Volume 5

  • A discrepância entre os objetivos das políticas e os beneficiários é aparente no desenvolvimento rural. Uma das razões é que falta às populações rurais poder político para influênciar nas políticas decisórias que afetam os seus meios de vida. Se o desenvolvimento rural é para beneficiar estas populações, a influência na decisão de políticas deveria andar lado a lado com o desenvolvimento destas políticas. Idealmente, ambos agentes governamentais e políticos devem comprometer-se a apoiar o plano de ação destas populações, e qualquer intervenção governamental deve refletir respostas políticas para as demandas do povo.
  • A posição e contribuição das ONGs no setor da saúde mudou nos últimos anos. Seu perfil e o tamanho de seu setor foi aumentado e suas atividades são frequentemente diferentes das inicialmente realizadas. Em muitos lugares as ONGs são vistas como o meio de fazer com que o setor da saúde avance, entre outras coisas, estas são consideradas como sendo mais eficientes e confiáveis do que muitos governos de países em desenvolvimento. Este artigo explora este desenvolvimento e examina em particular um aspecto que tem sido relativamente ignorado - o relacionamento entre os governos e o setor das ONGs no campo da saúde. Este conclui analisando os meios práticos que podem ser realizados para melhorar tal relacionamento.
  • In English only
  • Existe uma tensão, reconhecida, entre as necessidades dos práticos em desenvolvimento por informações acuradas sobre temas-chave e as rotinas normais dos estudos acadêmicos em desenvolvimento. Diminuir esta distância existente envolve, entre outras coisas, elaborar novos caminhos de organização e realização de pesquisa. Este artigo, escrito por um acadêmico, concentra-se especialmente em uma forma de combinar métodos interativos de avaliação rápida com estilos mais convencionais de pesquisa, de forma a construir uma ligação entre a lacuna do `micro-macro'; isto é, torna claro as tendências políticas nacionais através da exploração de respostas da comunidade e dos proprietários. Este descreve duas pesquisas de grupo realizadas na Tanzânia e Zâmbia por iniciativa da agência oficial da Suécia (SIDA).
  • Rapid population growth and its effect on the environment is one of the main concerns of development practitioners. Computer modelling tools have been used to explore the effects of proposed interventions, allowing agencies to quickly see where methods might be incompatible or have adverse or unexpected effects. The GIS is one such system, and is open to abuse if used to legitimise existing policy. The author sets out a two-process Policy and Decision Support System, which he feels is more context specific and less open to abuse since it involves the end-users in the development of the exploratory models. Using Operational Research techniques in combination with Complex Systems Modelling, he argues, should ensure that the design and implementation of programmes can be carefully explored and mutually agreed.
  • The author considers the coping strategies used by the newly poor households of the now-independent nation-state Kyrgyzstan. Like other former members of the Soviet Union, Kyrgyzstan has fared badly economically since the disintegration of both the Union and complex economic links with it. In 1994, Save the Children Fund (SCF) carried out research into these coping strategies, the findings of which are briefly presented here. Full details can be obtained from SCF in a report entitled `Coping with the Transition: Household Coping Strategies in Kyrgyzstan' (SCF, December 1994).
  • This conference, held in Lanzarote in April 1995, attracted delegates from NGOs, academic institutions, governments and the private sector, although representatives from the largest airlines, holiday companies and hotel groups were conspicuous by their absence. NGO-workers were concerned with shifting governments et al away from so-called nature tourism and towards the promotion of ecotourism. The final day of the conference was used to draft the Charter for Sustainable Tourism, for presentation to the UN.
  • The author responds to Mike Powell's article in Development in Practice 5(3), and argues that it is not only those interfering in cultures as 'outsiders' who face difficulties and accusations of cultural subjectivity, but also those challenging norms as a member of that culture. Those presenting views which go against traditional social structures, such as the author's views about the treatment of women in South Asia, should not allow accusations of cultural relativism to dissuade them - rather, development practitioners should 'use culture to open up intractable areas of gender relations'. This article is freely available as a chapter in Development and Culture.
