Volume 14

  • In English only
  • In this interview, Rosemary Thorp, an expert on the political economy of Latin America and currently Oxfam GB Chair of Trustees, discusses the impact that decentralisation reforms have had in promoting development and deepening democratic governance in the region. Focusing in particular in the experiences of Chile and Colombia, Thorp argues that, while the process of democratic decentralisation is promising, it needs to overcome multiple challenges if it is to live up to its full potential. Some of the key factors that she identifies for decentralisation to be successful include an engaged political leadership, strong political parties, and capacity at the local level - all of which are often missing in the Latin American context.
  • This paper reviews the lessons of democratic decentralisation in Madhya Pradesh (MP), a poor and semi-feudal Indian state that emerged as a leader and bold experimenter in institutional design in the 1990s. Despite inauspicious beginnings, political leadership in MP set out to use decentralisation as a lever to expand and improve basic service delivery. The architects of the MP strategy were fully aware of the social and economic constraints, but they believed that through careful design, proper support to build social capital, and the achievement of early successes, the initiative could unlock powerful forces for community development. This article focuses on two initiatives, one to improve access to school and another to promote direct democracy at the village level. The authors find that, while the first phase of decentralisation has resulted in some significant improvements, especially in the area of education, the second stage has been far less successful.
  • The promotion of democracy has often been a top-down process characterised by assistance policies targeted toward the macro level. When bottom-up policies have been attempted, they too have tended to address professionalised NGOs, with scarce grassroots membership and contact. Only over the past few years have donors begun to implement programmes aimed at developing what can be called `micro-assistance' to democracy, defined as democracy assistance directed to small, often community-based, organisations in the field. This article describes the EU's micro-assistance to democracy in South Africa after 1994. The data gathered comes from interviews conducted with project officials and semi-structured interviews with all directors of Community-Based Organisations that have received funds from the EU. Some preliminary findings suggest that micro-assistance to democracy in South Africa responds to specific problems affecting local civil society, even though most of these organisations remain scarcely sustainable and their skills to influence local policies are limited.
  • Since Ghana's decentralisation process began in the early 1990s, government officials as well as international aid agencies and NGOs have engaged in efforts to enhance attention to women's concerns and improve gender sensitivity in development processes at the local level. This article looks at three collaborative projects between international development organisations and district assemblies throughout Ghana to promote gender sensitivity and increase the representation of women in local governance. Though, as the author suggests, it is still too early to assess whether such initiatives have succeeded, it is also clear that decentralisation efforts need to be accompanied by adequate resources and appropriate institutional support and capacity building if they are to make a difference.
  • This article analyses a decentralised transformative leadership pilot project launched by the UNDP to combat the growing HIV/AIDS crisis in Nepal. The project aims to strengthen district leadership and participatory multi-sector planning, clarify the district government response, and create regional, nationwide, and international networks to effectively respond to HIV/AIDS. The goal is to create leaders who envisage possibilities and see opportunities previously unimagined, and bring voice to those previously unheard. Tracking the reports and follow-up comments of project participants, the authors find that the project has provided them with valuable tools and skills to act on their commitment to stem the disease, and it has contributed to learning lessons from a global perspective on what has and has not worked in HIV/AIDS responses to date.
  • This overview draws on selected theoretical and empirical works to explore the links between decentralisation and democracy and their impact on participation and empowerment at the local level. Understanding decentralisation as a complex and multifaceted phenomenon, the author argues that its potential benefits can be realised only when complementary policies and specific national or local conditions are in place. In addition, it is also important to strike a balance between the local, regional, and national levels of government so as to protect local autonomy while also promoting a reasonable level of uniformity across regions. The essay draws from the author's fieldwork in Mozambique as well as decentralisation experiences in other developing countries.
