Samiul Hasan – författare

Non-profit organizations, NGOs and other third sector organizations are increasingly playing a central role in achieving and sustaining a prosperous economy and a just civil society in countries around the world. While their importance is widely acknowledged, their sustainability is not guaranteed and depends to a large extent on effectiveness and accountability of their governance.

In Europe and North America, the governance of these organizations (setting directions and strategies; identifying and ensuring type and quality of goods and services; defining and maintaining relations among the stakeholders; relating the organization to its wider society) is generally seen as the role of the board of directors or the governing board. In of other parts of the world, specifically Asia, not much is known about the organization and running of these groups.

The book – the first of its kind – establishes new theory and knowledge in the area of third sector organizations (TSOs) in Asia. The main purpose of this book is to draw the attention of Asia''s TSOs on the importance of good governance. It documents variety of approaches, and identifies socio-cultural, economic, and political dynamics and impacts of different models of TSO governance. The combined information from the contributions in this work will ensure the sustainability of TSOs throughout Asia.

Islam is not only a religion, but also a culture, tradition, and civilization. There are currently 1.5 billion people in the world who identify themselves as Muslim. Two thirds of the worldwide Muslim population, i.e. approximately a billion people, live in forty-eight Muslim majority countries (MMC) in the world– all of which except one are in Africa and Asia. Of these MMCs in Africa and Asia, only twelve (inhabited by about 165 million people) have ever achieved a high score on the Human Development Index (HDI), the index that measures life expectancy at birth, education and standard of living and ranks how "developed" a country is. This means that the majority of the world''s Muslim population lives in poverty with low or medium level of human development.

The contributions to this innovative volume attempt to determine why this is. They explore the influence of environment, space, and power on human development. The result is a complex, interdisciplinary study of all MMCs in Africa and Asia.  It offers new insights into the current state of the Muslim World, and provides a theoretical framework for studying human development from an interdisciplinary social, cultural, economic, environmental, political, and religious perspective, which will be applicable to regional and cultural studies of space and power in other regions of the world.