Practical Action Publishing imprint: 75 books

This collection of eleven cases from Canada and the United States gives expression to the ideal of a new economy based on fairness and environmental sustainability. Grappling with complex problems in their local communities, organized citizens are forging innovation, prying open cracks in the prevailing...

Do you want to want to spend time on the other side of the world, seeing how people in developing countries live, and doing something to ‘make a difference’? Do you want to get first-hand experience of grassroots development as you start a career in international development? Volunteer Voices...

Global climate change disproportionately affects rural people and indigenous groups, but their rights, knowledge, and interests concerning it are generally unacknowledged. Shifts in precipitation, cloud cover, temperature, and other climatic patterns alter their livelihood pursuits and cultural landscapes,...

The message of Sustainable Livelihoods and Rural Development is clear: livelihoods approaches are an essential lens on questions of rural development, but these need to be situated in a better understanding of political economy. The book looks at the role of social institutions and the politics of...

Access to modern energy services remains low or non-existent for approximately 2.8 billion of the world’s population. Energy practitioners are facing the challenge of delivering access to modern energy services where poverty and lack of infrastructure makes it most difficult. Rising awareness about...

International development interventions often fail because development experts assume that our world is linear and straightforward when in reality it is complex, highly dynamic and unpredictable. Things rarely happen in the way that they were planned. The dominance of logical planning models in international...

Earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, droughts, disease outbreaks as well as conflicts are all crises that result in death as well as profound disruption to those left behind, and to those communities who shelter them. Among the most urgent interventions are those to provide water, sanitation and hygiene...

Smallholder farmers, women earners, young job-seekers, people with disability and the entrenched poor often struggle to sustain themselves or contribute to the wellbeing of their households. Despite years of attempting to address this situation, microfinance and enterprise development programmes have...

The challenge in the face of growing urban complexity is to foster new forms of urban governance through collective action, urban governance networks, and new forms of multi-level governance. New approaches to urban governance are arising to stand alongside technical or management solutions. Governance...

What assistance do disaster-affected communities need? This book guides humanitarian field staff in answering this vital question during the early days and weeks following a disaster, when timely and competent assessment is crucial for enabling informed decision making. Needs assessment is essential...

Armed conflicts, natural disasters and environmental degradation result in human misery, and the common response is to want to help. Responding effectively to humanitarian disasters is far from straightforward, however, and relief workers often find themselves in a world of uncoordinated, highly competitive...

As climate becomes less predictable and extreme weather events become more frequent, there is an urgent need for support that will help communities to prepare and adapt to changing conditions. This support is needed at the local level as well as the national, and must be framed by appropriate policy...

As never before, international aid is in the hands of ordinary people. Concerned citizens in wealthy countries are starting philanthropy groups, joining giving circles, and travelling internationally to lend support. Yet, they are torn between the feelings that ‘something’ must be done about global...

Human development may encompass social, cultural and spiritual facets as well as economic improvement, and development organizations are beginning to recognize this fact. But building into programming a wider understanding of development throws up a number of questions: how do our organizations define...