  • The author argues that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), rather than NGOs, are the most cost-effective and efficient ways of developing and distributing new technology to end users (the poor).
  • Quais são as oportunidades existentes nos Programas Primários de Saúde (Primary Health Care - PHC),para a comunidade local se tornar envolvida no processo de criação, construição e manutenção de sua própria estrutura de saúde? Este artigo observa três projetos de PHC em Sierra Leone e Uganda envolvendo ONGs, governos e comunidades locais na construção de centros de saúde; cada um dos quais é apoiado pelas organizações Save the Children Fund, Action Aid e Oxfam. Estes exemplos são utilizados para estabelecer temas que necessitem de monitorização e avaliação dentro dos programas FHC, objetivando promover o envolvimento da comunidade em um processo de produção e sustentação de centros de saúde a nível local.
  • In 1992, UNICEF and the Organisation of African States (OAU) jointly proposed that 1994-2003 should be the Decade of the African Child. The author identifies nine challenges for Africa, and the rest of the world, if African children are to have an improved quality of life. These include promoting true empowerment, including health and nutrition policies in development policies, recognising that poverty may preclude people from adopting best practice e.g. in health, combating the erosion of mothers' ability to provide adequate child care, continuing to finance primary and adult literacy education, decentralising and democratising primary health care (PHC) and providing early warnings against predictable climactic disasters.
  • In 1978 at Alma Ata, the date was set for achieving `Health for All by the Year 2000'. Achieving this seems more remote than it did then, due in part to Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs), the author argues. In Nicaragua, as elsewhere, structural adjustment provoked the redirection of resources away from public sector spending, including health care spending, and towards exports. The author advocates reasserting and implementing the Alma Ata recommendations in order to counteract this continuing erosion of health care. This article also appears in the Development in Practice Reader [13]Development for Health.
  • NGOs have recently become a favoured mechanism for official development assistance: in 1994, half of all projects approved by the World Bank made provision for NGO involvement for implementing them; 75 per cent of these NGOs were Southern. Such flattery means that NGOs are in danger of seeing themselves as essential to development. Here, the author reflects on the rise of what he calls the `EN-GE-OH'. While some donor agency and NGO staff might find this Viewpoint somewhat caustic, most will recognise more than a grain of truth. The article is reprinted from the journal Chasqui, translated and adapted by the Editor. This article is freely available as a chapter in Development NGOs and Civil Society.
  • A survey in the Rakai District in 1989 put the number of orphans at 25,000; by 1991 a population census counted 44,000, a growth the author attributes to the AIDS pandemic. The Child Social Care Project (CSCP) in Rakai works with widows and orphans to address their property rights, seeking to reduce the vulnerability of women and children under both customary and statutory law. The author discusses the work of the Project, and advocates continued processes of education and sensitisation to change attitudes, accompanied by legal reform. This article also appears in the Development in Practice Reader [13]Development for Health.
  • NGOs are receiving and distributing increasing funding for projects attempting to help traumatised victims of political violence. The author argues that many of these projects are ill conceived, failing to recognise that one aim of modern warfare is the dissolution of the social fabric and that survivors will be trying to manage their distress in damaged social environments. Also, the Western conception of mental trauma does not provide an adequate model for understanding the complex and evolving experiences of those in war-affected areas. Social development should be foremost in NGOs' efforts, as opposed to the conception of the traumatised simply as patients who need to be treated. This article also appears in the Development in Practice Reader [13]Development in States of War.
  • In English only
  • Este artigo trata de certos temas relacionados à religião, à cultura e ao desenvolvimento, em parte para ajudar a estabelecer um contexto para o resto desta edição. Ele considera que a religião e/ou bagagem cultural de muitas agências e de individuos do Norte, afetam o plano de desenvolvimento. Argumentando que valores de culturas locais definem o que o desenvolvimento significa, ele analisa alguns assuntos culturais -- política e moral, temática e prática -- que aparecem na interação do Norte com o Sul. Ele conclui que a história das intervenções, independente de seus motivos, tem sido muito infeliz. Já é tempo de se ter um papel de apoio, a medida que as pessoas no Sul fazem com que o desenvolvimento seja parte de sua própria história.
