Volume 3

Most UK development NGOs engage in advocacy work at the international level in an attempt to reduce the constraints imposed on grassroots development by global economics and the actions of the official aid agencies. Thus far, their record has been disappointing, and this paper explores some of the reasons which lie behind the failure of NGOs to fulfil their potential in this field. Four strategic weaknesses are identified: an overall absence of clear strategy, a failure to build strong alliances, a failure to develop alternatives to current orthodoxies, and the dilemma of relations with donors. Each weakness is analysed with reference to practical examples, and appropriate conclusions drawn. This article is freely available as a chapter in Development and Advocacy.

The author discusses issues about the role of NGOs and their relations with the state and the community. The term NGO does not help us to distinguish between grassroots groups, intermediary organisations, and international organisations and the author feels such distinctions would be useful. Claims are currently being made about the potential of NGOs to bring about social change, and focus is often placed on NGOs as if they all have a common role and common characteristics. The author advocates development `from below', and argues that the real development challenge is more about building sustainable processes than about influencing international policy. This article also appears in the Development in Practice Reader Development and Patronage.

A visit to a number of small enterprise and income generation projects supported under the ODA's Joint Funding Scheme in Zimbabwe and Kenya has raised a series of key points which have wider implications for practitioners and donors. The paper discusses each point and makes nine `recommendations' for NGOs and donors who support them. While the general benefits of NGOs - such as their relatively low cost, ability to reach the poor and innovativeness - is affirmed, the challenge facing NGOs is to progress further from this base. In particular, the paper argues that NGOs need to develop more business-like operations, focusing on the most practicable forms of enterprise structure but without losing their priority of seeking to benefit the poor and other disadvantaged groups. Technology-orientated projects need to ensure that they concentrate on the application of technology in a market context rather than its development per se. NGOs with donors need also to strive for a realistic definition of sustainability, to work towards a more credible project planning process and to be aware of the dangers of very visible and expensive investment in project transport undermining NGOs' efficiency.

The author gives a personal view describing the inequalities inherent in current global socio-economic and political arrangements. He identifies training, employment and allocation of development funds as issues fostering inequality between North and South, and discusses prospects for the future of their relationship. This article also appears in the Development in Practice Reader Development and Patronage.

The Institute of Rural Management at Anand (IRMA) in Gujarat, India, convened a workshop in April 1993 involving social scientists, environmentalists and gender experts, from India and the UK. Discussions centred on the application of gender analysis to the relationship between women, men, and the environment, and its implications for development and environment practice. Participants felt that NGOs working on gender-aware development must first analyse their own internal structures.

The first British conference to bring together practitioners and academics from both education and development fields was held in May 1993 at the University of Central Lancashire, England. Organised by Thorn Development Services, with support from Christian Aid, the conference explored what development education is, what its assumptions are, and what happens in other countries. Participants established that the primary need in the field was for greater communication and information-sharing between the various people practising and thinking about development education.

As the development agenda becomes more and more led by the preoccupations of Southern non-government organisations (NGOs) it becomes increasingly crucial that good communications flows are encouraged and maintained between development practitioners. Project staff have frequently been the underclass of the development world, often isolated, left to execute decisions made by others, poorly serviced in terms of training and information and none more so than the women amongst them. Yet they are the very people on whom the implementation of good development practice rests. The Arid Lands Information Network (ALIN) was established in 1988 specifically to address some of the needs of this group. Using a number of methods, it has sought to encourage and facilitate the sharing of information and ideas between development workers at village/project level and to build confidence and provide a platform for their concerns and views. The ultimate aim is not to increase membership of the ALIN `club', but rather to foster the desire to communicate and share experience, and to take control of the process of networking.

Although Zambia's deteriorating macroeconomic situation has created a difficult environment for business, it also creates opportunities for the emergence of small- and micro-enterprises. Recent government policy reforms affecting these firms are discussed along with existing programs for credit, training, technical assistance, and common-site facilities/business incubators. The current programs are limited in scope relative to the potential demand and qualitative improvements are needed. Time-phased options for assisting small- and micro-enterprises are discussed.

This paper looks at a project funded by the Intermediate Technology Development Group aimed at allowing more households in Western Kenya to have access to improved wood-burning stoves, while at the same time benefiting the women who produce them. The basic concept behind the project is to develop a commercial market for the stove. The paper looks at the difficulties facing the organizations involved in this venture, as the provision of stoves moves from a subsidized to a commercialized approach. Abstract supplied by kind permission of CABI.

The author reports on a workshop on `Construction sans Bois' (woodless construction) jointly run by Development Workshop and IUCN (The World Conservation Union) and held in Agadez, northern Niger, in December 1991. After giving a brief history of these `Nubian' vault-and-dome architectural techniques, the author charts the growth in the use of woodless construction in the Sahel over the last 15 years. Unstabilised earth-brick buildings are relatively cheap and simple to construct, the skills, once learned, are easily replicated, and with increased local training there is this sustainable form of housing can continue to spread in usage in the region and elsewhere.

The author reports on a conference held in London, England in November 1992 as part of Global Partnership '92 which considered the alarming increase in forced migration. Participants argued that immigration controls do not tackle the causes of migration, and international law is inadequate, failing to satisfactorily distinguish between immigration and asylum issues. The particular concerns of economic migrants and guest workers are discussed. The majority of discussion was from the Western European perspective.

Studies on resistance often overlook its gendered nature. This article looks at everyday resistance put up by village women against the Forest Department in Western India, within a historical context. It then examines recent attempts at organised resistance in the region. Analysing how both everyday resistance and marginalisation are connected to the gender-determined roles of women, the article argues that more conscious and deliberate efforts will have to be made if women are to organise for change. This article is freely available as a chapter in Development and Culture.

In September 1990 we became involved with the Centre for the Defence of the Child (CDM) in Brazil, with a view to participating in a survey into the lives of streetchildren that was being conducted by the group. The CDM is a branch of its parent organisation The Young Streetvendors' Association and takes on individual cases of streetchildren providing crisis management with social, psychological and legal support. It was decided to start a project of regularly taking a team of staff out of the building, onto the streets and into the areas where the streetchildren, were with the aim of providing a programme of support and self-esteem building, principally for the streetgirls. This project proved a success with the streetchildren and remains so following our departure from Brazil.

The article identifies some of the problems in information technology in developing countries, and is based on field research into the use of computers in health programmes in East Africa and Nepal. The visits were part of an ODA-funded project to design guidelines on the selection, use and maintenance of computers in a developing country. The article focuses on the current state of the technology, problems of selecting hardware and software, the training and retention of staff and access to information and support services. It suggests reasons for the current situation and offers some practical solutions.

This paper introduces the PAEM, a programme working with Christian women in the rural parishes of Santa Barbara, Colon, Comayagua, Intibuca, and Lempira, all departments of Honduras. PAEM has a number of overall aims, which include to bringing together the women of each area as well as other less privileged women from nearby regions. The paper looks at PAEM's methodological contribution; women, communication and culture; challenges and perspectives; and the oral tradition and gender. This article also appears in the Development in Practice Reader Development and Social Diversity. Abstract supplied by kind permission of CABI.

The main purpose of extension work is to assist and encourage learning, and current thinking on the way adults learn suggests that the social context in which the learning takes place and the attitudes of the target group are as integral to their learning capacity as effective communication. The importance of learners' capacity for engagement with the subject matter, and the ability to draw out this capacity, should be more prominent when training extension workers.