Articles

A holistic learning approach to organisational capacity building with Cambodian NGOs produced impressive results in some organisations and important learning about blocks to change in others. The approach clearly demonstrates that moving beyond traditional training and organisational development interventions and into processes that promote learning and its integration into everyday work practices has positive and lasting impacts.

The Government of India has made strides in increasing its education spending and improving access to schools, but there is much left to do. Programmes have concentrated on the expansion of higher education in India. In fact, public spending per student on the tertiary level is over six times what it is on the primary level. Non-enrolment can affect every aspect of a child's life. Education can give young girls the skills to make decisions independent of their husbands or families, access healthcare and other social programmes, and enter the workforce.

Effective use of donor aid is critical in achieving the sixth Millennium Development Goal –reversing the HIV/AIDS epidemic by 2015. The Paris Declaration of 2005 identified five key principles for aid effectiveness: ownership, alignment, harmonisation, mutual accountability and managing for results. As civil society organisations play a critical role in implementing HIV/AIDS interventions, it is important that they adhere to these principles. Often, however, they fail to implement interventions conforming with the principles, leading to duplication and inefficiency.

This paper examines the extent to which the key elements of globalisation, such as international trade, investments, foreign aid, transnational labour migration and tourism have been mainstreamed into the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) in the Asia-Pacific region. Using a content analysis, the paper finds that trade openness gained the highest priority in the PRSPs, followed by foreign investment, aid, tourism and, lastly, migration.

The progress in endeavours to achieve the commitments of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness has been slow. This paper explains the challenges faced by the aid effectiveness agenda and discusses why and how it needs to be revisited. In order to elucidate the differences in donors' approaches to aid effectiveness, a comparison is made between the UK and Japan, which leads to two suggestions. The main messages are that it is important to be inclusive of different donors, and to link the policy dialogue with reality on the ground.

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Young sportspersons now serve abroad within the ‘Sport for Development and Peace’ (SDP) movement. Drawing on interviews with former interns from Commonwealth Games Canada's Canadian Sports Leadership Corps programme, this study explored what interns brought to, and learnt from, international SDP service. Interns confronted notions of expertise and privilege and, in some cases, considered the limits of Northern development stewardship.

This paper emerged from the authors' interest in why humanitarian health workers initially engage and remain in humanitarian work, often in the face of threats to safety and personal well-being. Semi-structured qualitative interviews assessed the consciously available reasons why individuals engaged in humanitarian health work. Interview data was unpacked through a thematic analysis. Using self-determination theory as a guiding framework, data suggested introjected and identified motivations are applicable to this occupational domain.

Global Value Chains (GVCs) serve as significant sources of employment for developing countries, with various impacts upon their labour markets and workers. While participation in GVCs is important for economic upgrading, there is concern about a ‘race to the bottom’ happening in global competition. This paper attempts to understand how economic upgrading and decent working conditions interact in the proliferating GVCs, by looking at the garment exporting countries in Asia.

This article explores the interview narratives of six NGO directors working in Afghanistan regarding the holistic and multi-track nature of their NGO's project work. Data analysis revealed that NGO leaders believed that effective NGO project work relies extensively on purposeful coordination with other NGOs, and is dependent on non-NGO actors such as the military, the UN, local government structures, and local organisations. However, working in proximity with international military forces posed special challenges for NGOs in Afghanistan.

Taking the case of Burkina Faso, the paper analyses effects of local purchase on marginal producers. It argues that because of imports of food together with ‘distress sales’ on the part of the producers, perfect market conditions do not exist. Therefore market price does not equal the optimal price. In the absence of an optimal price, price interventions are justifiable and this makes payment to local farmers of a ‘fairer’ price both possible and desirable.