En el medio rural se hace aparente la discrepancia que existe entre las metas políticas de las organizaciones de desarrollo y las de los beneficiarios. Una razon de ello es la falta de fuerza política por parte de las poblaciones rurales mismas para influenciar las decisiones políticas que afectan sus medios de vida. Si el desarrollo rural apunta a beneficiar a sus pobladores, entonces una mayor influencia de los mismos en la definición de políticas debe estar acompañada de políticas de desarrollo acordes. De manera ideal, tanto los agentes de gobierno como los políticos deberian comprometerse a apoyar la agenda de quienes ellos benefician, y toda intervención gubernamental deberia reflejar una respuesta política a las demandas de las bases.
Volume 5
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La posición y contribución de las ONGs hacia el sector de la salud ha cambiado en años recientes. Su perfil y el tamaño del sector se han incrementado, y sus actividades son a menudo diferentes de las que previamente realizaban. En muchos barrios (quarters?) las ONGs son vistas como el medio que progresa en el sector de la salud; al tiempo que tambien es visto, entre otras cosas, como más eficiente y responsable que muchos de los gobiernos de paises en vias de desarrollo. Este artículo explora estos eventos y examina en particular un aspecto que ha sido relativamente ignorado - la relación entre el gobierno y el sector de las ONGs dentro del sector de la salud. Concluye con un enfoque sobre cuales son los pasos prácticos que se pueden dar a los efectos de mejorar dicha relación.
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In English only
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Se reconoce que existe una tensión entre las necesidades de quienes practican el desarrollo, y las rutinas normales de estudios académicos referentes a informes de inteligencia temporal en temas claves. Cerrar esta brecha implica, entre otras cosas, elaborar nuevas formas de organizar y hacer la investigación. Este artículo, escrito por un académico, concierne en especial la forma en que se pueden combinar los métodos interactivos de evaluación rápida con elementos provenientes de estilos mas convencionales de investigación a los efectos de acercar esta división micro-macro; esto es, iluminar las tendencias de política nacional a través de una exploración de las respuestas de las comunidades y de los nucleos familiares. El artículo sescribe dos secciones de una investigación llevada a cabo en Tanzania y en Zambia bajo los auspicios de la agencia oficial de desarrollo Suizo (SIDA).
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Rapid population growth and its effect on the environment is one of the main concerns of development practitioners. Computer modelling tools have been used to explore the effects of proposed interventions, allowing agencies to quickly see where methods might be incompatible or have adverse or unexpected effects. The GIS is one such system, and is open to abuse if used to legitimise existing policy. The author sets out a two-process Policy and Decision Support System, which he feels is more context specific and less open to abuse since it involves the end-users in the development of the exploratory models. Using Operational Research techniques in combination with Complex Systems Modelling, he argues, should ensure that the design and implementation of programmes can be carefully explored and mutually agreed.
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The author considers the coping strategies used by the newly poor households of the now-independent nation-state Kyrgyzstan. Like other former members of the Soviet Union, Kyrgyzstan has fared badly economically since the disintegration of both the Union and complex economic links with it. In 1994, Save the Children Fund (SCF) carried out research into these coping strategies, the findings of which are briefly presented here. Full details can be obtained from SCF in a report entitled `Coping with the Transition: Household Coping Strategies in Kyrgyzstan' (SCF, December 1994).
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This conference, held in Lanzarote in April 1995, attracted delegates from NGOs, academic institutions, governments and the private sector, although representatives from the largest airlines, holiday companies and hotel groups were conspicuous by their absence. NGO-workers were concerned with shifting governments et al away from so-called nature tourism and towards the promotion of ecotourism. The final day of the conference was used to draft the Charter for Sustainable Tourism, for presentation to the UN.
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The author responds to Mike Powell's article in Development in Practice 5(3), and argues that it is not only those interfering in cultures as 'outsiders' who face difficulties and accusations of cultural subjectivity, but also those challenging norms as a member of that culture. Those presenting views which go against traditional social structures, such as the author's views about the treatment of women in South Asia, should not allow accusations of cultural relativism to dissuade them - rather, development practitioners should 'use culture to open up intractable areas of gender relations'. This article is freely available as a chapter in Development and Culture.
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The author argues that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), rather than NGOs, are the most cost-effective and efficient ways of developing and distributing new technology to end users (the poor).
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¿Qué oportunidades existen, dentro de los programas de Atención Primaria de la Salud (Primary Health Care), para vincular a las comunidades aldeanas en los procesos de concepción, construcción y mantenimiento de sus propias facilidades para la salud? Este artículo observa a 3 programas de Atención Primaria de la Salud en Sierra Leone y en Uganda. Ellos involucran ONGs, el gobierno y las comunidades huéspedes en la construcción de edificios de salud; cada uno con diferente apoyo por parte de Save the Children Fund, Action Aid y Oxfam. Estos ejemplos son usados para delinear aquellos temas que requieren monitoreo y evaluación dentro de estos programas con miras a promover la vinculación de las comunidades en los procesos de producción y sustentación de los locales de salud a nivel aldeano.
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In 1992, UNICEF and the Organisation of African States (OAU) jointly proposed that 1994-2003 should be the Decade of the African Child. The author identifies nine challenges for Africa, and the rest of the world, if African children are to have an improved quality of life. These include promoting true empowerment, including health and nutrition policies in development policies, recognising that poverty may preclude people from adopting best practice e.g. in health, combating the erosion of mothers' ability to provide adequate child care, continuing to finance primary and adult literacy education, decentralising and democratising primary health care (PHC) and providing early warnings against predictable climactic disasters.
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In 1978 at Alma Ata, the date was set for achieving `Health for All by the Year 2000'. Achieving this seems more remote than it did then, due in part to Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs), the author argues. In Nicaragua, as elsewhere, structural adjustment provoked the redirection of resources away from public sector spending, including health care spending, and towards exports. The author advocates reasserting and implementing the Alma Ata recommendations in order to counteract this continuing erosion of health care. This article also appears in the Development in Practice Reader [13]Development for Health.
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NGOs have recently become a favoured mechanism for official development assistance: in 1994, half of all projects approved by the World Bank made provision for NGO involvement for implementing them; 75 per cent of these NGOs were Southern. Such flattery means that NGOs are in danger of seeing themselves as essential to development. Here, the author reflects on the rise of what he calls the `EN-GE-OH'. While some donor agency and NGO staff might find this Viewpoint somewhat caustic, most will recognise more than a grain of truth. The article is reprinted from the journal Chasqui, translated and adapted by the Editor. This article is freely available as a chapter in Development NGOs and Civil Society.
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A survey in the Rakai District in 1989 put the number of orphans at 25,000; by 1991 a population census counted 44,000, a growth the author attributes to the AIDS pandemic. The Child Social Care Project (CSCP) in Rakai works with widows and orphans to address their property rights, seeking to reduce the vulnerability of women and children under both customary and statutory law. The author discusses the work of the Project, and advocates continued processes of education and sensitisation to change attitudes, accompanied by legal reform. This article also appears in the Development in Practice Reader [13]Development for Health.
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NGOs are receiving and distributing increasing funding for projects attempting to help traumatised victims of political violence. The author argues that many of these projects are ill conceived, failing to recognise that one aim of modern warfare is the dissolution of the social fabric and that survivors will be trying to manage their distress in damaged social environments. Also, the Western conception of mental trauma does not provide an adequate model for understanding the complex and evolving experiences of those in war-affected areas. Social development should be foremost in NGOs' efforts, as opposed to the conception of the traumatised simply as patients who need to be treated. This article also appears in the Development in Practice Reader [13]Development in States of War.
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In English only
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Este artículo trata ciertos temas concernientes a la religión, la cultura y el desarrollo, en parte a los efectos de ayudar a aclarar el contexto para el resto de esta edición. Considera los trasfondos religiosos y/o culturales de muchas agencias del Norte y de sus individuos, así como los efectos en sus agendas de desarrollo. Argumentando que los valores culturales locales definen lo que significa el desarrollo, se observan algunos de los temas culturales - políticos y morales, tematicos y prácticos - que nacen de la interacción del desarrollo Norte-Sur. Concluye que la historia de intervención, cualquiera haya sido su motivo, ha sido de lamentar. Es tiempo de jugar un rol de apoyo, al mismo tiempo que las personas del Sur hacen que el desarrollo forme parte de su propia historia.
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From 1989, an attempt to improve agriculture by directly addressing ignorance and fatalism has been developed in Benin by an Italian NGO, Mani Tese, based on attempts to provide traditional peasant farmers with better qualifications and greater motivation. The approach consists of funding a network of school-farms, or Centres of Rural Promotion (CRPs) dedicated to teaching modern agricultural techniques in an appropriate and local context. The main aim of the strategy is to create a new kind of peasant farmer: one who has a good technological/cultural background, and is able to exploit all the locally available resources in a sustainable way. The paper discusses the importance of employing local personnel, and some of the problems that still need to be met (such as developing effective post-training assistance). It is concluded that this form of development aid allows the NGO to entrust the ultimate beneficiaries with as much responsibility as possible, and therefore allow the project to become autonomous. Abstract supplied by kind permission of CABI.
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The paper notes that in India, even when a village or household level survey is carried out for water-resource development, the usual standards of data collection are applied, and women's central importance in water use is thus not reflected. However, women are likely to be more visible in local planning exercises; and the active and effective roles of women in water management are impossible without such planning. The paper is an outcome of the Foundation for Public Interest's experience in community-based water-resource development and management projects, particularly within the areas of Mahesana, Banaskantha, and Sabarkantha in Gujarat and, to a lesser extent, some involvement in Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu. It emphasizes the need for increased recognition of women's capacity for water management, the shift in policies resulting from FPI's involvement in this area, problems with neglecting local initiatives and resource limitations, and the importance of building local capacity to ensure good operation and maintenance, and the generation of local investment. Abstract supplied by kind permission of CABI.
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In 1992 and 1993 fieldwork was done in the Eastern Region of Ghana to examine why hybrid cocoa, introduced by cocoa institutions, was adopted by some farmers and not others. This report discusses the problems encountered when collecting data, including the low-level of farmers' education, and the lack of official records and sampling possibilities.
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The author presents a personal view of an international conference on the use of financial services in the reduction of poverty, held at Reading University in the UK, with participants from NGOs, academic institutions, and Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs), as well as donors. The conference, according to the author, paid insufficient attention to the nature of poverty, measuring it in economic terms only, and failed to make clear potential difficulties with subsidised credit schemes, as well as putting forward a simplistic conception of financial technology transfer.
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La mayoria de los cambios socio-económicos que tienen lugar en Africa y en gran parte del Sur son conducidos desde el exterior. Agencias externas, a menudo ligadas al Estado, dejan de lado a quienes trabajan, sin involucrarlos en los procesos de la toma de decisión. Sus perspectivas económicas ignoran la cultura del pueblo y su visión del mundo. Ello niega a quienes trabajan una capacidad creativa para adaptar nuevas técnicas y conocimientos a sus propias realidades concretas. Este artículo argumenta en favor de la importancia del marco de referncia histórico y por la centralización de la cultura en los procesos socio-económicos. El autor tambien argumenta en contra de perspectivas que no son familiares a la cultura de quienes trabajan.
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La salud mental es causa importante de discapacitación en los paises de Sub-Sahara Africa y raramente es atendida en las actividades relacionadas a la salud. Este artículo examina la relación cercana que existe entre desorden mental, la religión y la cultura, haciendo referencia a las experiencias de los autores en Zimbabwe. Ellos ponen énfasis en la importancia de llegar a comprender de una manera condescendiente las creencias religiosas y los contextos sociales de los estados de angustia psico-sociales, en lugar de simplemente traducir conceptos e ideas originarias de las sociedades europeas y norteamericanas.
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Hasta principios de los 80, y a pesar de rendir tributo al rol central del `capital humano', la mayoria de quienes toman decisiones estaban obsesionados por el desarrollo físico y la tasa de incremento del Producto Nacional Bruto. Egipto siguió esta moda como tantos otros paises del Tercer Mundo. Diez años atrás, no obstante, con deudas externas que se acumulan y una creciente desintegración social, se hizo claro que los retornos a la inversión de estos esquemas infrastructurales eran pobres o incluso negativos. La cultura, la comunidad, y el liderazgo orgánico fueron redescubiertos como el eslabón perdido del proceso de desarrollo. Estas y otras formas de vida asociativas son a veces condensadas bajo el concepto de `sociedad civil'. El desarrollo ha llegado a ser definido como el proceso donde las potencialidades humanas son optimizadas a nivel individual y colectivo. Este artículo ilustra la interacción entre estas variables con referencia a ejemplos de desarrollo de base comunitaria.
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Este artículo da cuenta de las experiencias de la autora como asesora del Ministerio de Educación de la República Popular Democrática de Laos. Observa de manera crítica el rol del `experto' extranjero, los contextos dentro de los cuales dichos conocimientos son transmitidos o aun impuestos, y las barreras que existen para una comunicación efectiva. También observa de manera positiva, y una vez que estos temas han sido señalados, que hay de valor en todos ellos.
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Estos dos casos ilustran el fracaso que le espera a todo agente externo que intente cambiar la realidad social de otra sociedad sin tomarse la molestia de entender qué es lo que ya existe, y qué es lo que la sociedad quiere y está preparada a aceptar.
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The paper discusses the Restaurant Programme started for women in 1991 by the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC). A restaurant may be opened under individual ownership with a maximum loan of Taka 6500, after which a current account for the individual is opened with BRAC. This money is withdrawn in installments according to the entrepreneur's needs and repayment is collected in daily or weekly installments, with an interest rate of 20%. Like most rural restaurants, these enterprises sell tea, snacks, and meals. By January 1993, there were 273 'Shuruchi Restaurants' (restaurants for good food) all over the country. The paper reports on an exploratory study undertaken by BRAC's Research and Evaluation Division, involving five restaurants selected from Manikganj, Jamalpur, and Sherpur districts. The main focus was to examine how far women's entrepreneurial capacity has developed, and to assess whether women have control over their business. Rapid rural appraisal and participatory rural appraisal techniques were used for data collection. Abstract supplied by kind permission of CABI. This article is freely available as a chapter in Development with Women.
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The Nilgiris Adivasi Welfare Association (NAWA) was founded in 1958, in Tamil Nadu, India, to work for the integrated welfare of the six Nilgiri tribes, all displaced and dispersed by the invasion of their forest homelands by incoming non-tribal peoples. The paper describes the original founding of the Paniya Rehabilitation Farm colony for 25 families who were bought out of bonded labour by the founder. After initial hope that the project would succeed in becoming self-reliant, the paper discusses the areas of the project which lost momentum, the lack of outside funding, the increased involvement of NAWA in supporting the Paniyas, and their seeming long-term dependency on NAWA. Abstract supplied by kind permission of CABI.
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Oxfam in Ethiopia has long been concerned that community-based development programmes should reflect local felt needs and priorities. Particularly where there has been a long history of engagement in a given area, a diagnostic survey has proved to be a valuable and flexible self-monitoring tool to re-assess development objectives with community groups. A diagnostic survey uses rapid rural appraisal techniques in a series of dialogues and interactions. The intention of the survey described in the paper was to determine whether the development programmes of Dubbo Catholic Mission (mother and child health services and water supply) were appropriate development activities for communities which had not previously been involved. The paper notes the constraints on agricultural production, as identified by groups of men and women, problems associated with health, and mother and child health care. Problems were ranked and collated from two peasant associations. The priority needs were: clean water, a health clinic, and fertilizers. In response to this, the Dubbo Catholic Mission was able to implement projects to address some of these problems. This article also appears in the Development in Practice Reader Development and Social Diversity. Abstract supplied by kind permission of CABI.
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In English only
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El término `apoderamiento' (empowerment) es usado muy frecuentemente en todo trabajo de desarrollo, pero rara vez ha sido definido. Este artículo explora el significado del apoderamiento en el contexto de su raíz conceptual: el poder. Diferentes concepciones sobre lo que significa el poder conllevan a varias interpretaciones del término apoderamiento, y por ende a una gama de consecuencias tanto en la política como en la práctica del desarrollo. La terminología `apoderamiento' hace posible analizar el poder, la desigualdad y la opresión; no obstante, y a los efectos de iluminar la práctica de desarrollo, este concepto requiere de un uso y una definición precisa y premeditada.
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This Note reports on research into differences in the contractual agreements made by workers and employers, offering insights into the working of markets (particularly for labour and credit) and, using case studies, showing the constraints on the free movement of rural workers because of indebtedness to employers. The researchers use socio-economic analysis frameworks and the author argues their use of local conceptualisations and their concentration on workers rather than employers makes their work more useful than conventional economic analysis.
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Mientras las asimetrías de género siguen siendo reconocidas a nivel de políticas formales de desarrollo, los esquemas de alivio de la pobreza muestran generalmente una discrepancia en la incorporación de perspectivas de análisis de género. Este artículo explora la experiencia de ONGs que han incorporado de manera exitosa una conciencia de género en la formulación de intervenciones anti-pobreza. Demuestra que el mejorar la experiencia organizativa de la mujer pobre es un punto crítico que asegura que sus necesidades y sus perspectivas alimenten al proceso de planeamiento. El artículo concluye que a menos que a la mujer se le transfiera el poder para ir mas allá de su `trampa de pobreza', y que ésta tome parte en la formulación de políticas y la alocación de recursos, la misma van a continuar siendo una categoría marginalizadas del proceso de desarrollo.
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El fenómeno de poblaciones que avejentan es bien conocido en los países del Norte, asi como tambien es un tema de creciente importancia en los del Sur. No obstante, esta transición demográfica en el Sur no esta siendo acompañada de una creciente prosperidad como ocurrió en la industrialización del Norte. Este artículo examina varias dimensiones del problema en el Sur, incluyendo la situación socio-económica de las personas de edad, asi como sus roles dentro de la familia y en la comunidad. Cuestiona si los cambios en el status de las personas de edad vienen como consecuencia de fuerzas modernizadoras, o de las estructuras de desigualdad (diferencias en riquezas o en la posicion social) que existen en toda sociedad, pero que son particularmente prevalentes en los paises pobres del Sur.
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La capacidad tecnológica sustenta el desarrollo económico, pero el analisis de entrevistas con personal de ONGs internacionales del Reino Unido sugiere que ello rara vez es señalado de manera explícita cuando se considera apoyar a un trabajo de desarrollo. En su lugar, los juicios de valor centrales de estas ONGs tienden a determinar sus atitudes hacia la tecnología, teniendo como resultado un impacto que puede llegar a ser contradictorio en la construcción de la capacidad tecnológica. Esto se corrobora a través del analisis de 11 empresas de pequeña escala en Zimbabwe que reciben apoyo de las ONGs. Algunas de ellas tienen un alto potencial para desarrollar su capacidad tecnológica, pero otras estan atrapadas en un círculo vicioso de baja destreza, pobre calidad empresarial y de una atmósfera económica abrumadoramente hostil. Las ONGs necesitan desarrollar un criterio apropiado de tecnología a los efectos de ejercer un impacto positivo en los proyectos de desarrollo que ellos apoyan.
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The author presents his views on the essential ingredients of development, comparing the development ideal with its reality. Development is about change for the better, which must be appropriate (culturally, economically, technologically etc.) if change is to take root, and gain the participation of beneficiaries. Equity and justice are at the heart of any change for the better, as is sustainability. True development cannot be measured in solely economic terms, but must also include changes in the quality of lives, which are less tangible. Development as a process is not just a `Third World' issue but a universal concern, encompassing responses to over-development as well as under-development. This article also appears in the Development in Practice Reader [13]Development and Social Diversity.
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The Peasant Road, or La Via Campesina (LVC) as it is officially named, is being improved. It started at the initiative of a number of farmers' organizations during the 1992 Second Congress of the Nicaraguan Farmers' Union, UNAG. In the face of structural adjustment programmes and increasingly laissez-faire economic policies, bound to ruin many small farmers, they called for a programme of cooperation between farmers' organizations. The general objective of LVC's programme is the search for alternatives to current neo-liberal policies. It is more than a protest movement against farmer-hostile policies. Proposals for a truly democratic rural development are necessary, based on research carried out in cooperation with scientific research institutes and public authorities. Contrary to past experience, the research agenda should be determined by the farmers and their organizations, and not by scientists and policy makers. Farmers are tired of being research objects: they want to do the research by themselves, because they know what they are talking about when they draw up their own development proposals. Abstract supplied by kind permission of CABI.
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The phenomenon of Mozambican refugees in Malawi dates back to the time of Portuguese colonial rule. However, it is the spectacular magnitude of today's influx which has attracted national and international attention. By the close of 1992, Malawi was hosting over one million Mozambican refugees in 12 of the 24 districts. The paper grew out of an ethnographic study, with the overall objective of examining the motives for and the impact of the provision of humanitarian assistance on the refugees and host-country populations. The central argument of the paper is that by applying traditional ideas about men's and women's roles to the recruitment of trainees for income-generating activities, women's development potential remains largely untapped. Alternative approaches to working with women have to be actively sought, to ensure that the process of development is fruitful as well as gender-fair. This article also appears in the Development in Practice Reader [13]Development and Social Diversity. Abstract supplied by kind permission of CABI.
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The paper presents a brief account of a development programme in southern Mexico. DESMI AC, a Mexican NGO based in the southern state of Chiapas, provides and encourages economic and educational assistance to groups of marginalised indigenous Indians, in order to help them improve their quality of life. In the early days, DESMI's efforts were focused on health and training in cooperatives. As ideas on social development themselves changed, so DESMI gave increasing emphasis to education and production, stressing the need for collectively organized productive activities to be underpinned by a shared understanding of and commitment to the broader objective of social transformation, as well as being backed up with administrative skills. Abstract supplied by kind permission of CABI.
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The author discusses Alan Gibson's article of the same name (Development in Practice 3(3)). Nyamugasira expands on Gibson's discussion (limited, according to the author) of the problems faced by practitioners forced to balance the adoption of more business-like operations with continuing to benefit the greatest possible number of people.
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In English only
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Este artículo explora las perspectivas de futuro para las ONGs locales y extranjeras en la China post-Maoista. La complejidad estructural del joven sector no-gubernamental Chino es ilustrado a través de una tipologia de las nuevas organizaciones sociales que han florecido en los ultimos diez años. El autor considera los factores que favorecen la expansión de las actividades este sector intermediario de organizaciones quasi- y no-gubernamentales, pero tambien analiza los factores que restringen la aparición en el futuro cercano de un sector vibrante de ONGs. Aquellas ONGs extranjeras deseosas en desarollar lazos en la próxima Conferencia de las Naciones Unidas Sobre la Mujer deberan preveer que se trabajara en conjunción con las organizaciones de Partido/Estado y semi-oficiales.
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The author charts the progress of the United Nations (UN) in moving towards a more holistic view of human rights, specifically drawing examples from their resolutions about the phenomenon of forced eviction. He argues that campaigners, organisations and trade unions should use the strong UN resolutions on this issue to protect the right to housing, since most governments are not likely to publicise or necessarily comply with UN pronouncements. This article also appears in the Development in Practice Reader [13]Development in States of War.
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The accountability, performance, programming and legitimacy of NGOs in the so-called New Political Agenda of economic privatisation and `democratisation' was the subject of a conference in June 1994, jointly organised by Save the Children Fund (SCF) and the Institute of Development Policy and Management, University of Manchester. The author discusses participants' attitudes towards the best targets for NGO resources and effort, the problem of NGOs' increasing concern to be accountable to donors at the expense of their accountability to beneficiaries, the pressure (often State pressure) on NGOs to become service-providers, and the difficulties of relying on official donors. The lack of reference to gender-based inequalities in the formal sessions was an area of concern.
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This workshop was hosted by the Open University (OU), inviting development practitioners, academics and OU associates to share ideas about the design of a new OU Diploma/Master's Programme in Development Management. The author reports on the participants' views about issues the course should cover, including discussion of the nature and scope of development management in general, how North-South relations are best considered, and the importance of promoting institutional development.
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Informando sobre un gran cúmulo de agencias de desarrollo y de ONGs internacionales y cubanas, este atrículo explora los temas que enrfrenta la sociedad cubana en su proceso vertiginoso de cambio económico; y examina el porqué el Nuevo Orden Mundial no ha tenido ningún efecto significativo en Cuba, tanto a través de las organizaciones intergubernamentales como por las ONGs independientes. Describe los roles que tienen los organismos de apoyo estatal en el sustento de los mejores logros desarrollistas de los ultimos 30 años; y argumenta que aquellas ONGs que vean su rol de promotoras de `democratización' deben evitar caer en suposiciónes simplistas e inapropiados referentes a la diferencia entre el Estado y la `Sociedad Civil'.
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Este artículo resume topicos identificados en un estudio realizado en nombre de la Fundación HIVOS de Holanda y de la División de Desarrollo del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Holanda; incluyendo un estudio de campo de 45 ONGs del Medio Ambiente en siete países africanos. Se generó un banco de datos a nivel institucional para apoyar las estrategias de ayuda de aquellas agencias que comisionaron la investigación, y que a su vez forma la base de un análisis sobre algunos de los temas más extensos y que conciernen al rol y comportamiento de varios tipos de ONGs.
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Al tiempo que las guerras en Centroamérica han amainado, la región va sufriendo cambios extensos y de largo alcance en su economía y en el rol del Estado, particularmente en lo concerniente al crecimiento de la industria maquiladora y a la reducción del sector público. No obstante, la pobreza se ha incrementado, y ésta ha estado ligada a altos niveles de violencia y delincuencia, así como a una disminución de la seguridad alimenticia. El desafío que enfrentan las fuerzas sociales dentro de la región, así como las ONGs similares a Oxfam, es el de desarrollar una alternativa que sea a la vez autosostenida y que al mismo tiempo responda a las necesidades del presente.
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An aid programme's potential contribution to social development is increased if those designing and administering it are informed about the social context in which aid is provided. A key factor in the British government's aid programme is the Overseas Development Association's (ODA's) understanding of social development. The author gives her views on ODA policy and basic questions that should be asked when undertaking a social-impact analysis of a proposed aid activity, including questions around issues of participation.
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The World Bank's reliance on market forces when trying to achieve economic growth produces problems when implementing the Bank's strategies. The author puts forward his view that poverty should not merely be defined in terms of income, and that the struggle against poverty should respect the culture and views of the poor themselves, building into programmes the flexibility to respond to their views and enhance their political influence.
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The World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) believe that the increase in poverty as a result of Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) is a short-term consequence and that the benefits of SAPs filter down, in the longer term, to the least privileged members of society. Emergency Social Funds (ESFs) are designed to protect vulnerable people from the worst of this impact. ESFs try to ensure income through infrastructural and income-generating schemes, as well as feeding and nutrition programmes. The author criticises the use of ESFs as temporary safety nets, and discusses the role of NGOs in the ESF system.
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The use of the `development limited liability company' (LLC) is expanding. There are important differences between the broad social goals of development and the narrow economic ones of the LLC: they are concerned with people and profit respectively. The author discusses the problems likely to arise when NGOs attempt to use LLCs directly, as part of their administrative or funding arrangements.
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`Social integration' is one of the three main agenda items for the World Summit for Social Development (to be held in Copenhagen, March 1995), as identified by the General Assembly of the United Nations. This term is ambiguous and can be understood in a variety of ways, not all of which are equally useful. The author describes trends of social integration, encompassing issues around globalisation and insecurity, marginalisation and identity, and democracy, representation, and accountability.
