Volume 16

  • This article provides an overview of issues relating to the use of knowledge by development organisations. It starts by exploring the various definitions of knowledge which exist in a world of many cultures and intellectual traditions and the role of language. It considers their relationship with each other and with the many and varied ‘informational developments’ – information-related changes in work, culture, organisations, and technology across the world. It argues that these issues pose a number of fundamental strategic challenges to the development sector. The second part looks at where, in practice, development organisations get their information and knowledge from and identifies problem areas with many of the channels used. Its conclusion is that most current practice consistently militates against the type of relationship and type of communication that are essential if development policy and practice is to be anything other than an imposition of external ideas, however well intentioned.
  • This article focuses on the development of African Studies, principally in post-1945 Europe and North America, and its counterpart in post-independence Africa. African Studies enjoys an increasingly close connection with bilateral and multilateral development cooperation, providing research and researchers (along with their own conceptual frameworks and concerns) to assist in defining and providing direction for aid and related policies. This is leading to unhealthy practices, whereby African research is ignored in the formulation of international policies towards the continent; while external Africanists assume the function of interpreting the world to Africa and vice versa. This dynamic reinforces existing asymmetries in capacity and influence, especially given the crisis of higher education in most African countries. It also undermines Africa’s research community, in particular the scope for cross-national and international exchange and the engagement in broader development debates, with the result that those social scientists who have not succumbed to the consultancy market or sought career opportunities elsewhere, are encouraged to focus on narrow empirical studies. This political division of intellectual labour needs to be replaced with one that allows for the free expression and exchange of ideas not only by Africans on Africa, but with the wider international community who share the same broad thematic and/or theoretical preoccupations as the African scholars with whom they are in contact.
  • Using autobiographical experience with reference to woodfuel research in two locations in West Africa, this paper illustrates how knowledge processes influence what can be produced as knowledge; how such knowledge is actually produced; and what is eventually produced as knowledge. However, although it explores the various roles which knowledge plays in the social relations at particular historical moments in the personal and professional development of a single individual, the questions this subjective experience raises are of wider import: whose knowledge matters? how do certain knowledges get suppressed or are denied, while others are privileged? In turn, this raises additional questions concerning the ways in which research and practice are mediated through local research, policy, and development prisms. In a general sense, the paper is about the way in which woodfuel philosophies, methodologies, and practices are constructed, modified, and maintained in existence as knowledge; and a reminder that such knowledge processes cannot truly be understood in isolation, but need to be situated within complex, diversified contexts of individual agendas, group strategies, etc, as well as in multiple sites of production.
  • This paper argues that those keen to characterise and harness the empowering potential of Information and Communications Technology [ICT] for development projects have to understand that the very existence of this technology opens up alternative models of cooperation and collaboration. These models themselves necessitate breaking away from ‘traditional’ command-and-control models of management. One alternative is to persuade participants, or potential participants, to coordinate their efforts along the lines exemplified by the open-source software movement and the contributors to Wikipedia: models of coordination that ought not to work, but appear to do so. The paper offers an outline of this argument, and then suggests ways in which NGOs in particular might try to incorporate these insights into their strategies. This is particularly critical for organisations with a reliance on increasingly pressurised funding opportunities, and which also seek to develop and engender participation and determination from within and among specific target groupings.
  • The paper examines whether the concept of social capital can facilitate our understanding of online networks in development. Much of the knowledge generation and social learning in development takes place in networks, which are increasingly online. Although these networks are assumed to be a positive force in development, there are many unknowns about them, partly because they are in their infancy. The concept of social capital has traditionally been applied to examine the functioning of groups and societies. More recently, it has also been applied to development and to online networks outside development. Three non-development approaches to examining social capital in online networks and communities are reviewed in the article. Elements of these approaches, combined with development-related aspects, are used to produce a framework to facilitate the analysis of social capital in online networks in a development context.
  • In this article, the authors reflect on the establishment and rapid evolution of an African electronic newsletter, Pambazuka News, an initiative that is rooted in the relationship between information and communication technologies (ICTs) on the one hand, and the struggle against impoverishment and injustices, on the other. Among the main learning points are that electronic publishing is a long-term commitment because of the trust established between the organisation providing the service and those using it. The immediacy of the medium enables information to move around in a range of different ways, and exerts new forms of mutual accountability. There remains, however, the critical issue of how to guarantee the resources to maintain such a service without compromising the content or diluting the purpose.