  • From 1989, an attempt to improve agriculture by directly addressing ignorance and fatalism has been developed in Benin by an Italian NGO, Mani Tese, based on attempts to provide traditional peasant farmers with better qualifications and greater motivation. The approach consists of funding a network of school-farms, or Centres of Rural Promotion (CRPs) dedicated to teaching modern agricultural techniques in an appropriate and local context. The main aim of the strategy is to create a new kind of peasant farmer: one who has a good technological/cultural background, and is able to exploit all the locally available resources in a sustainable way. The paper discusses the importance of employing local personnel, and some of the problems that still need to be met (such as developing effective post-training assistance). It is concluded that this form of development aid allows the NGO to entrust the ultimate beneficiaries with as much responsibility as possible, and therefore allow the project to become autonomous. Abstract supplied by kind permission of CABI.
  • The paper notes that in India, even when a village or household level survey is carried out for water-resource development, the usual standards of data collection are applied, and women's central importance in water use is thus not reflected. However, women are likely to be more visible in local planning exercises; and the active and effective roles of women in water management are impossible without such planning. The paper is an outcome of the Foundation for Public Interest's experience in community-based water-resource development and management projects, particularly within the areas of Mahesana, Banaskantha, and Sabarkantha in Gujarat and, to a lesser extent, some involvement in Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu. It emphasizes the need for increased recognition of women's capacity for water management, the shift in policies resulting from FPI's involvement in this area, problems with neglecting local initiatives and resource limitations, and the importance of building local capacity to ensure good operation and maintenance, and the generation of local investment. Abstract supplied by kind permission of CABI.
  • In 1992 and 1993 fieldwork was done in the Eastern Region of Ghana to examine why hybrid cocoa, introduced by cocoa institutions, was adopted by some farmers and not others. This report discusses the problems encountered when collecting data, including the low-level of farmers' education, and the lack of official records and sampling possibilities.
  • The author presents a personal view of an international conference on the use of financial services in the reduction of poverty, held at Reading University in the UK, with participants from NGOs, academic institutions, and Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs), as well as donors. The conference, according to the author, paid insufficient attention to the nature of poverty, measuring it in economic terms only, and failed to make clear potential difficulties with subsidised credit schemes, as well as putting forward a simplistic conception of financial technology transfer.
  • A maioria das mudanças sócio-econômicas que ocorreram na África e em muitos países do Sul são externamente direcionadas. A gências estrangeiras, frequentemente, ligadas com ao Estado, ignoram os trabalhadores e não envolvem estes no processo de tomadas de decisões. Sua abordagem econômica ignora a cultura das pessoas e sua visão de mundo. Isto nega aos trabalhadores a capacidade criativa para adaptar novas técnicas e conhecimento de sua realidade concreta. Este artigo coloca a importância da referência de uma base histórica e da centralização da cultura no processo sócio-econômico. O autor argumenta contra uma abordagem que não seja culturalmente familiar para os trabalhadores.
  • Doenças mentais são uma importante causa de incapacidade nos países da África do sub-Saara e são raramente incluidas em atividades de desenvolvimento relacionadas com saúde. Este artigo examina o relacionamento entre doenças mentais, religião e cultura, referindo-se, como exemplo, à experiência dos autores no Zimbábue,. Eles enfatizam a importância de se ter uma visão e entendimento que sejam simpatizantes com as crenças religiosas e com um contexto social de angústia psico-social, ao invés de simplesmente traduzir conceitos e idéias desenvolvidas em sociedades da Europa e da América do Norte.
