Labour and livelihoods

This article argues that the absence of a sense of place in rural Nigeria impedes development. It uses the case of Uturu to show that understanding the relationships people share with natural features and phenomena around them is important in their development. It proposes a framework constituted of rural mind, rural life, and rural character; and argues that strengthening one or the other pillar of this framework will likely lead to strengthening sense of place. Using in-depth interviews and historically informed observation, the authors show that a weak sense of place leads to poor development, and provide suggestions for improvement.

The full article is available here:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09614524.2013.772120

This article analyses one of the causes of migration in rural Mexico through the lens of US foreign assistance policy. US aid to Mexico – the largest migrant-sending country to the USA by far – does not sufficiently take into account the conditions of rural under-development and joblessness that encourage unauthorised migration to the USA. Instead US foreign assistance has been dominated by aid to Mexico's security agencies. This article analyses how the link between rural underdevelopment and migration-pressures has not been successfully addressed by either the Mexican or US governments. The article also analyses an innovative development project that explicitly seeks to support campesinos with the goal of reducing unauthorised migration pressures in a traditional migrant-sending rural region of Mexico.

The full article is available here:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09614524.2013.772025

Improving access to water and sanitation facilities has been a priority on the international development agenda. Halving the number of those who do not have access to sanitation facilities is an MDG target. This study assessed the toilet conditions in an urban slum in Ghana. Many felt that the sanitary conditions were deplorable; they were unsatisfied with having to walk over half a kilometre before using a toilet. Government efforts to improve hygiene and address sanitation problems need to take into account financial, religious, and other factors that promote the supply and maintenance of appropriate toilet facilities and services in urban communities.

The full article is available here:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09614524.2013.772121

Time poverty methodologies are a response to the failure of income-based measures of poverty to reflect gendered aspects of well-being. However, national time use surveys normally fail to examine issues around women and men's qualitative evaluation of their time uses, or the extent of their control over their own time. The result could be distorted policy responses which lose sight of the original intentions of time poverty as a tool to reveal gendered elements of well-being. This paper draws on the findings of a qualitative survey to asses a rural health promotion programme in Kyrgyzstan to demonstrate this point.

The full article is available here:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09614524.2013.751357

This paper documents collective actions undertaken by forest-based associations to access better prices for their non-wood forest products via group sales. Group sales can increase the income of group sellers by up to 40 per cent compared to individual sellers. The institutionalisation of group sales reinforces social relations and cohesion as well as mutual trust. Group sales were found to be a key preliminary step in the development and growth of small and medium scale enterprises. The paper concludes that successful group sales require a strong commitment among members of forest-based associations. Key factors influencing collective actions are discussed.

The full article is available here:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09614524.2012.714353

The article presents the results of participatory monitoring and evaluation of projects which aimed to aid the establishment and development of 24 modern rural cooperatives in Shandan County, Gansu Province, China. The evaluation was designed to assess the economic and community development outcomes of the cooperatives after three years of operation. The data were collected from four cooperatives using surveys, group work, and semi-structured interviews of stakeholders. The evaluations showed that within two years of inception cooperatives were improving social and economic outcomes for members and communities. Improvements for establishing and sustainably operating rural cooperatives are suggested.

The full article is available here:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09614524.2012.713913

This article documents a research project that examined the training provided within the South African National Community Development Worker Programme (CDWP), consisting of over 4,000 community development workers (CDWs). Many of the hopes of good community development work are built upon effective education and training of the workers/practitioners. To fail in educating and training CDWs is to ensure failure of programmes. The article reports on key findings from a set of interviews with CDWs within the Free State and Western Cape Provinces and then discusses key ways forward such as developing practice frameworks, capacity building, and creating a learning organisation.

The full article is available here:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09614524.2012.714354

Previous research has revealed that social policy design is relevant for addressing social problems, particularly for reducing poverty. However, evidence on poverty reduction exposes a sluggish trend towards achieving its main goals. This paper first reports on research examining to what extent social policy design has addressed social problems, poverty in particular. Second, this paper examines whether poverty lines have linked social policy design and social problems. Finally, this paper reveals that social policy design does not address poverty reduction and that poverty lines have not linked policy design and poverty reduction.

The full article is available here:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09614524.2012.696091

Development investigations focus on synergies of institutional cultures for policy and practice. International non-governmental organisations (INGOs) currently enjoy a privileged position as harbingers of world culture unity. While there is contestation on INGOs as monolithic entities, few studies delve into the voices of actors within INGOs to provide for a more pluralistic perspective. This paper separates the actors from their institution by examining their different socio-cultural takes that drive them. This emphasises that as projects and visions come and go, institutional actors draw on their own philosophy that does not necessarily mirror their institution's stance. Here, the focus is on one of the most important current development initiatives – microfinance – revealing individual understandings of what is sustainability, the role of external actors, indicators of success, exit strategies, and ethical action. In spite of situating this in the microfinance area, what is revealed is that actors are motivated by their own constructed ideology, often alluding peripherally to the specifics of microfinance. This opens another avenue of enquiry as to why organisational ideologies and popular development visions such as microfinance take on such diversity of forms and outcomes. Contrary to the world culture unity model, such communication disjunctures can be useful in understanding diverse development outcomes.

The full article is available here:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09614524.2012.696583

Microfinance has been evolving as an indispensable tool of poverty eradication and rural improvement. At present, almost all the commercial banks have delved into the microfinance foray and offer various lucrative schemes designed for the rural poor, specifically, to carry out their own small economic activities. This paper attempts to study the extent to which the commercial banks are participating in the microfinance business. An empirical study has been carried out in the state of Punjab. The objective is to analyse the nature and extent of microfinance services provided by the banks in the rural areas of Punjab. The study also highlights the bankers' perceptions of microfinance.

The full article is available here:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09614524.2012.696092