  • Knowledge in development has been perceived as a one-way commodity that developed nations could bring ‘down to’ the level of ‘developing countries’. Sharing knowledge is generally seen as a North–South operation. This vertical approach to knowledge in development echoes the vertical approach to development in general, wherebyt knowledge is perceived as an ingredient of the technical assistance given by those who have it to those who do not. However, no organisation can offer social transformation or knowledge sharing if it is not itself engaged in an internal learning process that systematically questions certainties, authorities, and decision making. Learning is a complex process of acquiring knowledge both within the organisation that facilitates social change and among the subjects of and partners in social change.
  • This article explores the motivation for, traces the development of, and details the distinctive strategy shaping The Communication Initiative (The CI), a network of those using communication to foster economic and social change in communities around the world. Network members access information and collaborate with each other through any of three knowledge websites - one with a worldwide overview and focus, one with a worldwide overview and focus on Latin America, and one with a focus on Africa - and their associated electronic newsletters. These online spaces are components in a broader process that the author terms ‘horizontal communication’, which is central to providing a non-judgmental, level platform for accessing the information and interactions that are important to those actually practising communication for development. Drawing on this approach, The CI has engaged 50,000-plus people from 184 countries over the past seven years; the author outlines the elements that have been central to this success.
  • Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have created new economic and social opportunities the world over. Their use, however, continues to be governed by existing power relations where women frequently experience relative disadvantage. Amidst this inequality are individuals and organisations that are working to use ICTs to further gender equality. These are the issues addressed by the BRIDGE Cutting Edge Pack on Gender and ICTs. This section consists of extracts from the Overview Report part of the Pack. The first, most of the section ‘ICTs as tools to challenge gender inequality and promote women’s empowerment’ (a section on women and e-government has been omitted), describes ways in which women have been able to use ICTs to support new forms of information exchange, organisation, and empowerment. The second, taken from the textbox ‘Telecentres: Some Myths’ describes three assertions which frequently lead to problems in all forms of investment in development-related information exchanges with poor or less powerful groups, not only those relating to telecentres and women.
  • We suggest that PhD and post-doctoral researchers are a strong, untapped resource with the potential to make a real contribution to global health research (GHR). However, we raise some ethical, institutional, and funding issues that either discourage new researchers from entering the field or diminish their capacity to contribute. We offer a number of recommendations to Canadian academic and non-academic institutions and funders, and aim to generate discussion among them about how to overcome these constraints. We need changes in the way graduate research is organised and funded, so there are opportunities to work collaboratively within established low- and middle-income countries (LMIC)/Canadian research partnerships. We urge changes in the way institutions fund, recognise, value, and support GHR, so established researchers are encouraged to develop long-term LMIC relationships and mentor new Canadian/LMIC researchers. We ask funders to reconsider additional GHR activities for support, including strategic training initiatives and dissemination of research results. We also encourage the development of alternative institutions that can provide training and mentoring opportunities. GHR per se faces many challenges. If we address those that reduce our potential to contribute, we can become real partners in GHR, working towards equitable global health and solutions to priority health issues.
  • This brief paper outlines a range of facilities and new developments in web-based and Internet services. While many of the applications are being used for publishing, dialogue, research, and feedback in development, the question remains of how profoundly the development of communications and in particular the Internet, is changing the international development community and the way it works.
  • This review essay surveys the theoretical insights emerging from within the Global Justice and Solidarity Movement, also known as the Anti-Globalisation Movement, or the Movement of the Movements, and also reviews the literature focused on this phenomenon from those closely involved as well as from other observers. The central concern is to understand the nature and significance of the movement of the movements as it operates across local, national, and global boundaries, and to consider its capacity to represent and mobilise the many millions worldwide who stand to gain little or nothing, but may lose a great deal, from neo-liberal globalisation.
  • This article is concerned with some initial reflections on the distinctive features of Development Studies (DS). The aim is to trigger more debate rather than attempt ‘closure’. Discussion of the nature of DS is timely because of the expansion of taught courses at various levels over the last decade or so; because of sustained critiques of DS in recent years; and because DS has entered a period of ‘soul-searching’ - illustrated by several journal special issues and events - to identify its defining characteristics. The article argues that DS is a worthwhile endeavour (how could a concern with reducing global poverty not be?) but the field of enquiry needs to think about how it addresses heterogeneity in the ‘Third World(s)’ and opens space for alternative ‘voices’.
  • In English only
  • This article examines the capacity-building experiences of two research teams in Yunnan and Guizhou provinces in southwest China who used participatory monitoring and evaluation (PM&E) to strengthen their development research actions, particularly in the area of natural resource management (NRM). The authors describe their efforts to incorporate PM&E practices in their work. The process proved challenging despite political and economic changes in China that aim to allow more space for local voice and decision-making power in the management of natural resources and other village affairs. Institutionalising PM&E has still a long way to go and will require more field practice, greater integration in the processes of organisational development, and stronger connections with agendas of political change.
