Jeremy Holland

Dubbed, "The Great Enchantress", by art critic Robert Hughes, Barcelona was seducing visitors long before the city's rise to a tourist hotspot following the Olympic Games in 1992. Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway and George Orwell all once called the Catalan capital "home," while countless others have been charmed by the city's character and splendor. From Barcelona is a collection of twelve short stories inspired by this cryptic Mediterranean metropolis, where haunted flats overlook leafy squares and feline temptresses lurk in smoky bars. Experience Antoni Gaudi's frustrations as he sought to revolutionize architecture, and discover the legend behind the man who squats with his belt around his ankles hidden in nativity scenes. These are just a few of the characters and tales you can expect, all set in a literary world of churches, dragons and roses. About the author: Jeremy Holland was born in California, but spent his formative years in the Philippines, Saudi Arabia and England before returning to the US as a teenager. Dropping out of university he began a succession of jobs in technology. Working in a cubicle intensified his desire to seek out new adventures in exotic lands. In 2002, Jeremy returned to Barcelona with a blanket and a laptop and began the first edition of From Barcelona. He now lives in the Netherlands, with his wife, their young daughter and cat who flees from the sunlight. To read more about his life in the Dutch cheese country visit his blog www.hollandfromholland.com. For more about Barcelona, visit www.frombarcelona.com.

This book introduces analytical and practical tools for putting empowerment into practice. The authors introduce a simple framework, based on the interactive concepts of opportunity structure and agency, that provides an analytic lens and an operational tool with which to design and evaluate empowering interventions. Using this framework, the book considers the methodological and analytical challenges to understanding and measuring empowerment and presents five concrete experiences with applying the framework to measurement and evaluation in different contexts.

PRA and related participatory approaches have opened up new ways in which policy can be influenced by the realities of those who are poor, weak, marginalized and excluded. With the increasing use of PRA methods and practices by NGOs, governments and multinational agencies, the potential impact for poor people is phenomenal. Whose Voice? demonstrates the far-reaching implications of such approaches for the development sector. The book incorporates the findings of the international workshop on Institutionalization of Participatory Approaches held at the Institute of Development Studies in 1996 and is presented in an easily digestible three part structure: Part 1 explores case studies in which participatory methods and approaches have been used to influence policy, Part 2 concentrates on PPA (Participatory Poverty Analysis), an innovative approach designed to bring local poverty and policy analysis into the policy process, and Part 3 discusses key issues arising during the IDS workshop, and includes chapters by several participants. Containing detailed case studies from around the world and analysis of key development agencies, NGOs and organizations across the sector over the past decade, Whose Voice? will be invaluable to professionals and policy makers, either directly involved or with a special interest in PRA approaches and methods and their impact upon policy and development.

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