  • This review essay analyses three recent works on the relationship between democracy and decentralisation, with a focus on local participation and empowerment: Democracy and Decentralisation in South Asia and West Africa: Participation, Accountability and Performance (Richard Crook and James Manor), Good Government in the Tropics (Judith Tendler), and a thematic issue of the European Journal of Development Research on `Democratic Decentralisation through a Natural Resource Lens: Experiences from Africa, Asia and Latin America', edited by Anne M. Larson and Jesse C. Ribot.
  • The authors examine the role of international faith-based NGOs in foreign aid and development assistance for Africa, with special reference to the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC). The MCC is successful in its contribution to development and empowerment in the 20 African countries in which it works because of its philosophical and programmatic focus on accountability, its holistic approach to basic rights, and a `listen and learn' approach which embraces empowerment and social justice. Although a `small is beautiful' philosophy does not necessarily feed the `quick fix' methods associated with the New Policy Agenda, it remains the most effective, efficient, accountable, and grassroots-responsive way of dealing with development issues.
  • The author highlights the contributions of four Latin American thinkers and activists in relation to communication for social change. Arguing that development activities are about communicating on various levels, and are deeply embedded in the cultures of those involved, involving significant inter-cultural issues. The author draws on his own extensive experience in these fields, and distils a set of principles and lessons for wider application.
  • This article focuses on the importance, complexity and ambiguity of the symbolic terrain both in everyday life and in social struggle. Taking Mayan women's traditional dress or traje as a text, the author reflects upon the multiple and contested meanings this evokes, and argues that Mayan women are playing a role which has not received sufficient analysis or recognition within the Mayan movement's struggle for indigenous identity and rights. Opening with a brief theoretical overview, the article goes on to analyse the different meanings in dispute and how these are related to wider issues, and concludes with a reflection concerning the challenges facing inter-ethnic relations and the recognition of indigenous peoples in Guatemala.
  • NGOs and social activists run the risk of following the policy directions favoured by foreign donor agencies to the detriment of their own organisational and moral capacity to act in solidarity with those whose interests they claim to support. With specific reference to Tanzania, the author argues that while NGOs readily take action to protect their own interests, they do not consistently stand up for the basic freedoms of working people. In a unipolar era, which holds that the age of politics and international solidarity is over, it is vital for NGOs and other social activists to keep alive the belief that an alternative to the existing world is both necessary and possible.
  • The measurement of impact is difficult in development work as it entails attributing longterm social, personal, and community change, to relatively small-scale short-term interventions in a community's life. This paper examines the experience of the Australian NGO Oxfam Community Aid Abroad in measuring its impact in two of its operational regions, India and Sri Lanka. The findings highlight the importance both of participation and `downward' accountability mechanisms, and of linking local-level activities within a broad regional, national, and global context.
  • Children under the age of 18 years represent the largest group of the poor in Uganda (62 per cent). Their perspective has not, to date, been incorporated in the many poverty analyses which have been conducted. The survey reported in this paper asked children between the ages of 10-14 years about their perceptions of poverty, and also about the effectiveness of local government in addressing issues of concern to them. The survey found that children have a different perspective on poverty from that of the adult key informants consulted in our sample; they have a positive view of their own potential role in mitigating poverty, and are highly critical of the current performance of local government.
  • The role of Northern-based civil society organisations has undergone dramatic changes in recent years. In particular, their principal role as `redistributive' agencies working in the South has come under criticism, leading them to seek new ways of defining their part in eradicating poverty. One widely adopted strategy has been an increasing emphasis on advocacy for social justice, while another is the creation of partnerships with non-state and state actors, including the private sector. Such partnerships raise some difficult questions relating to the underlying values and civic legitimacy of the action, in particular of Northern-based development NGOs. This paper examines the question of partnership between civil society organisations and business through a case study of the `Economy of Communion', a global project bringing together small businesses and church-based organisations whose shared aim is that of eradicating poverty.
  • Issues related to democratic restructuring and citizenship at the municipal level in Latin America have been the subject of increasing interest and debate among scholars and development practitioners in recent years. This study investigates how international cooperation may facilitate enhanced citizen participation in local-level decision making in the region through examination of a specific Canadian-sponsored linking project involving the cities of Charlesbourg, Quebec (Canada) and Ovalle (Chile). The study presents a relatively optimistic account of the role which innovations transferred as a result of this project have played in enhancing citizen involvement in local government. At the same time, it suggests that any such gains may be limited and must be viewed within the larger politico-administrative context in Latin America and attendant factors restricting the establishment of a broad democratic culture at the local level.
  • There are large potential synergies from collaboration between a research and an operational organisation, such as an NGO, but explicit collaborations between them are not common. This Practical Note examines the institutional partnership between the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and CARE-USA, as a concrete illustration of the difficulties and potential benefits of such a collaboration. It gives examples of the gaps in organisational orientation that can lead to problems, provides ideas about how to bridge those gaps, and highlights what bumps to expect along the way in constructing a productive collaboration.
  • In English only
  • Redressing the inherited inequalities of apartheid has established a complex and challenging context for meeting basic needs in contemporary South Africa. Given the physical and political segregation of apartheid, meeting the demand for housing has been a central development challenge since 1994. But even as local government has been drawn into more responsibility in this area, it must do so while managing complex relationships with private sector actors seeking access to basic service delivery previously associated with the public sector. The result is that not only has the structure of local government been dramatically reformed since 1994, it has also acquired a new responsibility to enable markets to work in the name of poverty alleviation.
  • Project monitoring and evaluation in Africa have traditionally depended on the `expert' knowledge of `professional' evaluators to develop so-called SMART indicators. But this expert knowledge has not permeated the various implementing agencies - which include communities themselves. The result has been sporadic and unreliable data and weak monitoring and evaluation frameworks. In Zimbabwe, these difficulties have inhibited the development and establishment of a social statistical database. One weak area of social statistics is information on children. Since 1995, UNICEF Zimbabwe has worked with communities to produce up-to-date and relevant statistics through projects such as the Sentinel Site Surveillance Survey and more recently the development of a village register that will contain simple but vital programme indicators. This paper seeks to document and highlight the thinking on these exercises and the challenges faced by both UNICEF and the communities thus far.
  • Within Australia, State employment programmes are an essential means of attempting to redress the substantial social and economic disadvantages experienced by indigenous Australians, particularly at the community level. While such programmes expend large sums of money, the social and economic outcomes for indigenous Australians remain far below that of the non-indigenous. This paper argues that an important constraint to indigenous human development arises as a result of institutional racism within a range of responsible public sector agencies at all three levels of government within the Australian federal system. The results of an evaluation of the Community Development Employment Program (CDEP) within a remote indigenous community are presented. This serves to illustrate how the exclusion of indigenous people from the design and delivery stages of key government programmes has the potential to result in substantial misallocation of funding from purposes meant to assist in the alleviation of indigenous social and economic disadvantage.
  • Throughout the world, deeply entrenched barriers exclude women from meaningful participation in socio-economic and political activities. This is not merely an issue of fairness and equality. It has been argued that by expanding women's opportunities, society as a whole would simultaneously be strengthened and this would enhance broader development prospects. Recently, a wide variety of international initiatives have been developed to expand women's opportunities. One such programme is the funding of heifer projects for women. Using data from the Red Cross, this study examines the potential of heifer projects to expand women's opportunities in sub-Saharan Africa.
  • From mid-1999 to mid-2001, the authors carried out a qualitative study in rural Vietnam to explore relationships between gender equity and reproductive health. One of the study's objectives was to develop culturally appropriate indicators of women's empowerment, specific to the Vietnamese context. This paper describes the process of developing, testing, and refining the empowerment indicators, presents some of the findings, and discusses the methodological challenges entailed. The paper concludes by recommending a set of Vietnam-specific domains for assessing women's empowerment in social and economic spheres of life and in reproductive health.