  • The central argument of this paper is that many of the tools developed to strengthen for-profit businesses can be applied to NGOs to make them more effective and accountable. The paper addresses a gap in the development literature by defining and describing how business tools can be effectively transferred to NGOs. It examines the implementation of ISO 9000 Quality Standard by one NGO, the Cambodia Trust. The experiences of the Cambodia Trust demonstrate that business tools have a place in NGO management. The paper also questions the extent to which the Cambodian experience can be seen as best practice for NGOs.
  • Business Development Services (BDS) programmes have become big business for international donors and NGOs. Focusing on small enterprises in developing countries, the current BDS approach revolves around the idea that the development of commercial markets is the key to success. Yet many of these programmes continue to have a limited impact. A review of modern theories of innovation and services marketing management, suggests this may be because current BDS support practice reflects a rather limited understanding of how new markets actually develop. Drawing on the insights these theories offer, the authors suggest that BDS practice should develop a more evolutionary approach, recognising that service innovations develop through active, ongoing interaction between suppliers and customers. The article concludes with practical policy guidelines and a discussion about tools that could help BDS to adopt this more successful approach.
  • Fair-trade activities in the South have tended to be studied in relation to the internal aims of the fair-trade organisations themselves. This paper argues that it is also critical to consider the wider fair-trade ‘arena’ or set of interactions. The authors focus on the fair-trade coffee ‘arenas’ of Tanzania and Nicaragua and study the role of four key actors - small-scale producers, cooperatives, development partners, and public authorities. Using comparative data from field studies conducted in 2002-2003, the paper draws out key national and international issues affecting local producers. Illustrating how fair trade evolves differently according to context, the paper examines how the cooperative movement in Nicaragua has been strengthened by fair-trade production, in contrast to the situation in Tanzania. It concludes by looking at some of the challenges faced by fair trade, including how to reconcile the demands of the market with building solidarity.
  • This paper highlights some key factors shaping the micro enterprise sector in urban French West Africa. Drawing on interviews with micro entrepreneurs and microfinance practitioners in Benin, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Togo, this study explores the needs, characteristics, motivations, and success factors for micro entrepreneurship in the region along with some of the impediments to the growth and success of micro enterprise ventures. It was found that those operating micro enterprises in the informal economy are entrepreneurs principally by necessity and that their most basic needs tend to drive their business activities and behaviours. It was also observed that their success was constrained by a number of barriers, including poor access to capital, poor training, and general aversion to risk. As a result, the development of the micro enterprise sector in urban French West Africa has been sub-optimal and the paper concludes that this situation may persist unless broader economic and social barriers are addressed.
  • The interchangeable use of the terms microcredit and microfinance creates serious confusions and misunderstandings in both academic and policy discourses. Microcredit programmes provide mainly one kind of service, namely loan distribution and collection, while microfinance programmes provide several financial and organisational services including credit, savings, insurance, and community development. From the functional perspective, differences appear more semantic than substantive. However, the conceptual differences are fundamental because they involve both the underlying motives and the ways in which the two types of venture operate in practice. Microcredit is essentially a non-profit approach to development and depends on external support, while microfinance programmes seek to return enough profit to be self-financing. Thus, the two programs need to be treated separately in relation to their role in the alleviation of Third World poverty.
  • Ministries of Finance (MoF) cannot ignore the major challenge to development posed by HIV/AIDS. To tackle the epidemic a new comprehensive and consistent approach is required: HIV/AIDS must be mainstreamed. This paper investigates the instruments MoF do, can, and should employ in order to be proactive and effective in mainstreaming HIV/AIDS through supporting the implementation of the ‘three ones’, promoted by UNAIDS and other partners – One strategic framework, One Authority, and One Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) System. It suggests strategic paths as well as specific initiatives to exploit the comparative advantages of MoF in ensuring the implementation of national strategic plans, repositioning national authorities, and providing the basis for a strong M&E system.
  • Through an analysis of practical examples and key literature, this article considers what will enhance learning in and between NGOs and other development partners. The authors explore how the types and qualities of relationship currently evolving in the development sector affect learning, drawing predominantly on experiences of relationships between Northern and Southern NGOs. The article identifies those aspects of relationships that foster learning and those that inhibit it, and offers recommendations to strengthen learning. The authors highlight the relevance of, the challenges posed by, and the potential of partnership work, as well as the impact of accountability demands, procedures, and processes, on organisational relationships and on learning.
