LibGuides: Development Studies: Getting Started

Introduction

Development is

The process of improving the quality of human lives around the world. Development includes three aspects:
- Raising people’s living levels - incomes and consumption levels of food, medical services, education.
- The growth of people’s self-esteem through systems and institutions which promote human dignity and respect.
- Increasing people’s freedom to choose by enlarging the range of their choices, for example a greater variety of consumer goods and services.

--BBC's Guide to Development Speak

Aid Worker Security Database
Records major incidents of violence against aid workers, with incident reports from 1997 through the present. The single most comprehensive global source of this data.
BBC - Guide to Development Speak
The BBC World Service Trust has compiled a brief clickable index of terms that frequently appear in development-related discussions, policy and practice at all levels - local, national and international.
MobileActive
A group devoted to the safe use of mobile technology.
Traveler's Health
Latest information on health conditions and vaccination requirements throughout the world from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention.
U. S. Passports and International Travel
A variety of information for U.S. citizens traveling and living abroad, including Smart Traveler Enrollment Program. Watch for latest travel warnings and travel alerts.
WhyDev
Committed to getting development right.

TIP: Most of the major development websites have a section called "manuals" or "toolkits" which have excellent "how to" information.

Books

Doctrines of Development by M. P. Cowen; Robert W. Shenton
ISBN: 9780415125161
Publication Date: 1996-02-01
Alternative Development by Catherine Brun; Piers Blaikie; Michael Jones
ISBN: 9781472409348
Publication Date: 2014-02-12
The Development and Antidevelopment Debate by Martha Jalali Rabbani
ISBN: 9781409409977
Publication Date: 2011-04-28
From the Local to the Global by Gerard McCann (Editor); Stephen McCloskey (Editor)
ISBN: 9780745334745
Publication Date: 2015-05-20

Simulations/Games

Millennium Village Simulation (Columbia)
The Millennium Village Simulation is a web-based simulation of economics and survival for one family and their village in a sub-Saharan African village. In a virtual world of extreme poverty, disease, and environmental variability, students are challenged to help a family of two survive and prosper over a fifty-year period.
ReliefSim (Columbia)
ReliefSim is a unique, web-based training tool designed to create a believable representation of the decision-environment confronted by refugee camp managers during a humanitarian crisis. The tool allows students and trainees to test their knowledge and abilities around decision-making in a humanitarian crisis, and to experiment with techniques in a realistic, but not real, environment. Focuses on public health.
SimPachamama: A Game for Living Well in Harmony with Nature
SimPachamama is an Agent Based simulation tool, which mimics the behavior of a small community located at the agricultural frontier. The user takes on the role of the mayor of the community, and the objective is to implement policies so as to improve human well-being as much as possible without destroying the environment.
Five Games and Apps to Change the World
More than mere entertainment, but serve to educate and deeply involve its players in global food, agriculture, and sustainability issues: