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Development management is an umbrella concept that encompasses many specialised areas, from theories of what constitutes 'development' through to a range of schools and practices in the field of management studies, all within the context of prevailing political, economic, social, and cultural realities. The setting will differ significantly according to local circumstances, such as whether these are primarily rural or urban economies, or whether countries have devolved or centralised systems of government. The focal point of development management, however, is that of value-based public action in order to achieve a set of social goals that favour equity and inclusion. In establishing the boundaries for this selective bibliography, we have therefore focused on the intersections among development actors, be these official aid agencies, governments, the private sector, NGOs, civil society organisations (CSOs), academic or policy research institutions, or other entities rather than on abstract development theories, or on management textbooks. Nor have we sought to include more than a tiny sample of the many universities and training institutions working in this field, since readers will tend to explore local or regional options in the first instance; similarly, we have excluded the various UN organisations and all but a few bilateral aid agencies since their materials are widely disseminated and readily accessible. Rather, we have concentrated on publications that explore the problematic nature of social institutions that operate within the development context, for instance in terms of their public accountability, their gendered nature, their handling of power, and the assumptions they embody about the needs and perspectives of those cultures and social sectors whose worldviews do not shape the mainstream policy framework.
The bibliography was compiled by Deborah Eade and Nicola Frost, Editor and Reviews Editor respectively of Development in Practice, with some input from staff at The Open University.
Raymond Apthorpe and Des Gasper (eds.): Arguing Development Policy: Frames and Discourses, London: Frank Cass in association with EADI, 1996.
Public policies are not simply statements of intention but also incorporate values, considerations of legitimacy, and assessments of constraints, all of which combine to shape a chosen course of action. The chapter by Gasper assesses various tools to analyse policy arguments and reveal the components that structure them, the core ideas that frame them, and to judge how policies are presented and structured. He argues that since tactics build structures, the systematic reading of policy can help illuminate the broader conceptions that underpin particular arguments.
Robert Chambers: Whose Reality Counts? Putting the First Last, London: IT Publications, 1997.
A sequel to the 1983 Rural Development: Putting the Last First, this book urges development professionals to reconsider the power relations at work in their engagements with people in the South, and to develop new approaches and methods for interaction, learning and knowing. It also reflects on the development of participatory rural appraisal (PRA)-based techniques, examines the challenges of bad practice, and explores how a new professionalism could continue the change in behaviour and practice. Chambers has published widely on participatory approaches to development.
Emma Crewe and Elizabeth Harrison: Whose Development? An Ethnography of Aid, London: Zed Books, 1998.
Drawing on their experience with both UN agencies and small NGOs, the authors examine the underlying assumptions about issues such as progress, culture, partnership, and social diversity in the theory and practice of development; and at how these understandings are rooted in inequitable power relations. Conflicting value systems within aid agencies, and between these and the diverse values of the societies within which they intervene, call for a far more nuanced account of policy and practice than the dominant discourse is willing to accommodate.
Anthony Davies: Managing for a Change: How to Run Community Development Projects, London: IT Publications, 1997.
The author offers a straightforward overview of the key stages of planning and running a community development project and looks first at problem identification and analysis, moving on to mobilising a group, planning, resource identification, project funding, basic book-keeping, project supervision, and implementation. There is advice on all aspects of the process including decision making, leadership, employment of contractors, and evaluation. For more information about IT Publications management list, see the entry for Bookaid International.
Jean Drèze and Amartya Sen: Hunger and Public Action, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989.
This is an influential and intellectually rigorous study, which examines the complex causes of and reaction to chronic hunger. It notes the positive role that political pluralism and participation can play in eradicating hunger and deprivation, urging a perception of the public, not merely as 'the patient' whose well-being commands attention, but also as 'the agent' whose actions can transform society.
Michael Edwards and David Hulme (eds.): NGOs, States and Donors: Too Close for Comfort?, Macmillan, 1997; NGOs - Performance and Accountability: Beyond the Magic Bullet, London: Earthscan, 1996; Making a Difference: NGOs and Development in a Changing World, London: Earthscan, 1992.
