Development and Patronage
Far from being a liberating process for all, much of what has been done in the name of development serves to reinforce the intellectual, material, and financial dependence of those on the receiving end. Some argue that the very concept of development is essentially a vehicle in which cultural values and social norms, as well as resources, are exported from one part of the world to another, along a one-way route from rich to poor. Aid thus becomes a means by which unequal relationships of power are maintained and patronage fostered. Here Paul Tiyambe Zeleza examines the legacy of intellectual and cultural dependence bequeathed to African scholars, while Karunawathie Menike argues that external agencies ignore people’s own existing priorities and concerns in the rush to impose their own (supposedly more enlightened) views. Jenny Pearce, Richard Moseley-Williams, and Firoze Manji take a critical look at how aid agencies may perpetuate dependence – but ensure their own survival in doing so. Alan Fowler identifies the main ingredients of more equal and robust North-South partnerships, while David Craig, Doug Porter, and Sara Hlupekile Longwe argue that the purveyors of aid often reproduce the very dynamics and injustices which they profess to deplore.
CONTENTS
Preface
Deborah Eade
Introductory Essay: Development and patronage
Melakou Tegegn
African libraries and the consumption and production of knowledge
Paul Tiyembe Zeleza
People's empowerment from the people's perspective
Karunawathie Menike
Building partnerships between Northern and Southern NGOs
Alan Fowler
The evaporation of gender policies in the patriarchal cooking pot
Sara Hlupekile Longwe
Framing participation: development projects, organisations and professionals
David Craig and Douglas Porter
Sustainable development at the sharp end: field-worker agency in a participatory project
Cecile Jackson
North-South relations and the question of aid
Mustafa Barghouti
Collaboration with the South: agents of aid or solidarity?
Firoze Manji
Partners and beneficiaries: questioning donors
Richard Moseley-Williams
NGOs and social change: agents or facilitators?
Jenny Pearce
On being evaluated: tensions and hopes
Movimento de Organizacao Comunitaria
Sustainability is not about money!: the case of the Belize Chamber of Commerce and Industry
Deryck R. Brown
The wrong path: the World Bank's Country Assistance Strategy for Mexico
Carlos Heredia and Mary Purcell
© Oxfam (UK and Ireland) 1997.
ISBN 0 85598 376 0
All rights reserved.
Available from Stylus Publishing
‘Indispensable for anyone attempting to move beyond platitudes about development partnerships towards a critical understanding of the power relations that underpin development practice. The annotated bibliography alone is an invaluable resource, providing a rich and astonishingly varied compilation of critical alternatives to mainstream development thinking and practice.’
Carole Miller, Gender Policy Adviser, ActionAid
Community Development Journal
Development and Change
