In English only
Volume 13
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The authors analyse the experience of Tostan, a Senegalese NGO, with the abandonment of female genital cutting (FGC) in Senegal, the Sudan, and Mali. Tostan uses nonformal, participatory methodologies to support village-based social change, especially in the areas of human rights and womens health. Following Tostans educational programme, some communities have declared a moratorium on the practice of FGC and have mobilised their families and villages to discontinue its use. This article describes the process used, considers issues that have arisen as the concept is marketed and disseminated beyond Senegal, and reviews implications for grassroots policy initiatives.
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This paper draws on five case studies to explore potential benefits and barriers to horizontal networking to promote impact monitoring and assessment of microfinance. Its main aim is to stimulate further discussion of this issue, but it also draws tentative conclusions about factors likely to contribute towards success. In particular, experience from Honduras suggests that network organisations can work most effectively when they facilitate wider use of impact assessment (IA) activities already piloted by a lead member of the network.
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This paper evaluates the pertinence of interventions sponsored by aid agencies that seek to meet the security needs of women in post-reconstruction Rwanda. Personal security, economic security, and socio-political security are used as the main methodological reference marks and indicators. The information and data used in the paper were gathered during several visits to Rwanda in 2001 and 2002. The study reveals that efforts have brought about positive impacts on the lives of women. However, findings also show that specific strategies aimed at increasing womens security would better benefit them if they were more consistently planned so as to take into consideration the ways in which issues of poverty, gender, and security intersect.
This article is freely available as a chapter in Development, Women and War: Feminist Perspectives -
Smallholder farmers in developing economies face a range of marketing and exchange problems. This article concerns the organisation of vegetable markets in Ghana, in which transactions are characterised by uncertainty, mistrust and undeveloped buyer-seller relationships. It recommends adopting written standard form contracts to improve buyer-seller exchange and suggests key contractual features. Contracts furnish major advantages over existing verbal agreements by specifying the terms of an agreement by which performance can be measured and improving business attitudes and enhancing moral obligation.
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A recent increase of publications, training courses, conferences, and policy statements on rights-based approaches shows the importance being attached to the concept by development professionals. Despite this, there is no universally agreed definition of what constitutes a rights-based approach, nor do the implications of adopting such an approach appear to have been comprehensively questioned. This article seeks to explore some of the key issues associated with the adoption of a rights-based approach that are relevant to NGOs.
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This paper reports on some of the generic findings arising from research being undertaken in the UK, South Africa, and Uganda into the ways in which the management tools currently promoted by official donors are passed down the aid chain, through UK NGOs, to civil society organisations in the South. The increasing competition for donor funds is both squeezing out the smaller NGOs, and also setting an increasingly standardised approach, with the resulting loss in diversity. More disturbingly, NGOs at all levels are increasingly secretive about their own shortcomings, and reluctant to voice their concerns about what is happening, for fear of losing their funding. This environment, and the attitudes it fosters, are not conducive to learning; allow for donor-defined paradigms and priorities to dominate; and threaten to destroy the values and strengths that NGOs can, at their best, bring to development.
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Development projects are under pressure to deliver positive gender changes. This paper provides a practical example of how one project in Tanzania attempted to meet this demand. It details how a conventional technical project developed its own understanding of what it is to be gender sensitive, and identified gender concerns that it might address. The main monitoring challenges became those of how to assess the significance of routinely recorded events such as increased cow allocations to women, and how to incorporate monitoring activities that might focus on researching less obvious, less visible, and more subtle processes of change into the project cycle. The paper advocates giving greater attention to meeting these challenges within projects.
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In this paper, Asset-based Community Development (ABCD) is presented as an alternative to needs-based approaches to development. Following an overview of the principles and practice of ABCD, four major elements of ABCD are examined in light of the current literature on relevant research and practice. This involves exploring the theory and practice of appreciative inquiry; the concept of social capital as an asset for community development; the theory of community economic development; and lessons learned from the links between participatory development, citizenship, and civil society. The paper outlines how ABCD both reflects and integrates trends in these areas, and stands to benefit from the insights generated from this work.