  • Processed by rural West African women and desired by wealthy Northern consumers of natural beauty products, shea butter seems a prime candidate for fair trade, yet to date there has been little study of the industry. This article analyses the opportunities and constraints of the development of fair-trade exports of shea butter from Burkina Faso, taking into account the context in which shea is produced and sold locally and internationally, the concept of fair trade, and the impact of gender relations on shea production. Although a definitive positive or negative determination cannot be made, given the complex and divergent factors affecting the potential international market and the production process, the author finds that the development of the fair-trade shea butter industry in Burkina Faso has great potential. However, such development must occur with restraint and consideration of possible challenges and limitations, in order to remain sustainable and viable for rural female producers
  • Summary: Microcredit is a means of providing financial services to people who lack access to conventional credit sources. New programmes in the North are endeavour to emulate successful experiences in the South. But such programmes have their own characteristics that differentiate them from those in the South, as illustrated in a case study of experience in Spain.
  • Thanks to the range of natural resources and the wealth of human capital, Vietnam is well placed to develop its aquaculture sector. Although it is one of the world’s largest producers of seafoods, Vietnam faces environmental and food security problems, and adequate planning is therefore a critical issue if acquaculture is to be developed in a sustainable fashion. In Vietnam, efforts are being redoubled in order to improve the physical conditions in which acquaculture is conducted as well as providing technical, organisational, financial, and training levels of those dependent on such activities, and to promote the development of the sector overall.
  • Reporting on AccountAbility’s 2005 Annual Conference, Hyatt observes that the Northern-driven ‘accountability industry’ is more concerned about predicting outcomes and controlling resources, and is thus largely missing the moral, political nature of accountability in terms of promoting equity and integrity, and is little concerned with the failure to learn and to encourage learning.
  • In English only
  • This article discusses humanitarian advocacy in the contemporary world within the wider crisis of political vision. Humanitarian advocacy over the last 15 years has drawn attention to how crises have been precipitated by state policies and has sought international intervention to protect people. It has consequently become associated with challenging the national sovereignty of the developing state. This article contends that the weak state is the problem, and suggests that the existing paradigm of humanitarian advocacy helps to legitimise the erosion of equality among sovereign states and the reassertion of international inequalities.
  • Colombia’s chronic war is one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. Amid armed actors, pervasive violence, and increasing militarisation, many citizens experience hostility from all sides. This violence continues the historical marginalisation of Afro-descendent, indigenous, and campesino communities and is intensified by the Global War on Terror. In this context, aid agencies are challenged in their call to respond to the needs of those who suffer. But some ‘peace’ communities are rejecting violence and seeking ways to survive within war—becoming protagonists in their own protection. This is risky; it draws accusations, threats, and attacks. Over time, the lack of sustainable livelihoods, weak internal cohesion, and antagonistic external dynamics test peace communities’ determination. This article examines four such communities and explores factors that generate and sustain grassroots protagonism, leading to suggestions for how development organisations can enhance community-level protection and reinforce local peace processes to contribute to broader peacebuilding.
  • This paper underlines the importance of grounding the analysis of humanitarian aid in an understanding of everyday practice by presenting and discussing ethnographic vignettes about three aspects of aid response in Sri Lanka following the 2004 Tsunami. The first deals with the nature of humanitarian actors, the second explores how different kinds of politics intertwine, and the third discusses the issue of humanitarian partnerships. Each vignette points to the need for detailed analysis of everyday practice as the starting point for understanding humanitarian aid. This would require a shift in current academic approaches, where discussions on humanitarian aid usually start from the level of principles rather than practice. It is argued that accounts of the everyday practices and dilemmas faced by NGOs help to counterbalance blind expectations, expose uncritical admiration, and put unrealistic critiques into perspective.
  • Why has the humanitarian world already forgotten the people of Rwanda? And why do the survivors of the Rwandan genocide continue to be sidelined, particularly those women who were raped and deliberately infected with HIV/AIDS in a campaign of systematic sexual violence? The focus of humanitarian organisations shifted from Rwanda after 1994, and these women – most of whom have to maintain their households alone – are needlessly dying because they have no access to treatment. Humanitarian and development efforts will not achieve lasting benefits without better coordination, and the ability to act on lessons learned.
