Dharam Ghai

Managing resources sustainably on the local level is essential for achieving the global goal of sustainable development. The importance of people's participation for sustainable development has recently become increasingly acknowledged yet there is little understanding of the multiple dimensions that such participation involves.Grassroots Environmental Action questions the viability of traditional management systems. Case studies from Latin America, Asia and Africa focus on areas where local people are vigorous actors in the determination of their own future and that of their environment.

UN Contributions to Development Thinking and Practice is at once a history of the ideas and realities of international development, from the classical economists to the recent emphasis on human rights, and a history of the UN's role in shaping and implementing development paradigms over the last half century. The authors, all prominent in the field of development studies, argue that the UN's founding document, the UN Charter, is infused with the human values and human concerns that are at the center of the UN's thinking on economic and human development today. In the intervening period, the authors show how the UN's approach to development evolved from mainstream areas of economic development to include issues of employment, poverty reduction, fairer distribution of the benefits of growth, equality of men and women, child development, social justice, and environmental sustainability.

Managing resources sustainably on the local level is essential for achieving the global goal of sustainable development. The importance of people's participation for sustainable development has recently become increasingly acknowledged yet there is little understanding of the multiple dimensions that such participation involves.Grassroots Environmental Action questions the viability of traditional management systems. Case studies from Latin America, Asia and Africa focus on areas where local people are vigorous actors in the determination of their own future and that of their environment.