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Many readers will be familiar with the work of Robert Chambers, including his six biases of the development professional - namely spatial, project, person, seasonal, diplomatic, and professional - and with his suggestions for overcoming them. Many will also be familiar with the challenge of putting his advice into practice, notably on short-term assignments. The question asked here is whether the consultant can do anything constructive about those who are last on the development ladder; and in so doing render the invisible just a bit more visible. This article provides four illustrations taken from the authors experiences in Mozambique, Malawi, Bangladesh, and Zimbabwe. All involve attempts to partially apply Chambers ideas. All are modest in ambition, scale, and scope. The main purpose of describing these cases is to stimulate discussion of the possibilities of incorporating the ideas of participatory and inclusive development processes within the unpromising confines of the two- or three-week assignment.
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This paper documents the lessons drawn from several years of practical work with a range of Programme and Project Cycle Management (PPCM) processes and tools. The need for PPCM training, and not simply Logical Framework training, is emphasised, as is the importance of using an experiential training methodology. Institutional ownership of both PPCM tools and approaches are considered to be vital for success. Since so many donors now use PPCM tools, the need for development professionals to have PPCM skills and knowledge is paramount. The value of logframes as a tool to both increase programme/project ownership and communication is highlighted. The importance of thinking outside the boxes of the logframe at the project/programme review stage is also emphasised.
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12 September 2003 was the twenty-fifth anniversary of WHOs Alma Ata Health for All (HfA) by the Year 2000 Strategy. The strategy reflected an optimism that health could improve for poor and disadvantaged peoples around the world through the provision of comprehensive primary health care (PHC). In practice, PHC has been only selectively applied and generally under-resourced. Two progressive health groups, the International Peoples Health Council (IPHC) and the Peoples Health Movement (PHM) challenge the evidence that selective rather than comprehensive PHC is the right approach, and argue that the privatisation of health-related social services has had a devastating effect on public health worldwide. These organisations call on WHO to revive the dream of Alma Ata as a matter of urgency.
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Full-text sample article FREE from Taylor & Francis. This essay is organised in terms of several propositions for discussion that link advocacy and research dilemmas. Whether researchers can make a difference to the World Bank requires a broader assessment of whether the campaigns they work with are having an impact. While there have been some spectacular successes in terms of halting or redirecting potentially harmful Bank projects, the longer-term significance of these successes is less clear. As the Banks public discourse becomes more enlightened, the challenge for civil society organisations and researchers is increasingly to highlight contradictions among and lack of compliance with its own policies, and the failure of its loans and projects to achieve their declared aims. This calls for vertical integration or systematic coordination between diverse levels of civil society - from local to provincial, national, and international arenas to monitor the parallel partnerships between the World Bank, national, provincial, and local governments. Finally, a call is made for social development professionals who conduct consultancies for the World Bank to adhere to a code of ethics requiring transparency in their relationships with the communities and social organisations who are the target of their research.
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The failure of the post-colonial state to institutionalise democracy and regulate development for the benefit of the poor has given prominence to private actors, including development NGOs. With case studies from Malawi, this paper shows how NGOs may inadvertently facilitate the enrolment of the poor into development agendas that do not benefit them. Images (as world views) that social actors form of different aspects of the development process may undermine empowerment intentions. It is argued that an analysis of various actors images in managing development assistance should inform the pro-poor agenda of development NGOs.
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Full-text sample article FREE from Taylor & Francis. Today's rapid changes within and outside Northern and Southern NGOs heighten uncertainty about how to meet new challenges and achieve results. In this volatile environment, risk management is a tool for maximising an NGO's opportunities and minimising the dangers to success. It enables NGO decision makers to think strategically all the time.
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In English only
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This article seeks to contribute to the debate on collaboration between national and international NGOs. It argues that it is vital for the development of stable, independent, and viable civil societies that the international NGOs promote a bottom-up approach in their support to and collaboration with local NGOs, especially among those emerging from situations of conflict or other profound social disruptions. From a study carried out in East Timor, the authors conclude that there is a noticeable discrepancy between rhetoric and practice with regard to such support. The multiple challenges to the international NGO community and persist although many years of development work have offered abundant learning opportunities. The authors argue that such challenges are less a question of standards and rules than of basic approach, attitudes, and power relations. They maintain that if international NGOs and the wider international community do not alter their approach, they will suffocate rather than foster the development of a viable and autonomous civil society in the countries in which they operate.
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Some indigenous peoples are attempting to explore approaches to defining and implementing sustainable development in ways appropriate to them. In 1998, four Maori iwi (tribal) organisations embarked on a research project with a research team from the University of Waikato on planning for their own sustainable development. The aims of the research included enabling the groups to articulate their own values and understanding of development, establishing a comprehensive inventory of resources and taonga (treasures), identifying ways of assessing costs/benefits of investment options, and exploring participatory methods for involving the community in strategic decision-making. Useful lessons have been learned and models tested to assist community-based groups in implementing their own sustainable development.
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The discourse on social capital continues in the development arena, within which the concept is examined both as a means to an end and as an end in itself. Strengthening social capital begins at the community level. As the linkages become internalised and institutionalised, the networks created offer both state (weak or strong) and citizens a means of encouraging participatory decision making, problem identification, and problem solutions. As the Jamaican example reflects, development in small island states is an iterative process and not top-down. The paper therefore demonstrates the critical use of the concept as a part of the strategising of national development goals.
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Development in Practice has always been internationalist in outlook. Contributions are encouraged, no matter the language, from across the globe and efforts made for the journal to be accessible, including through translation. Aside from articles being translated into English, this involves the translation of abstracts, initially in the journal now on the website, into French, Spanish, and Portuguese and the publication in Spanish of five of the Development in Practice Readers. The Editor wanted to know whether such activities represented the best use of her meagre translation budget or whether there is potential for achieving more. This is a summary report from one of the Editorial Advisers, Mike Powell, who, by looking at other organisations and talking to subscribers and supporters of Development in Practice, tried to find out.
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The role of organising and disseminating knowledge as a global public good has become a major preoccupation of international development organisations. One area in which they are particularly active is support for microfinance programmes in developing countries. More recently, the microfinance `best practices' deposited in, and disseminated by, these international organisations have been associated with social capital. This paper examines the ways in which the notion of social capital is employed to explain the success of microfinance programmes. It argues that various types of social interactions that are generated around successful microfinance operations are randomly called social capital. This means that the presence of social capital does not tell us much about what sort of microfinance programmes, in terms of design and implementation, should be regarded as good practice.
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In Northeast Thailand, women are heavily involved in small-scale aquaculture. However, as aquaculture becomes more intensive, women are in charge of less. Women's decision-making power in aquaculture and in the household is stronger when women have greater material resources and knowledge than do their husbands; and the case studies on which the article draws show that what is important is not how much women have, but how much they have in relation to their husbands. The case studies also illustrate that women's gender roles and responsibilities as well as the social expectations of them limit what women will gain through aquaculture. In intensive aquaculture in particular, women are expected to invest all their resources in this activity in order to sustain the family enterprise.
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The results of a field study examined in this article show the remarkable success of a reproductive health education and community outreach project in Cambodia that has been implemented by the Ministry of Women's and Veterans' Affairs since 1995, in terms of levels of volunteer activity and impact of the project on increased knowledge and practice in reproductive health issues among the target population. A key to the project's success appears to be its adherence to principles identified, but seldom practised, such as a strong commitment to capacity building at all levels.
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Parent teacher associations or school management committees (PTAs/SMCs) are an important way of realising participation via collective action to improve schooling. Field visits, a literature search and a small sample survey are the three sources used to explore the status of SMCs/PTAs that have been established by provincial governments and NGOs in Pakistan. The main finding is that public sector reform, to alter the power relation between parents, teachers, and government officials, are needed to make participation effective in schooling. In general, NGO schools performed only marginally better than government schools in engendering participation.
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The author uses the metaphor of the development practitioner as psychotherapist in order to explore the perverse relationships of dependence and projection that may be fostered between aid agencies and `beneficiaries' unless there is a clear sense on the part of both parties that the ultimate goal is that the latter should take responsibility for analysing their situation and taking appropriate steps to improve it.
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The author examines the history of grassroots community development (CD) in rural Malawi, with reference to four case studies. The findings illustrate that while the intended beneficiaries of such `self-help' projects need to be persuaded that the costs of participation are justified, in reality the decision to participate or not is more often subject to social and other pressures, and in the past has been backed up with sanctions. The ultimate success of the CD effort may depend more on the level of political backing it can mobilise than on the support shown by poor communities.
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Zhuhai was designated a special economic zone (SEZ) as an experimentation point of economic liberalisation. This articles traces the development of the Zhuhai Special Economic Zone from a humble village to a significant economic power in southern China, focusing on industry, trade, education, and logistics.
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The adoption of participatory approaches has become virtually de rigueur in rural development projects, if only to satisfy donor demands for evidence of participation. Often, however, PRA and its derivatives are used in an extractive fashion and do not benefit local people as intended. This Practical Note reports on a project in Ethiopia in which PRA was used. An evaluation conducted with the same communities after the research phase was concluded confirmed that certain aspects of PRA had been appreciated, in particular the opportunities for peer-group learning, the process had been more top-down than most would have liked. It concludes with some simple lessons for how to avoid the obvious pitfalls, and how to ensure that local people get the most out of participating in a development project.
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In English only
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For more than a decade, resolutions from the UN and the European Commission have highlighted women's suffering during wars, and the unfairness of their treatment upon the return to peace. Yet the injustices and the hypocrisy continue. Women are reified as the peacemakers while they are excluded from peace processes. Women's suffering during war is held up as evidence of inhumanity by the same organisations that accept, if not promote, the marginalisation of women's needs during peacetime. The author reviews the processes through which these phenomena are perpetuated and outlines some ways forward which could help to break these cycles. This article also appears in the Development in Practice Reader [13]Development, Women and War: Feminist Perspectives. This article is freely available as a chapter in Development, Women and War: Feminist Perspectives
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This paper seeks to explode a number of myths about women's absence from wars and conflict; it considers some problems about their vulnerabilities in these circumstances; and offers some feminist perspectives for addressing these problems. The paper considers the conflicting demands made on women in periods of war and revolution, and argues that differing historical processes result in different post-conflict policies towards women. There is, however, a commonality of experiences that universally marginalise women in the post-conflict and reconstruction phases. Even when women have participated actively in wars and revolutions, they are heavily pressured to go back to the home and reconstruct the private domain to assert the return of peace and `normality'. This paper contends that the insistence on locating women within the domestic sphere in the post-war era may be counter-productive and located in the historical construction of nationhood and nationalism as masculine in terms of its character and demands. With the dawn of the twenty-first century and the long history of women's participation in wars, revolutions, and policy making, it may now be possible to use the symbolic importance given to them in times of conflict to articulate a different perception of nationhood and belonging, and to create a more cooperative and less competitive and hierarchical approach to politics and the reconstruction of nations and their sense of belonging. This article is freely available as a chapter in Development, Women and War: Feminist Perspectives