  • As Tony Vaux points out in his Guest Editorial in this issue, the concept of humanitarianism applies to both war and general disaster, and is based on the principle that ‘in extreme cases of human suffering external agents may offer assistance to people in need, and in doing so should be accorded respect and even “rights” in carrying out their functions’. However, policy makers in humanitarian agencies, and aid workers on the ground, face a bewilderingly complex set of challenges in determining such ‘rights’. Gone are any comfortable certainties about what in the commercial sector is known as ‘the licence to operate’, and claims to the moral high ground of ‘neutrality’ have an increasingly hollow ring. Perhaps more to the point, such assumptions are of little practical use to frontline workers who may risk ambush, abduction, deportation, or even their lives as the result of their professional activities. Nor do outdated road maps help relief agencies to orient their decisions on whether to withdraw or continue providing material assistance in the knowledge that a proportion of it is fuelling the violence or lining the pockets of conflict profiteers. There are no standard ‘off-the-peg’ answers, because each situation must be considered on its own merits. And of course no aid agencies share an identical mandate, or have precisely the same expertise or history of involvement with the affected population – all factors that must be weighed up in deciding what is the appropriate course of action. For reasons of space, we have not sought to cover the areas of early warning, prevention, and mitigation associated with ‘natural’ disasters, although of course the two are always linked, as became very clear in wake of the Asian tsunami in Aceh and Sri Lanka. It has long been recognised that since catastrophic events disproportionately affect the poor and marginalised, they expose and may intensify existing social divides and structural injustice. For instance, in his seminal work on the 1943 Bengal famine, Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation (OUP, 1984) Amartya K Sen argued that such food shortages do not occur in functioning democracies. Similarly, Roger Plant's, Guatemala: Unnatural Disaster (Latin America Bureau, 1978) showed how the 1974 earthquake triggered an intensification in state violence that was to result in the death or disappearance of 200,000 Guatemalans and create ‘a nation of widows and orphans’. In accordance with the focus of this issue, we have given priority to publications and organisations that reflect on some direct involvement in humanitarian endeavour, rather than giving priority to more policy-oriented or scholarly works or academic institutions. We have included literature on the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, since this was such a defining event for humanitarianism; and some recent publications concerning the US-led invasions of Afghanistan in October 2001 (‘Operation Enduring Freedom’) and Iraq in March 2003 (‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’), since these have significantly redefined the global landscape of policy and practice within which humanitarian agencies operate. Inevitably we can offer only a glimpse of the growing literature in these fields, but we hope in so doing that readers, and particularly those directly involved in humanitarian endeavours, will be encouraged to explore the issues further.
  • One could be forgiven for concluding from the current debate that the ‘protection of civilians’ is something ‘done to’ the passive recipients of international largesse. Whether the macro-level interventions of the UN Security Council or micro-level attempts to reduce the negative side effects of relief action, those in need of protection are rarely seen as key players in their own futures. Although this type of external intervention can be valuable, it is a far from complete picture of how people manage to survive the effects of conflicts. This vision of protection seriously underestimates the resourcefulness of people who have no choice and in so doing misses opportunities to help communities as they are forced to adapt to their new realities. Effective humanitarian action will thus not only focus on the actions of those with a responsibility to protect, but will also support and strengthen the rational decisions that people themselves take to be ‘safe’ in conflict.
  • The paper documents lessons learnt from a study on aid partnerships in post-conflict development and peace building in Bougainville. The paper examines how donor agencies, in this case the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) through the International Women’s Development Agency (IWDA) contributed to the successes and failures of the Leitana Nehan Women’s Development Agency (LNWDA). While the donors contributed to the organisational development and capacity of the LNWDA, the balance of power remains skewed. Furthermore, the deployment of an intermediary body in the partnership exerts considerable pressure on the LNWDA as it has to deal with multiple accountabilities, thus affecting the impact of its own work on the ground. It is argued that in order to enhance the impact of their assistance, donor agencies need to develop a framework in which partnerships are sustained through mutual and less demanding accountabilities.
  • Humanitarianism and politics are more often than not considered distinct despite the increasing complexity of contemporary conflict. In some cases the separation is pushed too far and leads to unintended consequences. This article highlights the specifics of the flight of one renegade soldier and some 300 of his men to Rwanda, while the international community was plotting the road map for an ideal solution that everybody could have signed up to. This did not happen, and the article studies what caused the relevant parties to forfeit such a solution and makes recommendations for how to improve coordination and complementarity in international operations involving a range of actors.
  • This review essay explores the need to make the roles of women and of men visible in order to understand the different ways in which they are involved in, and affected by, armed conflict; and also to examine the ways in which gender roles, the relations between women and men, are changed during and as a result of such conflict. The author reviews current literature on the political economy of conflict, and feminist writing on women in conflict, noting that the former tends to be gender-blind while the latter generally fails to take an understanding of the wider Realpolitik into account. The author focuses on five recent feminist works that have attempted to do this, and hence contributed to moving the debate forward.
