework addresses the many ingredients that shape economic growth there, including macroeconomics, the quality of political institutions, productivity, income inequality, democracy, and resistance to reform.A second group of experts then apply the framework to five countries: Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Peru. They provide specific policy recommendations on how to proceed with the reform process while taking into account the local conditions (economic, social, and political) that characterize the individual countries.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781933286310
  • Publication Date: Jun 2009
  • Availability: In Stock - Despatched Within 5-7 Working Days

Cash on Delivery

Nancy Birdsall

Cash on Delivery (COD) Aid proposes a new approach to foreign assistance—one that links aid payments more directly to desired outcomes to promote accountability, responsibility, learning, and strengthening of local institutions.Using an example from education, this book outlines how COD Aid could work in practice. It offers guidance on the identification of measurable outcomes and mechanisms for verification and the management of a variety of risks. The authors provide practical advice, documents, term sheets, and other supporting material that donors and potential recipient governments can use as a basis for designing and implementing COD Aid in particular settings.It also shows how COD Aid could be applied to other sectors and includes guidance for assessing whether COD Aid is achieving its goals.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781933286365
  • Publication Date: Mar 2010
  • Availability: In Stock - Despatched Within 5-7 Working Days

Achieving an AIDS Transition

Mead Over

Five million people in poor countries are receiving AIDS treatment, but international AIDS policy is still in crisis. Donors are giving less than they had been, even though infections continue unabated, and the number of people dependent on treatment rises each year.This book proposes a feasible medium-term objective for AIDS policy: achieving an "AIDS transition," that is, keeping AIDS deaths down by sustaining treatment while pushing new infections even lower, so that the total number of people living with HIV/AIDS begins to decline. How? Through a new, incentive-driven strategy to improve HIV prevention and a sustained effort to get the most from AIDS treatment.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781933286389
  • Publication Date: Aug 2011
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The Governor's Solution

Todd Moss

Reliance on natural resource revenues, particularly oil, is often associated with bad governance, corruption, and poverty. Worried about the effect of oil on Alaska, Governor Jay Hammond had a simple yet revolutionary idea: let citizens have a direct stake. The Governor's Solution features his firsthand account that describes, with brutal honesty and piercing humor, the birth of the Alaska Permanent Fund dividend, which has been paid to each resident every year since 1982.Thirty years later, Hammond's vision is still influencing oil policies throughout the world. This reader, part of the Center for Global Development's Oil-to-Cash initiative, includes recent scholarly work examining Alaska's experience and how other oil-rich societies, particularly Iraq, might apply some of the lessons. It is as a powerful reminder that the combination of new ideas and determined individuals can make a tremendous difference—even in issues as seemingly complex and intractable as fighting the oil curse.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781933286709
  • Publication Date: Nov 2012
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The Rebirth of Education

Lant Pritchett

Despite great progress around the world in getting more kids into schools, too many leave without even the most basic skills. In India's rural Andhra Pradesh, for instance, only about one in twenty children in fifth grade can perform basic arithmetic.The problem is that schooling is not the same as learning. In The Rebirth of Education, Lant Pritchett uses two metaphors from nature to explain why. The first draws on Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom's book about the difference between centralized and decentralized organizations, The Starfish and the Spider. Schools systems tend be centralized and suffer from the limitations inherent in top-down designs. The second metaphor is the concept of isomorphic mimicry. Pritchett argues that many developing countries superficially imitate systems that were successful in other nations— much as a nonpoisonous snake mimics the look of a poisonous one.Pritchett argues that the solution is to allow functional systems to evolve locally out of an environment pressured for success. Such an ecosystem needs to be open to variety and experimentation, locally operated, and flexibly financed. The only main cost is ceding control; the reward would be the rebirth of education suited for today's world.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781933286778
  • Publication Date: Oct 2013
  • Availability: Temporarily out of stock: Usually despatched in 14-18 days

From Quanta to Gravitation

Helge Kragh

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9788773044490
  • Publication Date: Jan 1970
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Enhancing Investment in West Africa

T. Ademola Oyejide

A study that explores the options available to ECOWAS states for promoting, protecting and guaranteeing flows of domestic and foreign direct investment, in the context of the ACP-EU Economic Partnership Agreements, so that development gains are realised in these economies.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781849290029
  • Publication Date: Apr 2009
  • Availability: Temporarily out of stock: Usually despatched in 14-18 days

Municipal Infrastructure Financing

Munawwar Alam

Presents an overview of the municipal finances and the extent of private sector involvement in the delivery of municipal services in selected Commonwealth developing countries. This title examines four cities: Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, Kampala in Uganda, Dhaka in Bangladesh, and Karachi in Pakistan.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781849290036
  • Publication Date: Feb 2010
  • Availability: Temporarily out of stock: Usually despatched in 14-18 days

Achieving the Goals - 2009

Steve Packer

Commissioned by the Commonwealth Secretariat for the 17th Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 2009, this report explores progress towards achieving good quality basic education for all.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781849290128
  • Publication Date: Feb 2010
  • Availability: In Stock - Despatched Within 5 Working Days

Small States

This unique annual collection of key economic and statistical data on states with fewer than five million inhabitants is an essential reference for economists, planners and policy-makers working on issues of concern to small states. This volume contains 54 tables covering development indicators and 3 articles focusing on trade in services.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781849290166
  • Publication Date: Jul 2010
  • Availability: In Stock - Despatched Within 5-7 Working Days

Supporting Investment and Private Sector Development in Times of Crisis

Dirk Willem te Velde

Documents the effects of the global financial crisis on investment and private sector development in small states. It uses case studies (St Lucia, Vanuatu and Mauritius) to draw lessons from policy responses and propose further support required at both the national and international level to support the private sector through the economic crisis.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781849290173
  • Publication Date: Apr 2010
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Social Policies in Grenada

Patsy Lewis

This paper assesses developments in social policy approaches and delivery in Grenada, including the economic strategies pursued and their effects on social policy, particularly in respect of children. It looks at the challenges faced by governments and presents a brief case study of Hurricane Ivan.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781849290258
  • Publication Date: Nov 2010
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Resource Guide on Decentralisation and Local Government

Zoë Scott

This topic guide provides practical guidance for designing, implementing and evaluating decentralisation reforms and local government practices to ensure they are as effective as possible. It includes summaries of key texts and provides links to cutting edge research and recent case studies.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781849290296
  • Publication Date: Jul 2011
  • Availability: In Stock - Despatched Within 5 Working Days

Small States

This unique annual collection of key economic and statistical data on states with fewer than 5 million inhabitants is an essential reference for economists, planners and policy-makers working on issues of concern to small states. This volume contains 68 tables covering development indicators and 3 articles focusing on public private partnerships.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781849290371
  • Publication Date: Jul 2011
  • Availability: In Stock - Despatched Within 5-7 Working Days

The Contract System of Employment for Senior Government Officials

Faamausili Dr Matagialofi Lua'iufi

This publication reviews the effects of the reforms implemented under the 'new public management' programme on the roles and conditions of service of permanent secretaries and directors in the Cook Islands, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781849290531
  • Publication Date: Jul 2011
  • Availability: Temporarily out of stock: Usually despatched in 14-18 days