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The Gender Audit (GA) and associated reports and reviews drawn upon in this article enable an evaluation of how far the intervention processes at work in Kosova since 1999 have been inclusive of gender analysis and supportive of women's and girls' needs and interests. This assessment considers the strengths and drawbacks of various attempts to use and implement gender-sensitive projects. The GA was designed to support the emerging feminist reconstructive politics in Kosova. Its findings and recommendations tackle aspects of empowerment, equity, and opportunities, outlining some developments from community activism as well as outcomes of the international administration. By considering developments over a two-year period, it is possible to place issues of equity and opportunities in the context of change over time, with change at local and national levels linked with developing international dialogues. The article analyses local work undertaken by the Kosova Women's Network to overcome violence against women in war and domestic peace, and reviews international work engaged in by the Kosovo [sic] Women's Initiative (KWI). Many Kosovar women (of all ethnicities) do fully acknowledge their community membership, and recognise the risks involved in talking across their differences to achieve everyday security and reconciliation. International reports and reviews such as those produced in 2002 by the UN Secretary-General and UNIFEM on women, war, peace, and security, as well as the review of the KWI, allow an assessment of how dialogues are changing and what the potential impact of such change might be on policy development and implementation. This article is freely available as a chapter in Development, Women and War: Feminist Perspectives
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The growth in the number of 'small wars' has led to a proliferation of post-conflict reconstruction efforts. The experience in the Balkans with post-war reconstruction can provide a significant contribution to further learning, as much learning still needs to be done from the messy, poorly conceived, and chaotic manner in which the outside world stepped in and tried to help in the 1990s. Among the most important lessons that transpired is the need to include women fully in peace building. In the case of Kosovo, as elsewhere, the international effort was dominated by men, with little insight into or concern about addressing gender inequalities. This indifference in turn pervaded assistance programmes, with particularly damaging effects for local women. This article is freely available as a chapter in Development, Women and War: Feminist Perspectives
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The fact that war changes roles and responsibilities within society, while exposing men and women of all ages and classes to new threats and opportunities, has become increasingly recognised. Civil wars disrupt and destroy civilian life. Men leave, die in combat, are brutalised, lose employment, or resort to despair, violence, or apathy. Women assume enormous burdens of work and all manner of different tasks and responsibilities, lose their security and their protectors, and are victimised and marginalised. Yet few members of peacekeeping missions have any training in dealing with the civilian population, much less the specific issues relating to gender relations. In response to this, a basic training package titled Gender and Peace Support Operations has been designed for use in pre-deployment induction. This article describes the background to its development and outlines how it is expected to be used and evolve in the future. This article is freely available as a chapter in Development, Women and War: Feminist Perspectives
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Much has been written about the contribution of Palestinian women to their nation's liberation struggle. They have not only survived in an atmosphere of remorseless violence, but have also made remarkable strides in terms of their rights and development as women. A question that has been less explored is the long-term impact of violence against women, whether in terms of their physical and psychological well-being or of their ability to participate in a meaningful way either in the conflict itself or in the post-conflict situation. This paper argues that, although Palestinian women are not simply victims but also agents of violence, such violence--whether random or institutionalised, perpetrated by the enemy or by their own people--places significant constraints on their ability to participate in the national liberation struggle. Consequently, they are inadequately prepared to contribute towards the peace process and, therefore, are prevented from realising their full potential in the new state. This article is freely available as a chapter in Development, Women and War: Feminist Perspectives
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At first glance it would appear that despite women's vital participation in peace-making processes, they are for the most part marginalised or belittled. However, moving away from the idea of women as outsiders and/or victims, we find evidence of their involvement in projects initiated and driven by them and/or in activities in which they work in equal roles alongside men. Many women in conflict areas are advocating and working effectively with approaches to lasting positive peace that transcend traditional male-dominated structures and ideologies. Large numbers of ordinary women, men, and children are working mostly behind the scenes to achieve justice and equality. Women are very much involved but get far less recognition than men. The scale and diversity of largely unacknowledged but effective grassroots peace efforts worldwide, particularly among women, requires much greater recognition by the international community. This article is based on a research project that uses an oral testimony approach and a multicultural perspective to give voice to women working in the field in a wide range of transformational processes. This article is freely available as a chapter in Development, Women and War: Feminist Perspectives