These volumes emerged from two conferences that were organised by the editors in 1992 and 1994 and thus reflect the preoccupations of Northern and large Southern NGOs in the early 1990s. Making a Difference looks at different ways to scale-up NGO impact, for instance by partnering with governments, by becoming service-providers, by expanding the scale and scope of their programmes, or by undertaking advocacy work whether to shift public policy or to influence public opinion. Too Close for Comfort? and Beyond the Magic Bullet seek both to re-define what NGOs are best at (and against whose criteria to prove this) and to explore the opportunities and risks inherent in becoming dependent on acting as channels for official aid - both volumes focusing on questions of downwards or two-way versus upwards accountability.
Patrick Fitzgerald, Anne McLennan, and Barry Munslow (eds.): Managing Sustainable Development in South Africa, 2nd edn, Capetown: OUP, 1997.
South Africa has a wealth of practical experience in attempting to transform the old-style public administration into a more developmental management culture and has also sought to encourage critical thinking on development management by NGOs, consultants and trainers, and several university departments. The Graduate School of Public and Development Management at the University of the Witwatersrand was largely responsible for this volume, in which over 30 researchers and practitioners explore what sustainable development means, and how it can be managed in post-apartheid South Africa. The contributions together have something to say about virtually all aspects and sectors of development, and the lessons can be applied in any context of reconstruction and development.
Alan Fowler: Striking a Balance: A Guide to Enhancing the Effectiveness of NGOs in International Development, London: Earthscan, 1997.
NGOs face multiple and often conflicting demands and expectations that come from a wide range of stakeholders, usually based in the North as well as in the South. The author of this reference and source book argues that to be effective, NGOs must be able to balance these tensions. First, their internal systems need to be appropriately linked with those of relevant external bodies. Second, their own structures and organisational culture must be coherent in themselves and consistent with their purpose. Third, NGOs must be able to deal with the ambiguities and dilemmas that are inherent in the aid system and intrinsic to development processes.
Anne Marie Goetz: Getting Institutions Right for Women in Development, London: Zed Books, 1997.
The author offers a gendered analysis of a range of development organisations, looking both at the state and at multilateral organisations and at less formally bureaucratised institutions such as NGOs and womens organisations. Goetz builds a conceptual framework for exploring the gendered politics and procedures internal to the institutions which design and implement gender policy, and applies this to the analysis of case studies from around the world.
Naila Kabeer: Reversed Realities: Gender Hierarchies in Development Thought, London: Verso, 1994.
Development can be seen simply as a planned process by which resources are put together for specific ends, or in terms of processes of social transformation unleashed by the attempts of several agencies to achieve various and often conflicting goals. Charting the process of development in this broader sense requires an awareness of the hierarchies, constructs, and assumptions that underpin the work of these agencies, and of the often unintended, and gender-differentiated, consequences of their interventions. Kabeer argues that hierarchies of knowledge and ideas conceal entrenched hierarchies of interests, giving rise to particular representations of disadvantaged groups, and translating into organisational forms, rules, and practices that reinforce these representations. A significant challenge to entrenched gender biases can emerge from women's collective action over self-identified interests.
Allan Kaplan: The Development Practitioners Handbook, London: Pluto Books, 1996.
Despite the title, this is not a how to manual but a series of reflections on the nature of development practice and the role(s) of practitioners (whether agency personnel, external consultants, or community activists) in facilitating change processes. While the author regards this work as systematic and not simply haphazard, if development is essentially about growth, the qualities most prized in the practitioner who seeks to accompany and nurture that growth are those of flexibility, imagination, and the ability to work with ambiguity and contradiction. This calls for guidelines, principles, and value-based criteria rather than for rules and bureaucratic procedures.
Carol Miller and Shahra Razavi (eds.): Missionaries and Mandarins: Feminist Engagement with Development Institutions London: IT Publications with UNRISD, 1998.
In this collection of seven essays on various aspects of feminist engagement (or disengagement) with development bureaucracies in different national settings, whether multilateral, governmental, or non-governmental, contributors examine both the discourse of development (how women's presumed interests and needs are translated into policy), the rules and procedures that govern decision-making and resource-allocation, and the ways in which femocrats seek to influence policy and practice. The overall message is that while development institutions are gendered (i.e. they reflect and reproduce gender power relations), they are neither monolithic or impermeable, nor are they static.
Martin Minogue, Charles Polidano, and David Hulme: Beyond the New Public Management: Changing ideas and practices in governance, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 1998.