  • This paper examines participatory processes in an Asian Development Bank (ADB) technical assistance package in Thailand's water resources sector. The authors analyse various levels of social interaction in the local community, in meso-level stakeholder consultations, and in opposition to ADB's environment programmes expressed by civil society organisations. While participatory approaches are employed to promote more bottom-up management regimes in water resources, the authors find that local power and gender differences have been overlooked. Evolving institutions of resource governance are constituted by gender, reproducing gender inequalities such as regarding water intended for agricultural use as a `male' resource. Finally, it is argued that understandings and practices of participation legitimise particular agendas especially in a politically polarised arena.
  • Since the 11 September 2001 attacks on targets in the USA, debates concerning the situation of women in the Muslim world have tended to focus on the extent to which they are victims of religious dogma. Like any other religion, Islam can be oppressive towards women; however, working women are not affected only by religious factors. This paper reviews women's experiences in Indonesia and Iran, countries in which Islamist movements have taken a leading role in the government. In the former, the Asian economic crisis of the late 1990s precipitated civil unrest and brought an Islamist government to power. Since then, female employment in Indonesia appears to have been affected more by the economic crisis than by the Islamist movement, which was itself a by-product of the crisis. In Iran, it might have been expected that women's formal employment would have declined after two decades of Islamisation, but in fact it has increased. A review of these two cases shows that the impact of the rise of political Islam is complex and cannot be captured by simple stereotypes.
  • The May 2000 coup in Fiji prompted a flight of capital from the country's garment industry. As workers lost their jobs, attention turned away from improving wages and conditions to retaining garment factory jobs in the country. What can feminist researchers contribute in a climate of high capital mobility that prohibits organising for a living wage? This paper applies Amartya Sen's idea of women's `fallback positions' in relation to their husbands to an exploration of women's `marriage' to capital. An exploration of the lives of women garment factory workers beyond the workplace reveals the potential to enhance women's negotiating power in relation to their employers - by boosting women's individual and collective assets, their access to support from state and NGOs, to other income-earning means, and to social support systems upon which to call for assistance.
  • This article focuses on the challenge and effects of adhering to community participation as a principle of community development and the related issue of reflecting diverse representation in prevention and health promotion planning. As a requirement of funding agencies, the consequences of upholding these principles in light of the resources made available are explored. Information is drawn from a case study of an advisory committee with diverse membership. A participatory evaluation of this committee illuminates the difficulties encountered when a community agency initiated a health promotion project to address the needs of women who are non-verbal and at risk of sexual assault. Suggestions are made as to how these difficulties may be overcome. The advisory committee is a common means for community development but also has the potential to be a model for increased communication and understanding.
  • Mainstreaming of HIV/AIDS is not just about adapting NGO programmes, but involves adapting partnerships. Working in a context of high HIV/AIDS prevalence has a considerable organisational impact on implementing NGOs. As staff, or relatives of staff, fall sick there is more time off work, declining work performance, increased medical costs, and extra training and recruitment costs. Simply to maintain capacity, NGOs will have to invest in changes to their staff planning, training and awareness programmes, health policies, and financial management. It will necessarily cost more money to achieve the same work output and these activities will have less impact (as a proportion of beneficiaries may also be sick and dying). Providing effective support for NGO partners affected by HIV/AIDS therefore has major and difficult implications for donors, particularly at a time when their own back-donors are demanding visible `value-for-money'. Mainstreaming into partnerships requires that both partners change - can we rise to this professional and moral challenge?
  • In 1993, the international community acknowledged for the first time that violence against women (VAW) is a human rights issue, while VAW is also increasingly recognised both as a global public health issue and a barrier to sustainable development. However, even where they are committed to reducing VAW through their programmes and advocacy activities, development practitioners are sometimes unsure about where this fits into the poverty reduction agenda. This article tries to situate VAW in the poverty discourse, drawing from a range of documentary sources to outline the conceptual links between VAW, poverty, and human development. It then goes on to look at issues surrounding the impact assessment of programmes aimed at reducing VAW, and offers examples of how specific programmes have been evaluated.
  • In English only
  • In English only.