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Do gender relations change through conflict? How might conflict itself be fuelled by aspects of gender identity? A recently completed research project that combined oral testimony with more conventional research methods concluded that conflict has undoubtedly given women greater responsibilities, and with them the possibility of exerting greater leverage in decision making and increasing their political participation. The research sheds light on the role of ordinary citizens as 'actors' responding to crisis, and describes how gender identities are woven into a complex web of cause and effect in which war can be seen as a 'conflict of patriarchies'. This article is freely available as a chapter in Development, Women and War: Feminist Perspectives
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This paper, based on field research in Kabul in February 2002, begins by discussing how women experience war and violent conflict differently from men, in particular by defining different types of violence against women in Afghanistan. Second, by identifying individual Afghan women, as well as women's networks and organisations, I analyse their different coping strategies and the ways in which networking and different forms of group solidarity became mechanisms for women's empowerment. Third, I demonstrate how, throughout Taliban rule, many women risked their lives by turning their homes into underground networks of schools for girls and young women. I argue that, as social actors, they created cohesion and solidarity in their communities. Their secret organisations have already laid the foundation for the building of social capital, which is crucial for the process of reconstruction in Afghanistan. In the final section, I propose that women in Afghanistan, as social actors, are optimistic and willing to participate in the process of reconstruction. As a researcher, I intend to articulate their voice, views, and demands, which I hope will be taken into consideration by policy makers and aid workers. This article is freely available as a chapter in Development, Women and War: Feminist Perspectives
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This article analyses the industrialisation process in Hazira, situated on the coastal belt of South Gujarat in India. The author sets out to gauge the impact of industrial development on land distribution, on the employment opportunities of local people, as well as on the environment. The views of different stakeholders - villagers and industrialists - are presented. The status of women is examined, in particular the kind of occupations women are involved in, their skills and earnings, the time they spend on economic and domestic activities, and the attitude of male family members towards their work.
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This paper, based on a survey of benefiting and non-benefiting farm households in Uganda's Mpigi district, analyses the Heifer-in-Trust scheme. Although the scheme is intended to alleviate the nutrition and income deficiencies of the poorest rural farmers through dairy production, the actual beneficiaries tend to be the less poor because of the expenses involved. Such is the fate of many development initiatives in which the benefits often do not reach their intended recipients, with the risk of widening the inequality gap. On the other hand, those who did benefit from the scheme, though better off from the start, were found to be very active and enthusiastic, and it was obvious that the scheme had made a significant contribution to dairy improvement. The challenge, then, remains to devise the means by which the poorest farmers can be reached.
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This paper summarises part of a research project undertaken in rural Niger. It aims to provide an insight into the development and working of grassroots organisations and the communities in which they operate. Arising from research conducted in five workshops, which involved almost 160 people from 54 community-based organisations, the metaphors of the baobab and eucalyptus trees were found to have strong cultural associations for the participants and helped explain the importance of long-term and deep-rooted interventions rather than short-term and ephemeral projects. This paper also adds to the contemporary debate within development agencies on capacity building of sustainable human development.
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The research summarised here addresses the ambiguities and discrepancies of the capacity building dialect within the aid and development industry. Three interrelated themes are found to permeate the capacity building literature, despite diverse ideological persuasions. The appropriation of these themes within the capacity building discourse is subject to critical analysis. A meta-theoretical analysis questions the ability of functionalist constructs of capacity building to reduce poverty or achieve sustainable development. From a community development perspective, equitable social transformation will occur only when the focus of `development' involves strengthening the capacities of all people, communities, and nations to create a just and equitable world.
