Feedback

Development in Practice has always been internationalist in outlook. Contributions are encouraged, no matter the language, from across the globe and efforts made for the journal to be accessible, including through translation. Aside from articles being translated into English, this involves the translation of abstracts, initially in the journal now on the website, into French, Spanish, and Portuguese and the publication in Spanish of five of the Development in Practice Readers.

In the context of inequity which makes achieving `health for all' extremely difficult, Where Women Have No Doctor attempts to give access to health information to those who lack it. The authors applaud the book, and stress that there is great need for this information, despite criticism from the book's reviewer in Development in Practice 8(3).

The authors respond to some of the criticisms of Where Women Have No Doctor (Development in Practice 8(3)). They argue that, far from it being dangerous to give medical information to low-literacy, untrained people, the reverse, i.e. no information at all, can lead to more damaging attempts at health care.

The author gives personal feedback on a review of this publication (Development in Practice 8(3)). She argues that the reviewers' criticisms in respect to the book's treatment of abortion and intra-uterine contraceptive devices, and it's failure to consider cultural and religious sensitivities, were unsubstantiated or incorrect.

The author gives personal feedback on the Practical Note `How to pre-evaluate credit projects in ten minutes' (Hank Moll, Development in Practice 7(3)). She argues that it is difficult to give yes or no answers to the three checklist questions Hank Moll proposed, and that it might be disadvantageous to do so without fully understanding the underlying issues.

Fundamental conceptual tensions underlie current debates regarding the implementation of psychosocial interventions with war-affected populations. Three particular tensions structuring current discourse concern the generalisability versus uniqueness of relevant knowledge, the valuing of technical versus indigenous understandings, and the planning of targeted versus community-based intervention. The implications of working out these tensions in the implementation of programmes are explored, leading to the proposal of a model of phased response to psychosocial needs.

The author replies to Hasan Zaman's comments (in the same issue of the journal) about micro-credit organisations.

Drawing from the experiences of BRAC in Bangladesh, the author highlights some of the major areas of controversy around micro-credit organisations, specifically criticising points made by Ben Rogaly (in Development in Practice 6(2)). Arguing that further research is needed to determine cost-benefit ratios when providing specialised credit systems for use by specific sub-sections of society, he maintains that trade-offs occur between accountability and flexibility, and that to ignore such complexities leads to too narrow a view of micro-credit and its potential.

Kishore Saint, one of Development in Practice's founding Editorial Advisers, shares his thoughts on the way forward for the journal as he prepares to stand down from his position.

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).