  • Até o começo dos anos 80, apesar da defesa da importância do papel do `capital humano', a maioria dos tomadores de decisões estavam obsecados no desenvolvimento fiscal e no aumento do Produto Interno Bruto. O Egito, assim como outros países do Terceiro Mundo seguiram este modelo. Entretanto, há dez anos a trás, com o acúmulo da dívida externa e o aumento da desintegração social, ficou claro que os investimentos nos esquemas de infra-estrututa foram poucos ou mesmo negativos. Cultura, comunidade, e liderança orgânica foram redescobertos como os elos perdidos no processo de desenvolvimento. Estas e outras formas de vida associativas são as vezes sub-entendidas no conceito de `sociedade civil'. Desenvolvimento tem sido definido como um processo em que as potencialidades humanas são aperfeiçoadas ao máximo, a níveis individuais e coletivos. Este artigo ilustra a interação entre estas variantes, com referência a exemplos de desenvolvimento de comunidades de base.
  • Esta é uma avaliação da experiência do autor como conselheiro no Ministério da Eduacação da República Democrática do Povo do Lao. Este artigo analisa criticamente o papel do perito estrangeiro, o contexto em que o seu conhecimento é provido ou mesmo imposto e as barreiras efetivas de comunicações existentes. Este analisa, também, os pontos positivos, uma vez que estes assuntos tenham sido abordados.
  • Estes são dois pequenos casos estudados que ilustram o fracasso que espera a qualquer estrangeiro que tenta mudar a realidade social de outra sociedade sem dar-se ao trabalho de entender o que já existe, o que esta sociedade quer e ou está preparada para aceitar.
  • The paper discusses the Restaurant Programme started for women in 1991 by the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC). A restaurant may be opened under individual ownership with a maximum loan of Taka 6500, after which a current account for the individual is opened with BRAC. This money is withdrawn in installments according to the entrepreneur's needs and repayment is collected in daily or weekly installments, with an interest rate of 20%. Like most rural restaurants, these enterprises sell tea, snacks, and meals. By January 1993, there were 273 'Shuruchi Restaurants' (restaurants for good food) all over the country. The paper reports on an exploratory study undertaken by BRAC's Research and Evaluation Division, involving five restaurants selected from Manikganj, Jamalpur, and Sherpur districts. The main focus was to examine how far women's entrepreneurial capacity has developed, and to assess whether women have control over their business. Rapid rural appraisal and participatory rural appraisal techniques were used for data collection. Abstract supplied by kind permission of CABI. This article is freely available as a chapter in Development with Women.
  • The Nilgiris Adivasi Welfare Association (NAWA) was founded in 1958, in Tamil Nadu, India, to work for the integrated welfare of the six Nilgiri tribes, all displaced and dispersed by the invasion of their forest homelands by incoming non-tribal peoples. The paper describes the original founding of the Paniya Rehabilitation Farm colony for 25 families who were bought out of bonded labour by the founder. After initial hope that the project would succeed in becoming self-reliant, the paper discusses the areas of the project which lost momentum, the lack of outside funding, the increased involvement of NAWA in supporting the Paniyas, and their seeming long-term dependency on NAWA. Abstract supplied by kind permission of CABI.
  • Oxfam in Ethiopia has long been concerned that community-based development programmes should reflect local felt needs and priorities. Particularly where there has been a long history of engagement in a given area, a diagnostic survey has proved to be a valuable and flexible self-monitoring tool to re-assess development objectives with community groups. A diagnostic survey uses rapid rural appraisal techniques in a series of dialogues and interactions. The intention of the survey described in the paper was to determine whether the development programmes of Dubbo Catholic Mission (mother and child health services and water supply) were appropriate development activities for communities which had not previously been involved. The paper notes the constraints on agricultural production, as identified by groups of men and women, problems associated with health, and mother and child health care. Problems were ranked and collated from two peasant associations. The priority needs were: clean water, a health clinic, and fertilizers. In response to this, the Dubbo Catholic Mission was able to implement projects to address some of these problems. This article also appears in the Development in Practice Reader Development and Social Diversity. Abstract supplied by kind permission of CABI.