  • This essay reviews the often heated controversies unleashed by the 2002 publication of Globalization and its Discontents by Joseph E. Stiglitz, former Chief Economist of the World Bank and recipient of the2001 Nobel Prize for Economics. His critique of IMF policies and other economic orthodoxies, particularly in Russia and South Asia, has since come to be accepted more widely among mainstream economists. The author argues, however, that while Stiglitz is sympathetic to some of the arguments made by the so-called `anti-globalisation' movement, his views are far from the radical end of the spectrum.
  • Participatory approaches have become increasingly popular in international development. Although traditionally associated with small non-governmental projects they are increasingly used by governmental and international organisations such as the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and the World Bank. This article - focusing on a small health agent project in Amazonas Brazil - challenges the assumption that participation inexorably empowers and argues that culturally inappropriate participation may be used to legitimise prescriptive intervention.
  • This work presents a product development methodology for use with indigenous rural workers. It is based on the revival of cultural and social values, with a focus on the conservation of natural resources. Illustrated by the case of Mixtec craftswomen in Mexico, this paper shows how poor groups can improve their living conditions through innovation and the diversification of their products. The process combines techniques of product development based on marketing, with a participatory focus and continuous improvement, in order to develop a unique and high-quality product that can be more successfully marketed. The craftswomen are now able to plan their production and can evaluate and commercialise their products.
  • Full-text sample article FREE from Taylor & Francis. Proyecto Tequisquiapan (PT) provides protective microfinance services in a small region of rural Mexico, including, importantly, open access deposit facilities. The authors report on new research which examined PT's record in enabling people with different degrees of vulnerability to build assets and protect themselves from both sudden shocks and more predictable demands for lump sums of cash. PT was found to be relatively more useful for the most vulnerable households. Its successes rely on its small scale and on the commitment of its staff, whose salaries are subsidised, to innovation and experimentation in order to remain relevant to members' changing and differentiated financial lifeworlds. This stands in contrast to the current trend towards large-scale commercialised microfinance. The World Bank, the authors argue, should take note.
  • This paper explores the development issue of democratisation from a gendered perspective, emphasising the need to look for the building blocks of democracy within civil society sectors where women play a key role. Chilean and Argentinean women prove an important example for sustainable political development through their roles as Mothers, particularly in the 1980s in the movements to protest political disappearances. The author seeks to demonstrate how these women's practical endeavours have made them an indispensable ingredient in the achievement of real democratic development at the grassroots level, and how they serve as a model for policy makers in developing countries elsewhere.
  • The evaluation of development NGOs has seldom considered their impact on social capital and local organisational learning. Deeply intertwined, both are key dimensions of the long-term impact of development interventions. Studies have highlighted the relative success of NGOs in poverty reduction, but have been critical of the sustainability of the benefits and of NGOs' failure to strengthen institutions. This paper analyses the experience of a sustainable natural resources management project coordinated by CARE in Villa Serrano, Bolivia, between 1993 and 2000. The article compares the outcome of a traditional evaluation with that of an impact evaluation, which allows us to identify significant flaws. The article concludes by reflecting on the limitations of traditional intervention approaches and on the need to rethink the strategic role of NGOs.
  • Social researchers continue to grasp for critical factors that foster or impede the development of social capital. This article highlights some of these factors based on an investigation of a low-income urban settlement in Guatemala. Community activists and leaders, elected representatives, regional government service providers, local residents, NGO directors and staff, and other key informants living and working within the designated locality indicated a complex and diverse range of social, cultural, political, and economic issues that contributed to low levels of `broad-based' social capital. Long-standing fears related to violence and corruption within a historically top-down, authoritarian state were the most significant factors impeding social capital, social organising, and civic participation. Northern-led service-providing NGOs in the area also curbed `broad-based' social capital by fostering dependency through intervention strategies that were external, top-down, non-participatory, and not community based.
