“This completely revised book on measuring vulnerability to natural hazards, edited by Jörn Birkmann, who has brought together more than 30 authors working in this field, is an excellent and very positive addition to the scientific literature on disaster risk reduction. The strategic connections with climate change adaptation are very timely and comprehensive. The focus on vulnerability and its assessment makes it highly relevant to scholars and also towards the development of strategic policy.”

Gordon McBean, Institute for Catastrophes, Loss Reduction, University of Western Ontario and Chair, Science Committee, Integrated Research on Disaster Risk Programme.

“Climate change adaptation”, building resilience” and “vulnerability and risk reduction” are noble words, but do we really know what is meant by these terms and how to assess their respective progress? Measuring vulnerability to Natural Hazards seeks to address these questions.

The world has recently experienced disasters of a magnitude rarely seen before; the cascading disaster in Japan, the earthquake in Haiti, and floods in Pakistan and Australia are a few prominent examples.

Haiti may well be the only country in the Americas with a last name. References to the land of the “black Jacobins” are almost always followed by the phrase “the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere”.

To that dubious distinction, on 12 January 2010 Haiti added another, when it was hit by the most devastating natural disaster in the Americas, a 7.0 Richter scale earthquake.

More than 220,000 people lost their lives and much of its vibrant capital, Port-au-Prince, was reduced to rubble. Since 2004, the United Nations has been in Haiti through MINUSTAH, in an ambitious attempt to help Haiti raise itself by its bootstraps.

This effort has now acquired additional urgency. Is Haiti a failed state? Does it deserve a Marshall-plan-like programme? What will it take to address the Haitian predicament?

Earthquakes, droughts, floods, and storms are natural hazards, but unnatural disasters resulting from human activity cause deaths and damage. Every disaster is unique, but each one exposes actions by government and individuals which, had they been different, would have resulted in fewer deaths and less damage.

The book Natural Hazards, Un- Natural Disasters , published by the World Bank, examines disasters mostly from an economic perspective. However, it also draws on other disciplines, such as psychology (to examine how people may misperceive risks), political science (to understand voting patterns), and nutrition science to see how undernutrition in children after a disaster impairs cognitive abilities and can affect their productivity ad adults. It asks provocative questions, such as: Should all disasters be prevented? Do disasters increase or decrease conflict? Does foreign aid help or hinder prevention? The answers are not obvious. Peering into the future, it finds that growing cities and a changing climate will shape the disaster prevention landscape.

This book will be of interest to government officials, urban planners, relief agencies, NGOs, donors, and other development professionals. The English version can be accessed on line at: http://issuu.com/world.bank.publications/docs/9780821380505 .

Civil Society, Conflicts and the Politicization of Human Rights explores violent conflict and peace. The contributors examine how violence is generated, managed, exploited and eradicated in ethno-political conflicts, and how societies can be dragged out of conflict onto the transition towards peace. The usual take on these phenomena focuses on the role of governmental actors, both national and international. While official actors remain important, Civil Society, Conflicts and the Politicization of Human Rights examines the other side of the coin: the non-governmental component in ethno-political conflicts. Civil society actors or, as they are defined in this book, “conflict society organizations” (CoSOs), are increasingly central in view of the high degree of complexity of contemporary ethno-political conflicts. CoSOs have become key players in ethno-political conflicts, both as violators and as promoters of human rights. Nevertheless, the precise relationships underpinning the human rights–civil society–conflict nexus have not been fully examined. This volume analyses the impact of civil society on ethno-political conflicts through their human rights-related activities, and identifies the means to strengthen the complementarity between civil society and international governmental actors in promoting peace. These aims are addressed by examining four case studies in the European neighbourhood: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cyprus, Turkey’s Kurdish question and Israel–Palestine.

Sustainability Science
The problem of global sustainability is indisputably the most serious issue facing humanity today. One of the biggest factors in the deterioration of global sustainability is climate change which has been exacerbated by the entire range of human activities and is inextricably related to modern civilization. Solving this difficult problem requires a drastic redesign of society from all aspects - technological, economic, and social. This book looks at how to achieve a more secure level of global sustainability and gathers together a variety of recommendations.

Achieving Global Sustainability reviews the current status of global sustainability and analyses the relationship between globalization and sustainability, together with arguments on the necessity of a paradigm shift in economic growth. Paradigm shifts in socio-economic development are discussed in terms of social common capital, contemporary social discipline and economic valuation of the environment.

The contributors also examine various strategies for achieving a sustainable society, among them a basic strategy for mitigating climate change, a strategy of technology development toward global sustainability, and a post-2012 international policy framework.