  • In English only
  • O `controle do poder' é uma expressão usada em trabalhos de desenvolvimento, mas esta é raramente definida. Este artigo explora o sentido desta expressão, dentro de seu contexto conceitual original - que é o poder. Diferentes entendimentos do que vem a ser o significado da palavra `poder' leva a várias interpretações do que seja `controle do poder' e isto, consequentemente, oferece várias implicações para o desenvolvimento de políticas e de práticas. A terminologia `controle do poder' faz com que seja possível analisar o poder, desigualdade e opressão, mas para ser válido no esclarecimento de práticas de desenvolvimento, este conceito requer uma definição precisa, deliberada e prática.
  • This Note reports on research into differences in the contractual agreements made by workers and employers, offering insights into the working of markets (particularly for labour and credit) and, using case studies, showing the constraints on the free movement of rural workers because of indebtedness to employers. The researchers use socio-economic analysis frameworks and the author argues their use of local conceptualisations and their concentration on workers rather than employers makes their work more useful than conventional economic analysis.
  • Enquanto que a desigualdade em relação ao gênero tem sido há muito tempo reconhecida no desenvolvimento formal de políticas, esquemas para aliviar a pobreza geralmente apresentam uma discrepância na incorporação de critérios de análises de genêro. Este artigo explora a experiência das ONGs que já implementaram, com sucesso, análises de genêro nas formulações de intervenções anti-pobreza. Este artigo mostra que o aumento da experiência organizacional das mulheres pobres é um aspecto muito importante para se assegurar que suas necessidades e perspectivas instruam o processo de planejamento. O artigo conclui que as mulheres continuarão sendo uma categoria marginalizada no desenvolvimento, ao menos que elas tenham o controle do poder para moverem-se acima de um `projeto-armadilha', fazendo parte na formulação de políticas e alocação de recursos.
  • As populações mais idosas, que já são um fenômeno estabelecido nos países do Norte, estão também crescendo nos países do Sul. Esta transição demográfica está, no entanto, ocorrendo no Sul sem o crescimento da riqueza que acompanhou a industrialização no Norte. Este artigo analisa as várias dimenções do problema no Sul, incluindo a situação sócio-econômica e de saúde das pessoas idosas e seu papel na família e na comunidade. O artigo questiona se as mundanças no status das pessoas idosas são referentes a modernização de forças ou se é decorrente das desiguladades estruturais (diferenças em relação a riqueza ou posição social) que existem em todas as sociedades, mas são particularmente prevalecentes nos países mais pobres do Sul.
  • A capacidade tecnológica é a base para o desenvolvimento econômico, mas analises de entrevistas realizadas com os trabalhadores de ONGs internacionais, localizadas no Reino Unido, sugerem que este aspecto é raramente abordado, expressamente, quando ajuda para o trabalho de desenvolvimento está sendo considerada. Ao contrário, os valores essenciais destas organizações tedem a determinar sua atitude em relação à tecnologia, resultando que seu impacto no desenvolvimento da capacidade tecnológica possa ser contraditório. Este artigo surgiu com analises de 11 empresas de pequeno porte no Zimbábue, que recebem ajuda de ONGs. Algumas destas empresas tem um grande potencial para desenvolver capacidade tecnológica, e outras parecem estar presas em um círculo vicioso de pouca qualificação, de pobres qualidades empresariais e em um sistema econômico extremamente hostil. As ONGs precisam desenvolver critérios tecnológicos apropriados de forma a exercer um impacto positivo no desenvolvimento de projetos por elas auxiliados.
  • The author presents his views on the essential ingredients of development, comparing the development ideal with its reality. Development is about change for the better, which must be appropriate (culturally, economically, technologically etc.) if change is to take root, and gain the participation of beneficiaries. Equity and justice are at the heart of any change for the better, as is sustainability. True development cannot be measured in solely economic terms, but must also include changes in the quality of lives, which are less tangible. Development as a process is not just a `Third World' issue but a universal concern, encompassing responses to over-development as well as under-development. This article also appears in the Development in Practice Reader [13]Development and Social Diversity.