  • Donors face many issues when trying to support development goals in large regions such as Latin America. In their attempts to channel assistance to appropriate end-users, they also have to provide coherence with national strategy, balance supply and demand of technical resources, and ensure accountability to their taxpayers. Resolution of these issues requires considerable focus and a clear understanding of all relevant factors. This is particularly so for, but not exclusive to, small donors. This paper provides agencies with a model to assess regional involvement and create a decision-making framework for future investments. It places the quality of aid above the quantity of donation.
  • Although participatory research methodologies have been widely advocated, most projects do not involve the radical reversal of approach implied. Though defined in theory, participatory research is hard to implement and more precise description is therefore required at the practical level. Here, we describe a participatory research project on agroforestry tree domestication undertaken in the Meru area of Kenya. Continuous interaction between participants allowed the project to evolve from a tree species suitability test, to a species saturation study, and finally to a perception of tree species diversity survey. By allowing evolution through interaction, research results more relevant to the actual needs of farmers were obtained.

  • By the turn of the twenty-first century, UNDP had embraced a new form of funding based on ‘cost-sharing’, with this source accounting for 51 per cent of the organisation’s total expenditure worldwide in 2000. Unlike the traditional donor - recipient relationship so common with development projects, the new cost-sharing modality has created a situation whereby UNDP local offices become ‘subcontractors’ and agencies of the recipient countries become ‘clients’. This paper explores this transition in the context of Brazil, focusing on how the new modality may have compromised UNDP’s ability to promote Sustainable Human Development, as established in its mandate. The great enthusiasm for this modality within the UN system and its potential application to other developing countries increase the importance of a systematic assessment of its impact and developmental consequences.
  • The abrupt closure of the WTO Summit in Cancún in September 2003 without any formal agreement dealt a powerful blow to what had been designated as the ‘development round’ in Doha in 2001—and with it to the promise that the concerns of most interest to developing countries would for the first time take precedence in international trade discussions. In this interview, Adrian Lovett, Campaigns and Communications Director of Oxfam GB, talks about the collapse of the summit and about what the future of international trade negotiations may hold. While in many ways Cancún was a missed opportunity, Lovett also argues that the enhanced assertiveness of developing countries may mean that there is now a better chance that the failed negotiations lead to rules that work for the poor as well as the rich.
  • Women’s development has been and shows every likelihood of continuing to be compromised by unsustainable policies, plans, and programmes regarding human settlements. Gender inequalities harm well-being and hinder development. Women and girls, especially the poor, bear the brunt of these inequalities. To attain the objectives of sustainable development of satisfying needs and meeting development goals, to which the international community has repeatedly committed itself, sustainability itself has to be engendered through gender mainstreaming.
  • The pro-poor agenda sees the dissemination of research findings as fundamental to ensuring that research helps contribute to poverty alleviation. In recent years this has led to a substantial growth in intermediary services, such as ‘infomediaries’ (1), networks and websites. Yet the pathway to, and actual uptake by, the ‘poor’ continues to elude practitioners, researchers and policy-makers alike. This article draws out the key lessons of recent dissemination experience, and sets out a new challenge to maximise research impacts: the support of the poor in exerting their own perspectives (and demand) for knowledge-based services.
  • Since July 1999, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), at the request of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and the Kosovo Force (KFOR), has undertaken the implementation of the Information Counselling and Referral Service (ICRS, which aimed to provide support mechanisms for demobilised Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) combatants in their return to post-conflict society. This Practical Note is based on the findings of a research project funded by the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) to assess the initial impact of this reintegration process.