A critical enquiry into the new public management (NPM) model, as applied in both developed and developing countries, the authors provide an overview of the current theoretical debates in public management, drawing on material from development studies, economics and political science as well as management studies. They conclude that NPM most closely lives up to its revolutionary claims in developed countries, whereas in developing countries a closer examination of alternative strategies, rather than simple criticism, is needed.
Gareth Morgan: Images of Organization, new edn., London: Sage, 1997; Imaginization: The Art of Creative Management, London: Sage, 1997.
Morgan is a management thinker whose views are relevant to any kind of organisation and who does not assume that business-based values should apply elsewhere. In Images of Organization he uses various metaphors to explore different views of what organisations are (organisations as machines, as brains, as political systems, as psychic prisons). In Imaginization he suggests practical ways to use metaphors in management situations in order to explore creative possibilities for action. His unconventional ideas, cartoon drawings, and group activities are backed up with theory arguing why such methods are necessary within an unpredictably changing world. See the website at www.imaginiz.com for more information.
David Mosse, John Farrington and Alan Rew (eds.): Development as Process: Concepts and Methods for Working with Complexity, London: Routledge, 1998.
This book considers a process approach to information management in development, both as a method of monitoring and participatory appraisal, and as a new perspective on the development project as a whole. It acknowledges an increasing emphasis on longer term behavioural changes over immediate concrete products. Contributions consider aspects of inter-agency partnerships, policy reform, and organisational learning, in relation to process documentation.
Nici Nelson and Susan Wright (eds.): Power and Participatory Development, London: IT Publications, 1995.
The contributors demonstrate that participatory development and research generate power relationships between institutions and communities and also affect power relationships within communities. The concepts of power, participatory development, and community are critically analysed by drawing on debates within anthropology, feminism, and development studies. These themes underpin detailed case studies of participatory interventions in both North and South. The book argues that shifts of power between agencies and beneficiaries, and within recipient communities, are necessary for participatory research and development to be effective.
Mike Powell: Information Management for Development Organisations, Oxford: Oxfam, 1999.
In the context of an exponential growth in the rate of information flows, and the new opportunities afforded by electronic communication, the author argues that development managers and practitioners along with other social actors need to review their own information needs as well as re-considering how they might best generate, store, and use information in order to shape and sharpen their work in the years to come. The book includes an annotated list of print and web-based resources.
Dorcas Robinson, Tom Hewitt, and John Harriss (eds.): Managing Development: Understanding Inter-Organizational Relationships, London: Sage, 1999.
Changing institutional imperatives, terminology, and political agendas have created spaces for new types of relationships to emerge between groups and organisations. This book asks how such relationships can be managed so as to build the intended public action and outcomes of development interventions. This book examines the challenges and opportunities presented by the current interest in the partnership approach to development cooperation. It explores the diversity of inter-organisational relationships, and the sometimes contradictory array of relationships promoted by policy makers, noting how forces of competition, coordination, and cooperation constantly influence these relationships.
Mark Robinson (ed.): Corruption and Development, London: Frank Cass and EADI, 1998.
The current interest in corruption is fuelled by the prevalent good governance and democratisation agenda of donors and by the major shifts in relations among social actors that have been fostered by economic globalisation. There are crucial differences, however, in what is understood to constitute corruption; the explanatory framework that is used (e.g. whether it is assumed to be motivated by self-interest, permitted by a weak civil society, or reflects the political power associated with groups and resources allocated by the state); and in terms of how best to tackle it depending on whether it is as incidental (individual), institutional (e.g. the police service), or systemic (i.e. entrenched or societal). The volume constitutes seven essays on corruption, international development, and anti-corruption strategies in Asia and Africa and concludes that in each setting, complementary strategies are needed in order to tackle corruption on all fronts.
Chris Roche: Impact Assessment for Development Agencies: Learning to Value Change, Oxford: Oxfam and Novib, 1999.