  • The Peasant Road, or La Via Campesina (LVC) as it is officially named, is being improved. It started at the initiative of a number of farmers' organizations during the 1992 Second Congress of the Nicaraguan Farmers' Union, UNAG. In the face of structural adjustment programmes and increasingly laissez-faire economic policies, bound to ruin many small farmers, they called for a programme of cooperation between farmers' organizations. The general objective of LVC's programme is the search for alternatives to current neo-liberal policies. It is more than a protest movement against farmer-hostile policies. Proposals for a truly democratic rural development are necessary, based on research carried out in cooperation with scientific research institutes and public authorities. Contrary to past experience, the research agenda should be determined by the farmers and their organizations, and not by scientists and policy makers. Farmers are tired of being research objects: they want to do the research by themselves, because they know what they are talking about when they draw up their own development proposals. Abstract supplied by kind permission of CABI.
  • The phenomenon of Mozambican refugees in Malawi dates back to the time of Portuguese colonial rule. However, it is the spectacular magnitude of today's influx which has attracted national and international attention. By the close of 1992, Malawi was hosting over one million Mozambican refugees in 12 of the 24 districts. The paper grew out of an ethnographic study, with the overall objective of examining the motives for and the impact of the provision of humanitarian assistance on the refugees and host-country populations. The central argument of the paper is that by applying traditional ideas about men's and women's roles to the recruitment of trainees for income-generating activities, women's development potential remains largely untapped. Alternative approaches to working with women have to be actively sought, to ensure that the process of development is fruitful as well as gender-fair. This article also appears in the Development in Practice Reader [13]Development and Social Diversity. Abstract supplied by kind permission of CABI.
  • The paper presents a brief account of a development programme in southern Mexico. DESMI AC, a Mexican NGO based in the southern state of Chiapas, provides and encourages economic and educational assistance to groups of marginalised indigenous Indians, in order to help them improve their quality of life. In the early days, DESMI's efforts were focused on health and training in cooperatives. As ideas on social development themselves changed, so DESMI gave increasing emphasis to education and production, stressing the need for collectively organized productive activities to be underpinned by a shared understanding of and commitment to the broader objective of social transformation, as well as being backed up with administrative skills. Abstract supplied by kind permission of CABI.
  • The author discusses Alan Gibson's article of the same name (Development in Practice 3(3)). Nyamugasira expands on Gibson's discussion (limited, according to the author) of the problems faced by practitioners forced to balance the adoption of more business-like operations with continuing to benefit the greatest possible number of people.
  • In English only
  • Este artigo explora o futuro das ONGs nativas e estrangeiras na China pós-Mao. A complexidade do emergente setor de ONGs na China é ilustrada pela tipologia das novas organizações sociais que floreceram nos últimos dez anos. O autor considera os fatores favoráveis a expansão deste setor intermediário como de atividade quase não governamental, mas também analisa os fatores que reprimem, para um futuro próximo, a emergência de um vigoroso setor das ONGs. As ONGs estrangeiras estão desejosas em desenvolver ligações na próxima Conferência Internacional da ONU sobre a Mulher, estas devem estar preparadas para trabalhar em conjunto com Partidos/Estados e organizações sociais semi-oficiais.
  • The author charts the progress of the United Nations (UN) in moving towards a more holistic view of human rights, specifically drawing examples from their resolutions about the phenomenon of forced eviction. He argues that campaigners, organisations and trade unions should use the strong UN resolutions on this issue to protect the right to housing, since most governments are not likely to publicise or necessarily comply with UN pronouncements. This article also appears in the Development in Practice Reader [13]Development in States of War.
  • The accountability, performance, programming and legitimacy of NGOs in the so-called New Political Agenda of economic privatisation and `democratisation' was the subject of a conference in June 1994, jointly organised by Save the Children Fund (SCF) and the Institute of Development Policy and Management, University of Manchester. The author discusses participants' attitudes towards the best targets for NGO resources and effort, the problem of NGOs' increasing concern to be accountable to donors at the expense of their accountability to beneficiaries, the pressure (often State pressure) on NGOs to become service-providers, and the difficulties of relying on official donors. The lack of reference to gender-based inequalities in the formal sessions was an area of concern.
