Aid

Civil society in Cyprus has a key role to play in creating spaces for dialogue and cooperation between the Turkish and Greek Cypriot communities. Recent research by the International NGO Training and Research Centre (INTRAC) has identified how these processes have contributed to trust and peacebuilding on the island, the challenges facing organisations engaged in this work, and how these were being addressed. It demonstrates that important steps are being taken by civil society organisations to overcome prejudices and break down barriers, and that by further developing links with local and international policymakers and institutions, civil society could be a stronger player in the peace process.
 

The full article is available here:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09614524.2013.840268

This note argues that NGOs and academics are increasingly being pushed to collaborate by their respective ‘impact’ agendas. And a growing number of individuals who traverse both worlds are advocates for a much closer relationship to facilitate the theory-data interaction that lies at the heart of knowledge creation in international development. But different cultures and institutional constraints create challenges in making this collaboration work. A number of practical pointers are outlined for overcoming these obstacles, arguing that keeping the ultimate beneficiaries in focus is the best foundation for constructing a shared agenda in development research.
 

The full article is available here:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09614524.2013.840266

This paper aims to unpack the politics of NGO activism with the Munda – a minority Adibashi group in Bangladesh. In addition to offering microcredit, NGOs launched educational and awareness building programmes for the Adibashi. Most notably, the Munda are not content to blindly follow the instructions of NGOs – namely, to get educated, find a white-collar job, and develop identity politics – to improve their socio-economic and political positions. Rather, there is growing awareness among the Munda to gather knowledge, which helps them to consciously educate themselves to undertake new activities to improve their condition by interacting with wider society.
 

The full article is available here:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09614524.2013.841125

This article discusses the potential of evaluation to help NGOs, namely the WWF (the World Wide Fund for Nature), to promote sustainable development in the Russian forest sector. Application of evaluation can strengthen two out of three main functions of NGOs – their expertise and lobbying. The third function of NGOs, as legitimisers, is difficult to perform in the Russian institutional climate. International partnerships address the issue of legitimacy and secure funding for NGOs. This international support is beneficial to a capacity building process and should promote the implementation of independent evaluation, which, in turn, can be helpful to promote sustainable development.
 

The full article is available here:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09614524.2013.842204

This article introduces new data from Mali, including surveys of 200 university students and 1,000 citizens and interviews with 30 educational professionals, to emphasise Malian perceptions of the post-democratic educational expansion. It complements interviews with data on passage rates and curriculum from the Ministry of Education. Despite marked increases in enrolment, Malian respondents describe three major concerns about the “educational crisis”: educational quality, private/public stratification, and the ambiguous goals of education. The article raises general concerns over the reliance on narrow quantitative indicators, and underscores the need to incorporate local stakeholder voices and perspective in educational reform.
 

The full article is available here:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09614524.2013.839983

This paper describes an empirical application of a strengths-based approach (SBA) to assess changes in gender equality, and draws out implications for research, evaluation, and wider development practice. We outline what constitutes a strengths-based approach and present a case study where a participatory methodology informed by appreciative inquiry was used to investigate gender outcomes of two water, sanitation, and hygiene-focused development initiatives. We consider the value and limitations of taking an explicitly strengths-based approach to assessing gender outcomes, and also propose that there are important arguments for why SBAs might be usefully applied in addressing (not just assessing) gender equality.
 

The full article is available here:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09614524.2013.840564

Given the proliferation in the number and type of development actors and an expressed desire by donors to engage them in a more meaningful way, this article identifies multiple ways in which ‘country ownership’ is manifested in practice. Through comparative case research, this article examines the involvement of five sets of actors in: problem identification, resource administration, programme design, implementation, and governance. Three donor-recipient relationship patterns emerge: ‘doctor knows best’, ‘empowered patient’, and ‘it takes a village’, each with specific conditions but overall underrepresentation of recipient country actors, suggesting that their involvement could take place more often than currently occurs.
 

The full article is available here:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09614524.2013.841862

Learning is a critical component of organisational effectiveness, particularly in the complex world of development NGOs. Drawing from the literature on organisational learning, this article highlights the key dynamics of a strong learning organisation and proposes an integrated ‘leverage-learning’ model adapted to the NGO context. This model integrates learning domains that are critical for greater effectiveness, or leverage. The model is then applied to evaluate the effectiveness of the learning culture and commitment of a specific development NGO, World Vision Burundi. The model shows promise as an heuristic tool to evaluate NGOs and help them become more effective in aid delivery.
 

The full article is available here:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09614524.2013.840563

There have always been debates about the methods that should be used to inform and assess development programmes. Experimental methods have become highly advocated as agencies seek rigorous ways to show programme value. However, the benefits and appropriateness of these methods are frequently overstated. We use the Aga Khan Development Network's Quality of Life studies to show that periodic mixed methods approaches are useful to analyse programme contributions and inform area development. We argue that experimental methods should not be idealised, and that research questions and organisational learning should guide pragmatic methodological choices to inform development intervention in real-life contexts.
 

The full article is available here: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09614524.2013.841863

In this article we report on a community-based capital cash transfer initiative (CCCT) in Kenya that sought to mobilise and enable HIV-affected communities to respond to the needs of orphaned and vulnerable children. With bilateral funding, the Social Services Department in Kenya provided 80 communities across ten districts with advice and resources to set up social enterprises for the support of vulnerable children. A wide range of food and income generating activities were initiated by the communities, whose produce or profits contributed to the improved school attendance and performance of orphaned children, particularly amongst girls. We conclude that CCCT is a viable strategy for improving orphan schooling in sub-Saharan Africa.

The full article is available here:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09614524.2013.809697