Last updated:
16 March 07

Contents and Contributors (PDF 111k)

Preface (PDF 101k)
Deborah Eade

Beyond the comfort zone: some issues, questions, and challenges in thinking about development approaches and methods (PDF 159k)
Jo Rowlands

Dissolving the difference between humanitarianism and development: the mixing of a rights-based solution (PDF 98k)
Hugo Slim

Should development agencies have Official Views? (PDF 137k)
David Ellerman

Bridging the ‘macro’–‘micro’ divide in policy-oriented research: two African experiences (PDF 147k)
David Booth

Capacity building: shifting the paradigms of practice (PDF 136k)
Allan Kaplan

Capacity building: the making of a curry (PDF 120k)
William Postma

Operationalising bottom–up learning in international NGOs: barriers and alternatives (PDF 152k)
Grant Power, Matthew Maury, and Susan Maury

Organisational change from two perspectives: gender and organisational development (PDF 155k)
Penny Plowman

Beyond the ‘grim resisters’: towards more effective gender mainstreaming through stakeholder participation (PDF 150k)
Patricia L. Howard

Sustainable investments: women’s contributions to natural resource management projects in Africa (PDF 167k)
Barbara Thomas-Slayter and Genese Sodikoff

Critical Incidents in emergency relief work (PDF 146k)
Maureen Raymond-McKay and Malcolm MacLachlan

Tools for project development within a public action framework (PDF 139k)
David Wield

Ethnicity and participatory development methods in Botswana: some participants are to be seen and not heard (PDF 156k)
Tlamelo Mompati and Gerard Prinsen

Logical Framework Approach and PRA — mutually exclusive or complementary tools for project planning? (PDF 100k)
Jens B. Aune

Critical reflections on rapid and participatory rural appraisal (PDF 119k)
Robert Leurs

Participatory methodologies: double-edged swords (PDF 118k)
Eliud Ngunjiri

The Participatory Change Process: a capacity building model from a US NGO (PDF 117k)
Paul Castelloe and Thomas Watson

Two approaches to evaluating the outcomes of development projects (PDF 126k)
Marion Meyer and Naresh Singh

Resources (PDF 169k)

Index (PDF 76k)

Development Methods and Approaches: Critical Reflections

Edited by Deborah Eade and introduced by Jo Rowlands

coverMany aid agencies adopt values-based approaches to development - requiring, for instance, that they should be rights-based, participatory, gender-equitable, and sustainable - but these approaches are often at odds with the methods that the agencies actually adopt. This selection of essays offers critical readings of fashionable tools such as Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) and Logical Frameworks, in addition to presenting less familiar methods. Two central themes emerge: that a project-based approach tends to distort rather than illuminate the wider picture; and that whatever the ideology underpinning a given method, its impact will depend on the skills and understanding of those applying it. Introduced by Jo Rowlands, a Policy Adviser on Gender and Participation in Oxfam GB's UK Poverty Programme, this collection brings together articles from multilateral agencies, international NGOs, local development organisation, and academic institutions.
© Oxfam GB 2003.
ISBN 0 85598 494 5
All rights reserved.

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