  • This workshop was hosted by the Open University (OU), inviting development practitioners, academics and OU associates to share ideas about the design of a new OU Diploma/Master's Programme in Development Management. The author reports on the participants' views about issues the course should cover, including discussion of the nature and scope of development management in general, how North-South relations are best considered, and the importance of promoting institutional development.
  • Este artigo engloba uma grande coletânea de informações sobre as ONGs internacionais e cubanas e outras agências; este explora os temas que são enfrentados pela sociedade cubana para superar as rápidas mudanças econômicas e examina porque uma Nova Ordem Mundial não proporcionou um significativo envolvimento com Cuba , tanto por parte de agências inter-governamentais como por ONGs independentes. Este descreve os pápeis de organizações financiadas pelo estado em manter os principais ganhos em termos de desenvolvimento alcançados nos útimos 30 anos. Este argumenta que as ONGs, que têm como objetivo promover a `democratização', precisam evitar cair em hipóteses simplistas e inapropriadas sobre a distinção entre Estado e `sociedade civil'.
  • Este artigo sumariza temas identificados em um estudo, realizado para a Fundação HIVOS da Holanda e para a Divisão de Desenvolvimento do Ministério do Exterior Holandês, que inclui um trabalho de campo de 45 ONGs ambientalistas em sete países africanos. Este criou um arquivo institucional para auxiliar nas estratégias de ajuda das agências que comissionaram a pesquisa, e forma uma base de análise sobre alguns assuntos gerais, referentes ao papel e ao comportamento dos vários tipos de ONGs.
  • Em decorrência da diminuição das guerras na América Central, a região está passando por extensas mudanças em sua economia e no papel do Estado,particularmente no crescimento do parque industrial e pela redução do setor público. Entretanto, a pobreza tem aumentado e está associada com os altos indíces de violência e de delinquência, assim como está associada com a diminuição das reservas alimentares. O desafio que as forças sociais da região têm que enfrentar, assim como as ONGs tal como a Oxfam, é o de desenvolver uma alternativa auto-sustentável, enquanto que responder, também, as necessidades do presente.
  • An aid programme's potential contribution to social development is increased if those designing and administering it are informed about the social context in which aid is provided. A key factor in the British government's aid programme is the Overseas Development Association's (ODA's) understanding of social development. The author gives her views on ODA policy and basic questions that should be asked when undertaking a social-impact analysis of a proposed aid activity, including questions around issues of participation.
  • The World Bank's reliance on market forces when trying to achieve economic growth produces problems when implementing the Bank's strategies. The author puts forward his view that poverty should not merely be defined in terms of income, and that the struggle against poverty should respect the culture and views of the poor themselves, building into programmes the flexibility to respond to their views and enhance their political influence.
  • The World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) believe that the increase in poverty as a result of Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) is a short-term consequence and that the benefits of SAPs filter down, in the longer term, to the least privileged members of society. Emergency Social Funds (ESFs) are designed to protect vulnerable people from the worst of this impact. ESFs try to ensure income through infrastructural and income-generating schemes, as well as feeding and nutrition programmes. The author criticises the use of ESFs as temporary safety nets, and discusses the role of NGOs in the ESF system.
  • The use of the `development limited liability company' (LLC) is expanding. There are important differences between the broad social goals of development and the narrow economic ones of the LLC: they are concerned with people and profit respectively. The author discusses the problems likely to arise when NGOs attempt to use LLCs directly, as part of their administrative or funding arrangements.
  • `Social integration' is one of the three main agenda items for the World Summit for Social Development (to be held in Copenhagen, March 1995), as identified by the General Assembly of the United Nations. This term is ambiguous and can be understood in a variety of ways, not all of which are equally useful. The author describes trends of social integration, encompassing issues around globalisation and insecurity, marginalisation and identity, and democracy, representation, and accountability.