Search results

"Part memoir and part social critique, Drinking Games is about how one woman drank and lived- and how, for her, the last drink was just the beginning. On paper, Sarah Levy's life was on track. She was 28, living in New York City, working a great job, and socializing every weekend. But Sarah had a secret: her relationship with alcohol was becoming toxic. And only she could save herself. Drinking Games explores the role alcohol has in our formative years, and what it means to opt out of a culture completely enmeshed in drinking. It's an examination of what our short-term choices about alcohol do to our long-term selves and how they challenge our ability to be vulnerable enough to discover what we really want in life. Candid and dynamic, this book speaks to the all-consuming cycle of working hard, playing harder, and trying to look perfect while you're at it. Sarah takes us by the hand through her personal journey with blackouts, dating, relationships, wellness culture, startups, social media, friendship, and self-discovery. In this intimate and darkly funny memoir, she stumbles through her twenties, explores the impact alcohol has on relationships and identity, and shows us how life's messiest moments can end up being the most profound"--

This book is about the Starter Pack/Targeted Inputs Programme, which was implemented in Malawi from the 1998-99 agricultural season to the 2003/04 season. The original idea of Starter Pack was to give a bag of free agricultural inputs (fertilizer and seed) to every smallholder farmer in Malawi. Although the programme did not work as originally intended, it was successful in achieving national food security. The scaling down of the programme was a major contributor to the food crisis that hit Malawi (and other countries in southern Africa) at the beginning of 2002. The book assesses the case of the Starter Pack programme in Malawi, and whether it can be replicated elsewhere. Part 1 (chapters 1-4) tells the story of how the programme was designed and implemented. Part 2 (chapters 5-7) outlines the evaluation methods used to produce the policy lessons presented in part 3 (chapters 8-15). Part 4 (chapters 16-19) comprises four essays by external academics and consultants, which assess the programme from different perspectives. The book has a subject index.

There is growing evidence that in some countries, acute food crisis takes place against a backdrop of increasingly entrenched chronic food insecurity. Malawi, with its high population density, diminishing farm size, decreasing soil fertility, high cost of imported inputs such as fertiliser, weak service delivery systems and weak governance, is one such country. In settings such as these, the policy options are limited. This paper analyses the performance of a highly innovative intervention in Malawi - the Starter Pack programme - which provided free of charge small packs of improved maize and other seed together with appropriate fertiliser. The paper discusses how the objectives of this programme evolved (but remain complex), its cost-effectiveness, and complementary policy objectives that might be pursued. It considers the different expectations raised by Starter Pack with regard to agricultural growth, poverty reduction, social protection and food security. The paper argues that Starter Pack's main strength is as a tool for combating chronic food insecurity, but there are also important synergies with social protection, growth and poverty reduction. (Nat Resour Perspect/DÜI)