East Asia

There are an estimated 33 million people living with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) worldwide. While national education campaigns have been successful in providing a broad platform of awareness of HIV and AIDS, within some countries faith-based organisations (FBOs) have assumed an important role in educating and supporting local communities to reduce HIV transmission. This article conceptualises the successful characteristics of a Christian organisation in West Papua and a Muslim organisation in Thailand.

The Multidimensional Poverty Assessment Tool (MPAT) measures fundamental dimensions of rural poverty in order to support poverty-alleviation efforts in the less developed world. This article’s primary purpose is to introduce MPAT and describe its theoretical rationale. It begins with an overview of the importance of creating enabling environments for rural poverty alleviation before describing MPAT’s purpose and structure.

From United Nations emergency responses involving tent camps, to the reconstruction approach of FUNDASAL in El Salvador and the post-disaster provision of housing by Caritas in Asia, it is clear that a giant step has been taken in thinking about emergency shelter, as well as about how prevention and reconstruction are managed. This article evaluates some current good practices in Asia and Latin America in post-disaster emergency shelter that use local skills, materials, and tools, and participatory processes.

Food is crucial to an adequate standard of living. The acknowledgement of the right to food in government policies is fundamental to the protection of human dignity, particularly in relation to food insecurity. It allows the right-holder to seek redress and hold government accountable for non-fulfilment. With reference to Indonesia, the article highlights deficits in meeting obligations to the right to food as stipulated in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Generally speaking, NGO studies have focused their attention on the organisational unit and its role in shaping development outcomes. With few exceptions, the analysis of development partnerships, in which NGOs play a crucial role, has largely been confined to examination of 'donors' and 'receivers' and not the dynamics within organisational settings. This article is concerned with the interface between local and international staff operating within Lao-based international NGOs.

This article explores post-conflict reconstruction in Cambodia through an analysis of both the dangers of liberal peace building and the positive role that training in capacity building plays in war-torn societies. The central question addressed is how insider-outsider dynamics influence Cambodia's post-conflict reconstruction projects; and what assumptions do international workers and Cambodian NGO staff make about 'the good life' that will be constructed?

This article asks why, despite an abundance of aid materials and the good intentions of various relief agencies, tsunami-relief efforts in Thailand after the Great Sumatra Earthquake of 2004 resulted in complaints and skewed aid distribution. Beginning with an analysis of how relief goods are distributed in practice, the focus of the article shifts to forces that cause certain types of goods to be concentrated in certain communities.

Active citizens can become a powerful driver of development by holding to popular account those who traditionally hold decision-making power at the local and national levels. Active citizenship draws from a long history of understanding the importance of community participation and ownership of development interventions. However, in spite of its inherent strengths, active citizenship may not be a possible (or optimal) outcome in all circumstances.

As a result of globalisation and changing technologies, young people are increasingly required to engage with the broader world beyond their local and national communities. This raises significant questions about the ways and spaces young people will need to engage as active citizens, and the new tools and resources young people will need to equip them for their futures. The Global Connections Program has been developed to address these identified needs.

Oxfam’s experience suggests that ‘bottom–up’ accountability can be an important mechanism whereby men and women living in poverty can hold others to account. The first section of this article illustrates this with two examples of Oxfam experience in Vietnam and Sri Lanka. The second section draws out some of the lessons from these, and attempts to situate them within the broader debate about approaches to accountability.