Using in-depth case studies from Oxfam and Novib and their counterparts in developing countries, this book considers the process of impact assessment and shows how and why it needs to be integrated into all stages of development programmes from planning to evaluation. Its basic premise is that impact assessment should refer not to the immediate outputs or effects of a project or programme, but to any lasting or significant changes that it brought about. From a theoretical overview, the book moves on to discuss the design of impact-assessment processes and a range of tools and methods, before illustrating its use in development, in emergencies, and in advocacy work. It ends by exploring how different organisations have attempted to institutionalise impact assessment processes and the challenges they have faced in doing so.
Peter Senge et al (eds.): The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: Strategies and Tools for Building a Learning Organization, London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 1994.
The ideas and techniques presented in this book are all rooted in actual practice and experience. Defining a learning organisation as one that is focused on marrying the development of every member with superior performance toward the organisations collective purpose, the contributors believe that the more its members increase their ability to learn collaboratively, the more they can accomplish, the higher their performance, and the more effectively they can hope to change the world for the better. Learning organisations may be corporations, small businesses, schools, hospitals, government agencies, non-profit organisations any enterprise where people gather to accomplish something they could not create alone.
Ian Smillie: The Alms Bazaar: Altruism Under Fire Non-Profit Organizations and International Development, London: IT Publications, 1995.
An honest and wide-ranging study of international development agencies, looking at their origins and motivations, and tracing their development since 1945. The book focuses on the implications for NGOs' independence of changing relationships between them and donors, UN agencies, and governments. It goes on to look at how NGOs themselves are evolving, with the advent of transnational mega-charities. (For other publications in which Smillie has been involved, see the entries for INTRAC and the OECD Development Assistance Committee.)
Naoki Suzuki: Inside NGOs: Learning to Manage Conflicts Between Headquarters and Field Offices, London: IT Publications, 1998.
Drawing on both personal experience and interviews, the author examines the internal dynamics of NGOs. She highlights the tensions between field and head office, recognising that the former deals largely with beneficiaries, while the latter often has more contact with donors. The book provides insights on how to create a framework for action that would reconcile an NGO's objectives with those of the programmes it supports. It looks at how to balance staff diversity with organisational unity (although while most NGO field workers are women, there is no attempt to assess these issues through a gender framework), and the similar tensions between systems and flexibility. The author makes practical suggestions for promoting understanding and openness.
Alan Thomas, Joanna Chataway and Marc Wuyts (eds.): Finding Out Fast: Investigative Skills for Policy and Development London: Sage (in association with The Open University), 1998.
Aimed at practitioners who want to investigate policy issues and policy processes, those who commission research, and those who want to become better at assessing research, this book, with contributions from 19 diverse authors offers practical approaches, but is not a simple set of guidelines. It includes a chapter on journalists approaches to investigation, and one in which the use of case studies is discussed. Other sections discuss qualitative and quantitative methods, and the limitations of quick and dirty investigations, as well as practical guidance on how to conduct literature searches and analyse institutional accounts.
Tina Wallace, Sarah Crowther and Andrew Shepherd: Standardising Development: Influences of UK NGOs Policies and Procedures, Oxford: Worldview Press, 1997.
In the wake of the general shift among Northern development NGOs towards more formalised systems of planning and evaluation, this book provides insights into the working of UK-based NGOs. The book draws on interviews with donors and NGO staff, as well as the proceedings of a joint workshop, and emphasises the complexity of many large agencies. It examines the impact of these changes on ways of working both in the UK and in developing countries, and includes an assessment of the growing contract culture between agencies and donors.
Marshall Wolfe: Elusive Development, London: Zed Books, 1996.
In this insider critique of global development as a project and specifically of the international development agencies within which he worked for almost 50 years, the author describes a series of benighted and increasingly jargon-ridden efforts to discern (or impose) a rational and benevolent order on reality, essentially through financial and technical means. The problems range from mandate shift as agencies seek to respond to the immense complexity of their task by taking on ever more roles and priorities (the Protean effect), to the difficulties even in properly defining such basics as poverty (be it absolute, extreme, abject, or merely relative) and its eradication. If change happens, it is through the interplay of values, priorities, prejudices and apathies rather than through formal development interventions.
Marc Wuyts, Maureen Mackintosh and Tom Hewitt (eds.): Development Policy and Public Action, Oxford: OUP/Open University, 1992.