  • The humanitarian aid sector faces a growing skills shortage, at a time when it aspires to expand the scale, quality, and impact of its response to humanitarian needs. Rapid staff turnover has been pinpointed as one of the major constraints on both staff capacity building and organisational learning. A study undertaken for Oxfam GB (OGB) supports previous findings that traditional human resource practices in the humanitarian field, with many staff employed on short-term contracts, have inhibited skills development as well as programme and organisational learning.
  • Decentralisation, or the transfer of decision-making power and funds from central to local governments, is one of the most important reform movements in Latin America. Recent constitutional changes in Ecuador have contributed to the democratisation and empowerment of municipal governments. Case studies of three municipalities in highland Ecuador examine new opportunities for NGO-municipal government collaboration. NGOs have considerable experience of working locally and can help municipalities with planning and capacity building. Municipalities offer NGOs the legitimacy and local accountability they may lack, as well as the means both to extend project activities beyond isolated communities and to maintain the results once NGO assistance ends.
  • Scaling-up local innovations in natural resource management (NRM) involves learning that is centred around three themes: promoting local-level innovation, understanding why local innovations work in specific contexts, and reflecting on their relevance in other geographical and social contexts. Successful scalin- up depends in part upon the relationships among multiple stakeholders at different levels around this learning. The experiences of researchers supported by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) provide insights into four questions: What is scaling-up? Why scale-up? What to scale-up? and How to scale-up? The authors propose that scaling-up is a multi-stakeholder process consisting of five components including: framing the context, promoting participation, fostering learning, strengthening institutions, and disseminating successful experiences. Key bottlenecks to scaling-up are the absence of open communication and the mutual recognition among stakeholders of each other’s rights, responsibilities, and roles.
  • Epidemiological combined with experiential evidence from communities can produce important and sometimes surprising insights into gender relations, to inform policies that address changing needs. CIET has standardised a community-based cross-design for the gender-sensitive collection and analysis of three types of evidence: impact, coverage, and costs. Five steps help to ensure that women’s voices are heard in planning. Gender-stratified analysis of existing data is a starting point. Stratification of all responses by sex of the respondent prevents a numerical bias in favour of men translating into a gender bias in the analysis. Female focus groups inform survey design, interpretation, and appropriate strategies for change. Gender is a factor in risk and resilience analysis. Finally, gender-sensitive logistics ensure women’s equal participation. First-order outputs include actionable gender data to advocate in favour of women. Second-order outputs include an enabling environment for equitable development, challenging the gendered patterns of economic marginalisation.

  • Fair Trade has become a dynamic and successful dimension of an emerging counter-tendency to the neo-liberal globalisation regime. This study explores some of the dilemmas facing the Fair Trade movement as it seeks to broaden and deepen its impact among the rural poor of Latin America’s coffee sector. We argue that the efforts to broaden Fair Trade’s economic impact among poor, small-scale producers are creating challenges for deepening the political impact of a movement that is based on social justice and environmental sustainability. The study is based on two years’ research and seven case studies of Mexican and Central American small-scale farmer cooperatives producing coffee for the Fair Trade market.
  • This paper describes the research methodology followed in the ‘Livelihoods of the Extreme Poor Project’, a collaborative research project in Bangladesh between PROSHIKA (a large national NGO) and DFID (the UK government department for international development). The dual purpose of this project was to learn about poor people’s livelihoods and train the PROSHIKA research team in the use of qualitative research methods. The research findings were to be fed directly into policy formulation and the planning of new development interventions for the poorest people in Bangladesh. The paper provides an assessment of what the approach used achieved both in terms of building staff capacity and in policy influence, concluding that it has been largely successful in achieving its purpose.
  • Following the Renamo/Frelimo conflict and the 1992 Rome Accord ending hostilities, the Christian Council of Mozambique undertook to remove arms from the civilian population by trading them for development tools. The weapons were given to artists associated with a collective in the capital, Maputo. The weapons were cut into pieces and converted to sculptures that subsequently focused international attention on the Tools for Arms project, or TAE (Transformação de Armas em Enxadas). While succeeding in drawing attention to the proliferation of arms among civilians, and collecting a considerable number of arms and munitions, the project encountered difficulties in relating the production of art to the overall initiative. This paper examines the aspect of the project that produced art from weapons, with insights and observations based on fieldwork conducted for CUSO and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).
