Books published by Practical Action Publishing

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 for programme planning, monitoring and evaluation. In an emergency response, however, a quick and simple approach to needs assessment may be the only practical possibility - in other words, it needs to be 'good enough'. This guide does not explain every activity needed to carry out an assessment, but it describes the assessment process, and provides a step-by-step guide through the process. It also contains a number of tools and resources that may be helpful when planning or carrying out humanitarian needs assessments. This guide is essential reading for field staff carrying out assessments after a humanitarian crisis; it should also be read by humanitarian policy makers, students, lecturers and researchers.

Do we use obscure or fashionable words to impress our colleagues or win research proposals? Are many of our actions against poverty simple, direct and wrong? Provocations for Development is an entertaining and unsettling collection of writings that questions concepts, conventions and practices in development. It is made up of short and accessible writings by Robert Chambers reflecting on the evolution of concepts like participation and of organizations like the World Bank. Besides provocations, there is mischief, verse and serious fun. The book irreverently examines vocabularies of development and how words are instruments of power; challenges concepts of poverty, presents empowering breakthroughs in the current explosion of participatory methodologies; is critical of past and present procedures and practices in aid; points to feasible changes for doing better; touches on values, ethics, gender and participation, immersions, hypocrisy, and paradigms; and finally invites readers to ponder the question 'what would it take to eliminate poverty in the world?'

Understanding Vulnerability breaks new ground by exploring the issues of disaster and vulnerability from a South Asian standpoint, presented in the form of case studies and essays by experts from India, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

Based on a three-year project in Kenya, this booklet examines the key features in understanding the development of participatory urban planning strategies and approaches that will assist in safeguarding of the position of poor and vulnerable.

This revised edition of a classic text re-emphasizes the importance of agroecology as the discipline that provides the basic ecological principles of how to study, design and manage agroecosystems

Women Feeding Cities analyses the roles of women and men in urban food production and is essential reading for policy makers, planners, researchers and practitioners working on urban agriculture programmes.

Writing from diverse locations, contributors critically examine some of the key terms in current development discourse. The reflections included here raise major questions about how we think about development itself.

This handbook provides practical guidelines for evaluating water and sanitation related hygiene practices for the purposes of project planning, monitoring or impact assessment. The main focus, therefore, is on the practical concerns of field personnel working in water supply, sanitation, and health / hygiene education projects.

This book is the first attempt to examine 'what works for the poorest' and analyses innovative ultra-poor programmes from around the world and explores the lessons that emerge from this important body of knowledge. It should be read by staff of donor agencies and NGOs, students of development studies who are concerned about chronic poverty.

This book is essential reading for agribusiness leaders and technical staff, bankers and cooperative leaders working in agriculture, NGO and microfinance development practitioners, researchers and policy makers. Published in association with FAO.

This book examines strategies of engagement employed by women working to transform the bureaucratic structures of state organizations, multilateral institutions and NGOs to make them more gender-equitable. It is aimed at feminists working within state or civil society institutions - with the aim of promoting women's concerns.

The jiko, a charcoal-burning stove consisting of a ceramic liner fitted inside a metal case, burns 25 to 40 per cent less charcoal than the traditional stoves on which its design was based. This book provides guidance on its production and promotion.

This book provides examples of toilets that provide a safe sanitation option and recycle nutrients in excreta to produce compost. The designs are suitable for regions where there is no high water table or prolonged wet season with instructions for constructing toilets, from the simplest, most affordable to the more sophisticated ecological toilet.

Confronts the paradox of mass poverty coexisting with vast resource potentials in rural India, such as the potentials from groundwater and trees, previously underestimated. Combines empirical research with practical political economy.

Traditionally the primary function of NGOs has been to mitigate the effects of war; providing humanitarian aid and protection on the peripheries of violent conflict. Recently there has been an increased focus on the impact of humanitarian aid in general, and to a lesser extent on the impact of aid on conflict and peace dynamics.

This is a practical handbook providing an introduction to the equipment, maintenance and operation of solar pumping systems. It identifies situations where solar pumps may be appropriate and it reviews developments in solar pumping technology.

This book traces the development of Ghana's informal engineering sector through stories of the progress of the actual people involved. The first generation of grassroots engineers are wayside vehicle mechanics, or 'fitters', engaged in repairing machinery.

This is a guide to the use of induction motors for electricity generation in remote locations. It is written as a practical handbook for engineers and technicians involved in designing and installing small water-power schemes for isolated houses and communities.

Local crop diversity in the South is being threatened by the promotion of modern 'high-yield' varieties. These worldwide case studies show the importance of small-scale farmers and local communities to maintaining crop diversity.

This book presents cases of indigenous experimentation as well as the benefits in terms of rural development of new partnerships between farmers and formal research. Development workers, agricultural researchers concerned about rural poverty, agricultural sustainability and local resource management will find this book highly relevant.