This core text in development studies and development management courses is innovative in treating development policy as an activity of many different types of public institution - public action. It thus moves away from public/private dichotomies and opens up development policy to a wider public sphere that includes case studies of street children and child labour, the emergence of private interest among civil servants, the ambiguous public/private nature of NGOs, the implications for public action of womens organisations and empowerment, and virtuous circles of social development within a responsive state. The book questions classic concepts of the public sphere and expands the notion of public action, both exploring the negative impact of structural adjustment while also emphasising the possible range of new forms of conscious activity of people and organisations in effecting change.
World Bank World Development Report 1997: The State in a Changing World, Oxford: OUP, 1997.
This issue of the Bank's annual report examines the changing role of the state, taking into account issues such as privatisation, service provision, and globalisation; and emphasises the importance of good governance for development. The Report goes on to explore the economic implications, but also looks at issues of decentralisation, accountability, participation, and consultation. It advocates new forms of partnership with civil society to enhance state effectiveness.
Journals
Public Administration and Development: published by John Wiley and Sons, ISSN: 0271-2075, Editor: P. Collins.
Focusing on the practice of public administration at all levels where this is directed to development in less industrialised and transitional economies, PAD gives special attention to investigations of the management of public policy formulation and implementation that have transnational influence, including the management and policy of para-statal organisations or corporations. The journal also examines the implications for state administration of NGOs and private corporations involved in development activities. Volume 17 is especially relevant to management debates involving the voluntary sector.
Development in Practice: published in five issues per volume by Carfax Publishing Ltd on behalf of Oxfam GB, ISSN: 0961-4524, Editor: Deborah Eade.
A forum for practitioners, policy makers, and academics to exchange information and analysis concerning the social dimensions of development and humanitarian work. As a multidisciplinary journal of policy and practice, it reflects a wide range of institutional and cultural backgrounds and a variety of cultural experience. Thematic compilations of papers published in the journal are also available in the Development in Practice Readers series. Titles of particular relevance to development management include Development and Patronage (1997), Development with Women (1998), and Development, NGOs and Civil Society (forthcoming).
Journal of International Development: published in six issues per volume by John Wiley and Sons in association with the Development Studies Association, ISSN: 0954-1748, Editors: Paul Mosely and Hazel Johnson.
Aiming to publicise the best research on development issues in an accessible form, regardless of which particular school, analytical technique or methodological approach it represents JID's focus is on the social sciences - economics, politics, international relations, sociology, and anthropology - but papers that blend the approach of the natural and the social sciences in relation to a development problem are also published. Volume 8(1) includes Alan Thomas paper What is Development Management?, and volume 11(5) focuses on New Public Management.
World Development: published monthly by Elsevier, ISSN: 0305-750X, Editor: Janet L. Craswell.
Recognising 'development' as a process of change involving nations, economies, political alliances, institutions, groups, and individuals, the journal seeks to explore ways of improving standards of living, and the human condition generally, by examining potential solutions to problems such as: poverty, unemployment, malnutrition, disease, lack of shelter, environmental degradation, inadequate scientific and technological resources, international debt, gender and ethnic discrimination, militarism and civil conflict, and lack of popular participation in economic and political life. Volume24(4) includes Joel Samoffs Chaos and Certainty in Development.
IDS Bulletin: published quarterly by the Institute of Development Studies ISSN: ISSN 0265 5012, Editor: guest editors for each issue.
Intended for all those involved in development work - field workers, administrators, planners, students and teachers - the Bulletin is designed to bridge the gap between professional journals and journalism. Each issue is guest-edited and features a theme, which is explored from a variety of angles. Volumes 23, 24, and 26 include articles of particular relevance to development management.
New Leadership: published quarterly by the Caribbean and African Self-Reliance International (CASRI) in Canada. This new journal takes a bottom-up approach to leadership for community transformation within its primary constituency of people of Caribbean and African heritage worldwide.