  • This paper critiques the ‘freedom-centred’ view of development by arguing that while development must be about expanding peoples’ freedoms, the dynamics of power between ‘developers’ and ‘developees’ must not be ignored. There is little analysis of the implications of multi-party political system (seemingly equated with democracy) in facilitating development and freedom. Using Malawi as an illustration, it is argued that freedom and development are inextricably linked such that one cannot function without the other. Access to basic social services, the right of democratic participation for all citizens, and the right to act as free economic actors cannot be achieved unless these freedoms are buttressed by genuine decentralised governance structures, strong partnerships among government, opposition political parties, and civil society organisations, and good governance backed by good civic education programmes on the two themes.
  • Gender mainstreaming was established in the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action as a major strategy for the promotion of gender equality. As a development strategy, gender mainstreaming requires attention to gender perspectives, making them visible and showing the links between gender equality and the achievement of development goals. To evaluate gender mainstreaming in development projects and programmes requires a squaring of evaluation criteria such as relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact, and sustainability, with gender mainstreaming indicators at both project and programme level. This paper suggests a framework for evaluating development interventions from a gender-mainstreaming perspective, with a view to integrating gender perspectives in every phase of the project cycle.
  • The extractive industrial sector, increasingly breaking new grounds in developing countries, is increasingly aware of the environmental and community issues involved in mining, including questions relating to gender. However, the main focus is on the impacts of mining on ‘women’ in the community, leaving aside practical issues related to the processes of mainstreaming gender within the company, in the workplace itself. What tools and approaches would be useful for those addressing gender issues in the mining sector, a sector that is still perceived as a masculine area of work? This short paper reports on a practical study undertaken in a privately run colliery in Indonesia. Through this example, it suggests ways in which to take a first step towards gender mainstreaming in the mining sector.
  • In English only
  • While development cooperation can cause or exacerbate conflicts, withholding aid is not the solution. The issue is how to provide aid in a manner that prevents conflict, so as to achieve sustainable peace. This Practical Note examines how NGOs have prevented and managed conflicts arising from water projects in Ethiopia. The legal framework and institutional settings in that country leave little room for manoeuvre for NGOs, so their scope for adopting a conflict-preventive approach lies mainly in being more sensitive and being non-confrontational yet firm in their style of communication. Different funding conditions, and a more conducive legal framework, are fundamental to increasing NGOs’ effectiveness in preventing conflict.
  • A visit to Ghana, with the hosts interested in developing leaders and the guest interested in developing countries, led to a questioning of both. Three approaches to development were discussed. The top-down government planning approach, discredited with the fall of communism, has been replaced by an outside-in ‘globalisation’ approach, which is now promoted as the way to develop an economy. But has any nation ever developed by throwing itself open to foreign companies, capital, experts, and beliefs? The notable success stories, including the USA, point to a third approach, inside-up indigenous development, which has worked in concert with state intervention. Globalisation thus denies developing countries the very basis by which other countries developed. This argument is woven together with a corresponding one about the development of leaders, which must also happen indigenously, from the life experiences of individuals, not programmes that purport to create leaders. We have had enough of hubris in the name of heroic leadership much as we have had enough of foreign experts pretending to develop the ‘developing’ countries.
  • Collaboration has become a watchword for development practitioners and theorists. Yet collaboration or partnerships between academics and community-based researchers and activists have often proved difficult. This is particularly true for partnerships with smaller, grassroots community researchers, who are generally less resourced than their academic partners. This paper focuses on such partnerships in gender research, with the aim of reflecting on past problems as well as successes in order to develop strategies for making such projects more truly collaborative, rather than a minefield of broken promises and unspoken (and sometimes spoken) resentments.
  • This article looks at lessons that emerge from one specific approach to bridging activism and scholarship – the collaborative research partnership between scholars and activists. What these lessons share is a focus on recognising difference in order to bring people together.
  • Decades of development practice suggest the fundamental importance of improving aid-delivery systems and stakeholder competence in order to improve the well-being of poor people. However, it is questionable whether the aid system is able to change its attitudes and values through such partnerships in a way that will do this. This paper suggests that for this change to be possible, processes of individual, organisational, and inter-organisational learning have to be encouraged, in ways that do not sacrifice the knowledge obtained by aid workers in the processes of global management. The paper explores procedures of bilaterally funded community education projects in Ghana, in order to give insights into the working of partnership arrangements as a means to contribute to the alleviation of global poverty. Critical instances from the case study projects reveal the ways in which learning is facilitated, used, ignored, and hindered as the organisational relations develop.
