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Evo Morales is one of the world's most controversial political leaders. His story is extraordinary: poor shepherd-boy, persecuted coca grower, self-professed admirer of Ché Guevara, hero of the anti-globalization movement, and first indigenous president of modern Latin America. The story of the social movement turned political party he is a part of -- the Movimiento Al Socialismo (MAS) -- is also exceptional: originally founded as a splinter of an ultra-right party, it was given as a gift for the coca growers after they had been banned several times for spurious reasons to register their own party, and went on to become an irresistible force for indigenous rights in Bolivia. In this insightful and revealing book, Sven Harten explains the success of the MAS and its wider consequences, showing how Morales has become the symbol for a new political consciousness that has entailed de-stigmatizing indigenous identities. In many ways, the analysis of Morales's political trajectory serves as a mirror for democracy in Bolivia. It reveals the challenge of squaring the rupture with a discredited past with the continuity of democracy and the aim of representing an entire society.

For policies and programs aiming at reducing climate risk, it is important to obtain vulnerability information at the sub-national level to identify hotspots. For the case of Costa Rica, no sub-national climate vulnerability index exists to date. To fill this gap, we constructed a climate vulnerability index at the canton level. We ground our work in the conceptual framework that vulnerability is a function of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. Making extensive use of geographic information systems and publicly available data, we constructed 13 spatial layers to reflect the multi-dimensionality of vulnerability. Layers reflect for example, changes in climatic extremes, flood risk, vegetation cover, access to infrastructure (road density) and health services (distance to hospitals), as well as various socioeconomic (wealth level, employment rates, remittances, literacy rate) and demographic (infant mortality) characteristics. Following normalization, we constructed an inverse variance weighted index of canton-level climate vulnerability. We confirmed the validity of our climate vulnerability index through correlation with disaster damage data. We find the strongest climate vulnerability not only in the rural, agricultural producing border cantons ( Los Chiles , Matina , Talamanca , Buenos Aires ), but also for a few central urban cantons ( Tibas , San Jose ). Projects and interventions in these hot spot cantons may reduce sensitivity through strengthening hydrological infrastructure and economic development, while adaptive capacity may be improved through addressing barriers of remittance transfer, and via public health programs.

How can we explain the electoral success of Evo Morales' Movimiento Al Socialismo (MAS) in 2005 and what are its political consequences? A discursive analysis of MAS highlights that Bolivia's recent political crises involved a process of hegemonic construction of a political identity of \"the people\" and of an imagined community of the \"plurinational\" nation by MAS. This hegemonic articulation was a key factor for MAS to become Bolivia's largest political party. It entailed the split of society into two antagonistic poles of \"the people\" and \"the traditional politicians\". The latter were made responsible for the design of the existing political system and thus for the long standing grievance of the exclusion of the indigenous peoples. MAS, by contrast, positioned itself as idiosyncratic \"political instrument\" that acted with one foot inside and the other outside the political institutions owing to its strong links with the social movements. This idiosyncrasy enabled MAS to bridge the previously disconnected spheres of official and extra-institutional politics. It entailed a process of de-institutionalisation of the discredited political system since MAS refused to play by the established rules of the game. However, through the bridging of the two spheres it moved those previously disenchanted with the political system to the centre of the polis. This initiated a process of re-institutionalisation of a \"refounded\" state with the promise to install adequate institutions uniting Bolivia's \"plurinational\" diversity. In sum, MAS united all disenfranchised by the status quo into one identity against a common antagonist with the consequence of a dialectic process of de-institutionalisation and reinstitutionalisation. The analysis of the discourse of MAS serves as a mirror for democracy in Bolivia. It reveals the challenge of squaring the rupture with a discredited past and the exclusion of de-legitimised political actors, with the continuity of democracy and with the aim to hegemonically represent society.

This paper provides an overview of how to evaluate different blended finance instruments and mechanisms, including equity instruments, debt instruments, first loss capital, guarantees and insurance, development impact bonds, performance-based grants, structured funds and syndicated loans. It is structured along the most important and common questions evaluators seek to answer, including how to measure the mobilisation of additional financial resources, and assessing results. It provides a description of the most appropriate methods and tools for answering these questions, highlighting their advantages and disadvantages, and discusses their application.

This paper provides an overview of how to evaluate different blended finance instruments and mechanisms, including equity instruments, debt instruments, first loss capital, guarantees and insurance, development impact bonds, performance-based grants, structured funds and syndicated loans. It is structured along the most important and common questions evaluators seek to answer, including how to measure the mobilisation of additional financial resources, and assessing results. It provides a description of the most appropriate methods and tools for answering these questions, highlighting their advantages and disadvantages, and discusses their application.