Organisations
Asian NGO Coalition for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ANGOC): An association of national and regional NGO networks from 10 Asian countries engaged in food security, agrarian reform, sustainable agriculture and rural development activities. ANGOCs efforts to strengthen the voluntary sector in Asia include hosting an annual Asian Development Forum on key development themes, enabling the provision of specific services in areas such as NGO management, and information sharing for more effective advocacy work. ANGOC also facilitates practical exchanges and internship arrangements among NGO personnel. E-mail: angoc@angoc.ngo.ph; Web: www.angoc.ngo.ph/
Bookaid International/Intermediate Technology Publications: Bookaid International produces a user-friendly list of resources relating to the management of NGOs, available through Intermediate Technology. The collection includes titles covering training and participation, research and evaluation, and finance, as well as more theoretical topics. Entries provide guidance on language complexity. More practical titles include the two-volume Manual of Practical Management for Third World Rural Development Associations, 1997. Web: www.bookaid.org/resources/ngo/index.html
Centre for Voluntary Organisation [Anke NB no s], London School of Economics: A teaching and research centre, interested in problems and issues arising from the work of voluntary agencies and NGOs and the implications for public policy. Research findings are tested and disseminated through publications, postgraduate teaching, and applied research projects. With the Mandel Center at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, the CVO also sponsors the journal Nonprofit Management and Leadership. A series of International Working Papers, available online, includes: NGOs and participatory management styles: a case study of CONCERN Worldwide, Mozambique by James Sheehan; and Are expatriate staff necessary in international development NGOs? A case study of an international NGO in Uganda by Sarah Mukasa. E-mail: cvo@lse.co.uk; Web: www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/CVO/
CIVICUS - World Alliance for Citizen Participation: An alliance of organisations committed to strengthening citizen action and civil society worldwide, Civicus believes that private action for the public good can take place either within the civil sphere or in combination with government or with business and that a healthy society needs an equitable relationship among these different sectors.
Two recent publications include Kumi Naidoo (ed.) Civil Society at the Millennium (co-published with Kumarian), 1999; and Laurie Regelbrugge (ed.) Promoting Corporate Citizenship: Opportunities for Business and Civil Society Engagement, 1999. CIVICUS also produces a useful newsletter, available on e-mail. E-mail: info@civicus.org; Web: www.civicus.org/
Community Development Resource Association (CDRA): A non-profit NGO which works throughout sub-Saharan Africa to promote a just civil society by offering consultancy services (training, accompaniment, facilitation) to build organisational capacity, and by publishing materials arising from its experience. Its annual reports, which are available on its website, are particularly thought-provoking and are generally critical of the technocratic and project-based view of development. E-mail: cdra@wn.apc.org; Web: www.cdra.org.za/
Harvard Institute for International Development: A multidisciplinary centre for coordinating development assistance, training, and research on Africa, Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, and Latin America. Training programmes tend towards economic issues, as does the extensive collection of working papers. A recent book from the Institute is Getting Good Government: Capacity Building in the Public Sectors of Developing Countries, Merilee S. Grindle (ed.), 1997. E-mail: info@hiid.harvard.edu; Web: hiidgate.harvard.edu/
Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore: One of the premier management schools in the Indian sub-continent, with a strong focus on development and gender issues with the presence of Professor Gita Sen, one of the founding members of the Southern feminist network DAWN. The Institute publishes a quarterly journal, Management Review. Web: www.iimb.ernet.in/
Institute for Development Policy and Management, University of Manchester (IDPM): A multi-disciplinary unit specialising in management and development in developing and transitional economies, IPDM offers various postgraduate degrees and short professional courses, including some in-country training. Several series of full-text working papers are available online, covering human resources, policy, information technology and finance, among others, e.g. Participation, 'process' and management: lessons for development in the history of organisation development, William N. Cooke IDPM Human Resources in Development Group Working Paper No. 7, 1996. E-mail: idpm@man.ac.uk Web: www.man.ac.uk/idpm
Instituto Brasileiro de Análises Socias a Econômicas (IBASE): One of Latin Americas largest social research NGOs, IBASE maintains an extensive citizens website with information and bibliographies (works written in and translated into Portuguese) on subjects of major concern in development management, including citizenship, gender, the environment, and social movements. E-mail: ibase@ibase.br; Web: www.ibase.org.br/
International Development Research Centre (IDRC): A public corporation created by the Canadian government to help communities in the developing world find solutions to social, economic, and environmental problems through research. An extensive publishing programme includes many French-language titles, and some also in Spanish. Many publications are available in full online. IDRCs research programme supports or facilitates research into a wide range of development challenges. Working web sites provide ongoing information about current projects. E-mail: info@idrc.ca; Web: www.idrc.ca
