Showcase Europe

2011 Updated Reprint. Updated Annually. Spain Business and Investment Opportunities Yearbook

It’s wintertime at Greenglass House. The creaky smuggler’s inn is always quiet during this season, and twelve-year-old Milo, the innkeepers’ adopted son, plans to spend his holidays relaxing. But on the first icy night of vacation, out of nowhere, the guest bell rings. Then rings again. And again. Soon Milo’s home is bursting with odd, secretive guests, each one bearing a strange story that is somehow connected to the rambling old house. As objects go missing and tempers flare, Milo and Meddy, the cook’s daughter, must decipher clues and untangle the web of deepening mysteries to discover the truth about Greenglass House—and themselves.

A major restriction to Western aid efforts has been a lack of coordination. This book delves into the determinants of successful cooperation between bi- and multilateral donor agencies at the example of Western aid to Eastern Europe in the period from 1990 to 1996. In raising the assumption that networking between international organizations cannot be stimulated by appealing to norm-oriented behavior but is contingent upon the existence of common interests, the idealist view of international relations is seriously challenged. Comparing different assistance sectors - energy, telecoms, mass privatization, agriculture, statistics, central banking, environment and education - it is shown that donor coordination is a form of collective action initiated by donors in response to sectoral market failure which is perceived as significant because it threatens the non-attainment of basic goals or inflicts own projects with high costs or risks.