Articles

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

Microcredit is often seen as a simple solution to poverty reduction. However, its sustainability for longer-term community development is debated. This qualitative study describes a unique community-based model of microcredit in Kenya, which includes investment, emergency loans, and social support components. In-depth interviews with group members highlighted how this model fostered longer-term economic development, financial security, and stability. However, additional social and psychological benefits were valued higher than economic gains, although both were closely intertwined as economic security reduced psychological stress. This expanded model of microcredit has the potential to contribute to sustained community development amongst poorer households.
 

The full article is available here:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09614524.2013.840265

Within the context of acute public spending cuts and the increasing push towards localism, the UK government is increasingly looking outwards to community- and citizen-led action for solutions to long-term social problems and to take on public services. The extent to which these groups have the capacity and willingness to take on politicised roles beyond their purpose and function is, however, not well understood. By reflecting on findings primarily from a street-level mapping project, in this paper discussion focuses on the potential implications arising from grassroots' co-option.
 

The full article is available here:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09614524.2013.840267

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

Given the context of failure of many of the programmes aimed at providing food security for tribal communities, this paper deals with the question, can grassroots-level experiments like community grain banks provide food security for the tribal poor? This paper examines the working of community grain banks established by Bapuji Rural Development and Enlightenment Society (BREDS) in India and concludes that community food grain banks demonstrate as an effective mechanism to ensure food security for the tribal poor, especially those who were excluded from the reach of government programmes.

The full article is available here:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09614524.2013.811469