  • This paper considers the role of urban agriculture in addressing the practical and strategic needs of African women, and assesses the gender implications of embracing urban agriculture as a development intervention strategy. Empirical evidence from Botswana and Zimbabwe points to the multi-faceted role of urban agriculture whereby some women use this activity to support their households on a daily basis, and others use it as an avenue for social and economic empowerment over the longer term. In order to benefit rather than burden women, the promotion and support of urban agriculture must take on an emancipatory agenda, which supports individual practical and strategic goals, and ultimately challenges the structural conditions that give rise to women’s involvement in the activity in the first place.
  • There are a number of serious ethical challenges and problems posed in conducting development research in a poor country. It is argued here that the best way to ensure that research is ethical is to apply three foundation principles. By focusing on self-determinism, non-malfeasance, and justice and beneficence, it is possible to avoid the risks of an unethical, pro-forma approach. This paper discusses the particular challenges of applying standard university guidelines on ethical research to conducting social research in Uzbekistan, where to fulfil all these guidelines would prevent the research from taking place. However, by applying the most basic ethical principles, it was possible to design an ethical research project.
  • This article examines different uses of forest-based incomes by local communities in Cameroon. Following, the 1994 forestry legislation, local communities have had the opportunity to derive income from forests in the form of annual fees from logging companies, and through the creation of community forests. Currently, several village communities are benefiting from these financial mechanisms, which should allow them to reduce their chronic poverty and to develop. However, this study – undertaken in the village of Kongo – indicates how these incomes are generally poorly managed and diverted by local elites. This finding runs contrary to the poverty-reduction objective underlying the development of community forests and the allocation of a proportion of forest taxation to local populations. A profound change in direction is required, through instituting democratic local governance.
  • This Research Roundup reports on the pilot phase of BRAC’s ‘Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction/Targeting the Ultra Poor Programme’ (CFPR/TUP), which was initiated in three of the poorest districts of northern Bangladesh (Nilphamari, Rangpur, and Kurigram) in January 2002. The authors find a close link between the initial conditions of the programme participants and the degree of change they have experienced in their lives since its inception, with the most vulnerable reporting the least change. Some modifications to the CFPR/TUP are recommended.
  • Better use of research-based evidence in development policy and practice can help save lives, reduce poverty, and improve the quality of life. But for this to happen more effectively researchers need to do three things. First, they need to develop a detailed understanding of (a) the policy-making process – what are the key influencing factors, and how do they relate to each other?; (b) the nature of the evidence they have, or hope to get – is it credible, practical, and operationally useful?; and (c) all the other stakeholders involved in the policy area – who else can help to get the message across? Second, they need to develop an overall strategy for their work – identify political supporters and opponents; keep an eye out for, and be able to react to, policy windows; ensure the evidence is credible and practically useful; and build coalitions with like-minded groups. Third, they need to be entrepreneurial – get to know, and work with the policy makers, build long-term programmes of credible research, communicate effectively, use participatory approaches, identify key networkers and salespeople, and use shadow networks. Based on over five years of theoretical and case-study research, ODI’s Research and Policy in Development programme has developed a simple analytical framework and practical tools that can help researchers to do this.
  • This Practical Note examines the design and implementation of Community-Driven Development (CDD) programmes, using the Kecamatan Development Programme (KDP) and the Urban Poverty Programme (UPP) in Indonesia as case studies. Launched in 1998, both have been praised as successful twin CDD pilots, allowing community groups to gain control over financial resources and decision-making processes. Despite similarities, the paper finds that different CDD approaches have been adopted, for various reasons. By exploring the rationales and trade-offs of these different approaches, the paper offers deeper insights into how CDD principles can be translated into local practices.
  • This paper describes a technique used to evaluate an NGO support and development project in Nepal. The project has been operating since 2000 or before in five Districts of Nepal and has the primary objective of assisting NGOs to work more closely with the poorest and most disadvantaged people in their catchment areas. The impact evaluation methodology used is both participatory and qualitative, but does arrive at quantified ranking estimates of project value-added in terms of stages of empowerment. The results suggest the project has been successful in developing the internal capacities of the NGOs and improving relationships with poor and disadvantaged people, but that the impact on their livelihoods is more limited even after three or more years of intensive inputs.

  • Aid agencies provide significant funding for research that is directed at socio-economic development. These agencies typically require out-of-country (OC) researchers to work with in-country (IC) researchers on such projects. Moreover, building the research capacity of IC researchers is often an important objective. This paper is written from the perspective of an OC researcher engaged in building the research capacity of IC researchers.
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