Articles

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

In 2007, Cordaid started a pilot on participatory impact assessment, intended to enhance accountability and to improve learning. The methodology was based on quasi-experimental design, complemented with qualitative research. This case study illustrates the challenges INGOs and their partners face in their attempt to find a rigorous yet, relevant, useful, and socially acceptable methodology for evaluation and impact assessment purposes. While most local NGOs participating in this pilot consider (parts of) this methodology useful for their learning, this approach proves unsuitable, costly, and inappropriate for an INGO such as Cordaid since it does not respond to its own accountability and learning needs.

The full article is available here:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09614524.2013.753412

Support for capacity development accounts for about 25 per cent of all international donor assistance. Yet there have been few evaluations to assess the effectiveness of this support. This paper presents the findings and lessons of an evaluation on Dutch support for capacity development that has tried to avoid some of the shortcomings of earlier evaluations. Dutch capacity development support has been effective in a number of cases. However, for sustainable capacity development it is crucial that donors reconsider their policies and practices in such a way that they facilitate endogenous capacity development, local resourcefulness, and downward accountability.

The full article is available here:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09614524.2013.752435

The development field as a site for research and practice has largely escaped critical scrutiny in development studies. Accounts of the conceptualisation of the field have not been complemented with an examination of the practices that maintain the field as a site conducive to development. This paper draws on experiences working with small, local NGOs in India to examine how the field is maintained, and the underlying logic that underpins the relationship between developers and “developees”. In problematising the field, I draw attention to overlooked ethical and political implications of participatory development.

The full article is available here:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09614524.2013.753411

Latin American firms are moving from narrow philanthropy to broader engagement with development priorities. We examine this shift with data from Alianzas, a development programme promoting private contributions to health and education in Guatemala. We use Solomon's (2010) dimensions of proliferation, professionalisation, and partnering to compare firms' pre-Alianzas efforts with programme activities. Both firms with established and new philanthropic programmes engaged with Alianzas (proliferation). Most participants were willing to steer efforts towards public priorities (professionalisation) and collaborate with government (partnering). Given chronic underfunding of health and education priorities in Guatemala, we suggest that private contributions to public programmes be institutionalised.

The full article is available here:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09614524.2012.713324

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

Recently there has been a shift in development discourse from ideas of paternalism to those of participation. Set within the framework of a postmodern critique of development, this paper questions the assumption that the ideas of development still exist in the same discursive space. Using University of East Anglia (UEA) development studies postgraduate students as a case study, it considers why students want to work in development and the manner in which individual students think of and conceptualise the enterprise. It explores the role of postgraduate study in developing a conscientisation needed for truly transformative development.

The full article is available here:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09614524.2012.714351

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

NGOs face many types of pressures that limit and influence their activities. While in many studies these pressures and the causes and agendas behind them have been the focus of analysis, this paper provides a framework that can give insight into the ways in which the pressures play out in diverse contexts and affect different NGOs in distinct ways. It develops an analytical model that combines the local political context, the specific mix of policies and actions that restrict NGOs, and the characteristics and functions of NGOs themselves.

The full article is available here:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09614524.2012.714745