Sector social

En la India, la preocupación más apremiante de la educación es hacer entrar a las escuelas a por lo menos 32 millones de niños que se estima quedan fuera de ellas, a los efectos de completar la meta de la Educación Primaria Universal. El apoyo para la descentralización de los servicios públicos es muy amplio a causa de los beneficios de la equidad y la eficiencia que son asociadas con ello.

El cómo organizaciones y asociaciones pueden trabajar de manera conjunta a través del tiempo para desarrollar nuevas normas y prácticas que mejoren la sostenibilidad de las iniciativas de desarrollo es un problema que siempre está presente.

Urban and industrial growth in developing countries makes the provision of adequate waste management services vital. Public sector-private sector partnerships (the authors describe potential structures for these partnerships) offer one way to manage this provision.

Tailandia está experimentando un fenómeno poco familiar donde la ayuda y las agencias multilaterales como por ejemplo el Banco Mundial y el Banco Asiático de Desarrollo están proporcionando dinero para los programas de desarrollo interno. En los años de explosión económica la ayuda no era ni buscada ni requerida ya que el desarrollo estructural estaba fundado desde el crecimiento, el cual los países del sureste de Asia habían comenzado a dar por hecho.

This Practical note describes the work of the Southall Black Sisters, a group, based in London, England, which provides a variety of assistance to, mainly Asian, women who have been victims of domestic violence and abuse. The author discusses how the UK legal system fails to help some of these women, as well as how patriarchal Asian social structures enable this abuse to go unchecked and unreported.

The Assuit Burns Project (ABP) is a small Egyptian NGO working to help burns victims. The author describes the work of the Project, setting out its various capacities, and criticises funders' and donors' over-emphasis on preventative medicine at the expense of this type of curative work. Burns victims can become economic and social outcasts, and this impacts on development, and equity (particularly gender equity). This article also appears in the Development in Practice Reader Development and Management.

Using the example of a project in Sheffield intended to promote user-involvement and participation in planning healthcare services, the author criticises the failure of the project to actually provide any forum for user-participation. The structures used to set up these partnerships are often too prescriptive, he argues, setting out a framework in which consultation may take place, and leaving no room for legitimate local interests which may not fit this framework. This article also appears in the Development in Practice Reader Development and Management.

An examination in presented of a pilot project to strengthen Primary Health Care (PHC) in Sheikhupura District, which was initiated by the Department of Health, Punjab, Pakistan. The project seeks to create a viable PHC model, providing accessible and sustainable services. Community Development Workshops for Village Health Committees (VHCs) to promote local participation are being held, and several experiences have been gained, from conceptual shifts to implementation issues.

The author, formerly Director of the Clearinghouse Project, describes the aims, achievements and underlying philosophy of the Project, which was set up in 1979 by the American Public Health Association (funded by USAID) to improve access to information for health-practitioners in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

SatelLife was set up by the organisation International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) in 1985, with the aim of providing a forum for the involvement of medical colleagues in the South in discussion of health and peace issues. SatelLife set up and run a satellite linking service (HealthNet) providing email and a medical information network for organisations and communities world-wide, integrating people working in countries with limited communications infrastructure into the debate. The author provides an overview of the system and the ethos behind it.