International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED): Promotes sustainable patterns of world development through collaborative research, policy studies, consensus building and public information. A number of research programmes are hosted by IIED, many of which involve management or planning. The resource centre can organise worldwide document delivery and can help with literature searches. A CD-ROM database of documents on participatory learning and action (PLA) is available free to those from non-OECD countries (as are many of the documents themselves). Publications include an NGOs and Institutions list, with papers such as: NGOs and the Informal Sector in Africa: what links and for what purpose? 1998. E-mail: mailbox@iied.org; Web: www.iied.org
International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD): IISD seeks to promote sustainable development in decision making internationally and within Canada, through contributing new knowledge and concepts, analysing policies, disseminating information about best practices, and building partnerships to amplify these messages. IISD works with businesses, governments, communities, and concerned individuals, using Internet communications, working groups, and project activities to move sustainable development from concept to practice. An excellent website has hundreds of documents relating to all aspects of IISDs work, and conference and workshop reports from its reporting services. E-mail: info@iisd.ca; Web: iisd.ca/
International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR): IIRR seeks to strengthen the institutional capacity of government and NGOs to serve better the needs of the rural poor through training, consultancies, technical advisory services, publications, and audiovisuals. An annual international course is run on rural development management. Web: www.panasia.org.sg/iirr/
International Training and Research Centre (INTRAC): INTRAC is primarily an NGO support organisation that offers training in capacity-building and institutional development. INTRAC is also involved in ongoing programmes in Central Asia and Malawi. Its research and training programmes feed into publications ranging from newsletters to occasional papers and co-published works, substantial summaries of which are available on its website. Relevant titles include: Peoples participation in development projects, Peter Oakley, 1995; NGOs and the private sector: potential for partnerships? Simon Heap, 1998; and Partners or Contractors? Official donor Agencies and direct funding mechanisms Ian Smillie et al., 1996. E-mail: intrac@gn.apc.org Web: www.intrac.org
New Economics Foundation (NEF): NEF works to construct a new economy centred on people and the environment and combines research, advocacy, training, and grassroots practical action in furtherance of this aim. As well as providing advice to UK government and NGOs, it also supports the work of partner organisations in developing countries. E-mail info@neweconomics.org Web: www.neweconomics.org/
Development Assistance Committee (DAC), Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development: Part of OECD, the DACs current work concentrates on supporting partnerships and cooperation. Two publications examine some of the implications for NGOs identified in the research: NGOs and Governments: Stakeholders for Development Ian Smillie and Henny Helmich, Development Centre of OECD, 1993; and Stakeholders: Government-NGO Partnerships for International Development, Ian Smillie and Henny Helmich (eds.), in collaboration with Tony German and Judith Randel, London: Earthscan, 1999. OECDs website includes many additional documents looking at development cooperation. Web: www.oecd.org//dac/
Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA): This Delhi-based organisation is dedicated to providing opportunities for sharing information between NGOs and other civil society groups, promoting inter-sectoral dialogue, and analysing social and development trends and policies. Its resource centre plans to make some of its information available online. The website is well organised and informative, with an extensive list of publications (unfortunately without dates), including several titles in Hindi. PRIA publish two periodicals, Journal on Institutional Development and Bulletin on Participation and Governance as well as Global Alliance News. PRIA's topics extend also to occupational and environmental health, literacy, and women's empowerment. PRIA is a member of the NGO Working Group on the World Bank, chairs the sub-group on Participation, and is also the secretariat for the International Forum for Capacity Building (IFCB). E-mail: pria@sdalt.ernet.in Web: www.pria.org
The World Bank: The Bank has an NGO/Civil Society website, which aims to keep civil society organisations (CSOs) informed of opportunities for interaction with the Bank. It includes a number of key policy documents, as well as practical guidelines. Web: www.worldbank.org. A number of Northern government agencies have recently published guidelines or reports on their partnerships with NGOs. AusAid's paper, Working with Australian NGOs (1999), outlines a framework for ongoing partnerships. Web: www.ausaid.gov.au/. USAIDs New Partnerships Initiative promotes strategic partnering for collective problem-solving at the community level. Web: www.info.usaid.gov/. The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), among other Scandinavian governments, has also recently produced a evaluation of development cooperation through NGOs. Web: www.sida.gov.se.
