Engaging Countries

This study systematically examines how states implement and comply with international environmental accords.

This publication explores different challenges posed to home and host country governments engaging with their diasporas for development purposes. How to define diasporas? How to gather data on diasporas? How to incorporate diaspora contributions into development strategies? How to identify most relevant partners within the diasporas? What incentives are conducive to diaspora contributions? What resources are available within diasporas and how can their impact on development be maximized? What is the role for policy? These are some of the questions raised in this publication.

This study systematically examines how states implement and comply with international environmental accords. The culmination of a massive theoretically based empirical research project, it shows how and why implementation and compliance vary among countries and treaties and change over time. It also analyzes the factors that affect the extent of compliance and offers prescriptions for strengthening national compliance with international accords.The book focuses on compliance in eight countries (Brazil, Cameroon, China, Hungary, India, Japan, the Russian Federation, and the United States) and the European Union and on five major accords: the UNESCO Convention for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (1972), the International Maritime Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matters (1972), the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (1973), the International Tropical Timber Agreement (1983), and the Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer (1987). This pioneering venture will be a major resource for scholars interested in compliance in general, in international environmental issues, and in international law.

This publication explores different challenges posed to home and host country governments engaging with their diasporas for development purposes. Topics covered include: defining and gathering data on diasporas; incorporating diaspora contributions into development strategies; partnering with relevant diasporas; home country programmes and incentives conducive to diaspora contributions; identifying resources available within diasporas and how their impact on development can be maximised.

State governments recognize the value diaspora populations bring to development efforts worldwide. Since 2007, the Global Forum on Migration and Development has examined ways to highlight policies and programs that can magnify the resources, both human and financial, that emigrants and their descendants contribute to development. This handbook continues that effort on the basis of earlier investigations by the book's collaborating institutions, the academic and policy literature, consultations and in-depth interviews with government officials and nongovernmental actors, and input by 62 national governments. The handbook is divided into three major parts. Each part gives concrete examples of policies and programs that have been effective, and pulls out both useful lessons and common challenges associated with the topics at hand. The pivotal question now facing many policymakers is not so much if diasporas can benefit their countries of origin but how they do so and what kinds of government policies and programs can foster these relationships.

The government's first Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) programs were created in 1991 to eliminate the former Soviet Union's nuclear, chemical, and other weapons and prevent their proliferation. The programs have accomplished a great deal: deactivating thousands of nuclear warheads, neutralizing chemical weapons, converting weapons facilities for peaceful use, and redirecting the work of former weapons scientists and engineers, among other efforts. Originally designed to deal with immediate post-Cold War challenges, the programs must be expanded to other regions and fundamentally redesigned as an active tool of foreign policy that can address contemporary threats from groups that are that are agile, networked, and adaptable. As requested by Congress, Global Security Engagement proposes how this goal can best be achieved. To meet the magnitude of new security challenges, particularly at the nexus of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism, Global Security Engagement recommends a new, more flexible, and responsive model that will draw on a broader range of partners than current programs have. The White House, working across the Executive Branch and with Congress, must lead this effort.

This volume of comparative studies documents the continuing relevance of the state in environmental politics and policy. The book also demonstrates the analytical power of the comparative approach to the study of environmental politics and policy, offering cross-national comparisons of environmental governance in both developed and developing countries. Some chapters are based on qualitative studies from a small number of countries; others offer statistical analyses of quantitative data from many more countries over a longer time period.

This report aims to provide an in-depth analysis of teachers’ and school leaders’ perceptions of the value of their profession, their work-related well-being and stress, and their satisfaction with their working conditions. It also offers a description of teachers’ and school leaders’ contractual arrangements, opportunities to engage in professional tasks such as collaborative teamwork, autonomous decision making, and leadership practices.