John Giles – författare

Over the past decade, Indonesia has implemented significant health sector reforms that include decentralising responsibilities for service delivery, designing incentives for health providers, increasing the supply of midwives in remote areas, and analysing demographic and epidemiological transitions causing changes in the patterns of disease prevalence. Financial protection against catastrophic expenditures has improved substantially, and legislation has been enacted to improve the quality of physician training and patient care. Despite the progress, substantial challenges remain and include comparatively low resources for the health sector, limitations in the supply of providers at the primary and hospital levels, inefficient payment systems, shortcomings in the quality of maternal and child and adult care, lack of oversight and effective licensing in an expanding private health sector, and ineffective planning for and recruitment and retention of health workers.Given the slow pace in improving health outcomes and limited evidence linking health performance and the health workforce, the need to make more information available about past experiences to inform future policy changes is pressing. Few studies have been undertaken to measure the actual impact of the reforms and the remaining challenges. New Insights into the Provision of Health Services in Indonesia: A Health Workforce Study begins the process, providing real time evidence-based inputs to facilitate the Government of Indonesia's comprehensive health sector review. The authors' analysis of panel data from households and health providers will assist the government's assessment of the impact of past health work force policies and its consideration of policy changes.

This volume first examines projected demographic changes that will affect the economic well-being of China's rural elderly over the next twenty years, taking into account both China's sharp demographic transition and the continued migration of young adults into cities. The projected old age dependency ratio of 34 percent in China's rural areas by 2030 suggests that support of the elderly is likely to be an increasing burden on China's families over the next twenty years.The book next documents the sources of financial support, poverty incidence and vulnerability of the rural elderly since the early 1990s. China's rural elderly have been consistently poorer and more vulnerable to poverty than both working age households and the urban elderly. In contrast to the urban elderly who frequently have pension support, the rural elderly typically rely either on their own labor income or financial support from adult children. A substantial share of China’s rural elderly continue to work well beyond the age 70, but labor as a primary source of support falls sharply during their 60s. Additional evidence suggests that the rural elderly work well beyond 60 out of necessity and only stop working when physically incapacitated. While average transfers from adult children to elderly parents are sufficient to keep them out of poverty, adult migrant children with uncertain income create the risk that transfers will not be sufficient to keep some rural elderly out of poverty.The final sections of the book review experiences with rural pensions during the 1990s and 2000s and draws out the lessons which have informed the design of a new national rural pension scheme. Among the many issues discussed, the report highlights the importance of providing incentives for participation in the pension scheme and important issues related to the portability of pensions for a mobile population.

The author recreates, by means of contemporary photographs juxtaposed with others taken by him over a number of years plus eyewitness accounts and narrative, the atmosphere, past and present, of that once famous salient. He aims to present a moving tribute to the men who fought with great courage and tenacity in the horrendous conditions that prevailed in Flanders during what was known as the Great War. To them "Wipers" was more than just a foreign city, it was a way of life and, for so very many, a way to death.

This work covers the main British battle areas of the Western Front between 1914 and 1918. Starting with the spark that ignited the war, the outline of events brings the operations of the British Army in France and Flanders full circle: from the BEF at Mons in August 1914 and the retreat beyond Marne to the victorious advances of the forces of the British Empire and their re-entering the town in November 1918. It is impossible not to marvel at the triumph of nature over the obliteration of the landscape.

'The dream was football . . .'John Giles had a gift. At the age of three, he could kick a ball the way it was supposed to be kicked. And he knew that every hour that passed without kicking a ball was an hour wasted.'It was the same dream that most of the kids had at that time . . .'In A Football Man, Giles tells the story of a dream pursued and realised beyond his wildest imaginings, from his humble beginnings in Ormond Square in 1940s' Dublin,counting down the minutes to his next game of football, to that unforgettable moment when the original football man - his dad, 'Dickie' - announced that his young son, at just fourteen, was on his way to Manchester United.'What I didn't realise was that my dream would come true.'Full of anecdote, insight and wry humour, Giles recounts his rise through the ranks at Manchester United, before and after the Munich Disaster; the great players he knew, the good and the bad times under Matt Busby; his sensational debut for Ireland which he served as player and manager; his starring role in the brilliant, controversial Leeds United of the '60s and '70s; and his challenge to the portrayal of himself and Brian Clough in The Damned United. He also describes his enduring friendship with the 'kid from across Dublin's Tolka Park', Eamon Dunphy, and his career on RTÉ2's football panel, where Giles' intelligent and insightful analysis have made him an even more well-loved and respected national figure.