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In English only
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Through an analysis of how Bangladeshi NGOs have become institutionalised, the author examines patterns of bureaucratisation and professionalisation to argue that NGOs are part of a process of incorporation that mediates opposition to gender and other structural inequalities. Two important tendencies - the growing partnership between NGOs, the state, and donor agencies, and the discursive shift from social welfare and redistribution to individualism, entrepreneurship, and self-reliance - exemplify these processes. The paper shows how institutionalisation, accompanied by the conflation of civil society and NGOs, masks the loss of member-citizens' voices, channelling opposition through NGOs in ways that often compromise their interests.
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This article shows how local understandings of development can be researched empirically by reference to experiences presented from three drawing workshops performed with children in the Ayacucho region in the Peruvian Andes. The children were asked to draw pictures from their community, as they would like it to become in the future. Their drawings are analysed by using an adapted form of Grounded Theory, and further interpreted as expressions of local development discourses. Although the three villages are located within the same area, and share a violent history of war and instability, the research shows how each community has its own interpretation of development.
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Full-text sample article FREE from Taylor & Francis. This paper reflects critically on issues of North-South collaboration and participatory research arising from a project on participatory and sustainable local-level environmental management in the peri-urban area surrounding Kumasi, Ghana. Rapid immigration, uncoordinated conversion of farmland to housing, intensified resource exploitation, and declining water quality and availability are particular problems there. Collaborative research arrangements with local partners as well as sustained participatory relations with selected village communities were central to this project. More generally, the paper reflects on institutional issues relating to the dichotomy between research and development assistance projects, and their implications for project evaluations.
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The `logical framework' and `logical framework approach' have become widespread planning tools, particularly in donor-assisted projects in developing countries. With its simple format and the clear relationship between variables, the logical framework is helpful for summarising main concerns relating to development schemes. At the same time, the author argues, current conventions limit the framework's usefulness; and he suggests modifications that should substantially enhance its applicability and information-carrying capacity. The logical framework approach seeks to address additional dimensions of planning. However, it is too circumscribed by standardised steps and procedures to be defended as the ubiquitous planning methodology it is commonly held to be. The `logical framework approach' is here juxtaposed with a broader and more flexible concept of `development planning', with which it should not be confused.
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Decentralisation is a policy feature common to many African countries. Local governance is therefore gaining in relevance, though not yet in clarity. Based on the experience of a development project in Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, the article examines the case of local governance in practice, grounding this in a historical analysis and focusing on the relationship between local government and civil society. Through a phased process from experimentation through piloting to lobbying, the PAMOJA project develops interface mechanisms to structure local government - civil society relations at district level. Three actors are identified for the success of the project: the external agent as process facilitator, local champions as change agents, and strategic partners for the lobby component. A successful outcome would ultimately strengthen decentralisation processes.
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Participatory research with well established, autonomous farmer groups in Uganda and Ghana examined their viewpoints and priorities concerning agricultural information. In particular, it sought to investigate the ways in which farmers identified new ideas of common interest and to explore how these ideas were shared, modified and sometimes implemented within the group or wider community. After a series of visits, it became clear that within every functioning group certain individuals played a key role not just with regard to information exchange but also in their support and encouragement of change and development within the group. These individuals, referred to as animators, exhibited clear characteristics. Though belonging to the local community, they tended to have above-average literacy levels and were usually more widely travelled than their peers. Their role was usually to support and facilitate rather than to act as leaders, and they often acted as a key channel for sharing information. The animators acted as significant catalysts in facilitating the flow of new ideas and information, and they should receive more attention and research with regard to encouraging developmental change.
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This paper seeks to understand the human development potential of a lift-irrigation scheme introduced by a development NGO in Western India. In particular, it focuses on the ways in which this micro-level intervention has been able to create conditions for enlarging the choices of the poor. The impact of the intervention, captured at the farm and household level through both conventional and PRA data, is shown to have enhanced the productivity of the land, resulting in improved food security, higher employment, and a significant reduction in distress migration, especially among women. The success of the intervention is attributed to its appropriateness to local needs and to the creation of a suitable institutional mechanism. Given its demonstrated potential, the paper emphasises the need for replicating such interventions more widely.