  • Conceived by nurses in the hospital of a Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut, and inspired by Norwegian People's Aid, the international aid agency of the Australian trade unions was designed to give a genuine material base to solidarity with national liberation struggles. Bridging the difficult division in Australian labour politics between the Catholic Right and the social democratic and pro-Moscow Lefts, Australian People for Health, Education and Development Abroad (now Union Aid Abroad, APHEDA) was able to channel funds from unions and the Australian government to agriculture, health, and vocational training projects in southern Africa, Eritrea, Palestine, Viet Nam, Cambodia, and Kanaky. Unlike most counterpart organisations in Europe and the USA, its earlier partners were rarely trade unions. In the last decade, emphasis has turned to work with trade unions: on gender equality, literacy, cooperatives, HIV, and occupational and environmental health. Only recently has APHEDA directly supported trade union training in Cambodia, East Timor, and Indonesia, under pressure from Australian unions, who see workers' rights in neighbouring countries as crucial to their own fate. Yet unions in advanced capitalist countries don't spontaneously understand the humanitarian and development needs of countries, such as Papua New Guinea, where waged workers are a small minority of the population. Unionisation is only one part of the solution. The April 2000 Durban congress of the ICFTU called for trade unions to `organise the unorganised', such as informal-sector workers, and to build alliances with NGOs and civil society around shared values. As a trade union NGO, APHEDA is located in the middle of a challenging intersection. Mandated to educate Australian workers on globalisation issues, APHEDA finds itself often more partisan than other international development NGOs in Australia, sometimes more circumspect. With reactionary national governments since the mid 1990s, attacks on union rights, and the increasing share of the Australian aid budget delivered through/to high-profit companies, APHEDA faces decisions about its independence, alliances, direction, and sustainability.
  • Founded in 1951, War on Want is a UK-based NGO committed to the alleviation of poverty with strong roots in the labour movement. War on Want's programme on The Global Workplace provides trade unionists with a range of practical skills and knowledge about international development issues. Part of the programme involves a `Global Workers' Forum', which takes grassroots trade union activists from the UK to a similar sector or even a plant owned by the same employer in the South. The aim is to enhance participants' understanding of the impact of globalisation on the industries in which they work, establish relationships that can act as starting points for global action, and encourage participants to spread the message within their own unions. There is also a website which raises awareness of the global economy and encourages activists to make links and undertake joint action. It is essential that now, as never before, trade unionists should work together as an international force to challenge globalisation and fight for the recognition of workers' rights. The Global Workplace suggests that showing global solidarity to workers around the world can help trade unionists rise to this challenge.
  • This paper argues that the NGO position on global labour rights is mistaken. NGOs' concerns over race and gender inequalities and their rejection of the primacy of class in today's global, capitalist economy have frustrated the project of incorporating labour rights into the global free trade regime. Trade unions, meanwhile, are one of the few agencies dedicated to dissolving class inequalities, especially between workers in the North and the South. Until NGOs rethink their position on class, trade unions are the only agency capable of pushing the labour rights agenda forward.
  • This article considers the problems of organisational survival, innovation, and inter-organisational partnerships for unions and for immigrant community-based organisations. The analysis focuses on the Citizenship Project, a project for assisting and organising Mexican immigrants, launched in 1995 by Teamsters Local 890 in response to the assault on immigrant rights in California. It concludes that new community-based partner organisations sponsored by existing unions can be one effective response to these problems if the participants establish and sustain an appropriate balance of autonomy and accountability. The article also traces the development of a radical and expansive notion of citizenship by the Citizenship Project, and a related set of methods that integrate organising with service delivery, labelled `citizenship work'. It recommends that non-profit tax-exempt support centres be established at labour centres, labour councils, and international unions in order to lower the costs of such innovation for local unions.
  • In the early 1980s, support for trade unions was a significant component of Oxfam GB's programmes in various parts of the world, most notably Central America and South Africa. In Central America, this was motivated both because organised labour played an important role in popular movements that were pressing for equitable political settlements to the wars ravaging the region, and because unions as such, as well as their members and leaders, were the targets of repression and political violence. This article explores the background to the rise in funding for unions in Honduras, reflects on this experience, and discusses some of the factors that might change a potentially awkward donor-recipient relationship to one of dialogue and solidarity.
  • Between 1991 and 2002, the international anti-sweatshop movement experienced significant growth. A series of interconnecting international networks developed, involving trade unions and NGOs in campaigns to persuade particular transnational corporations (TNCs) to ensure that labour rights are respected in the production of their goods. While the loose, networked form of organisation that characterises the movement has helped it to grow and progress despite its diverse constituency, arguably a lack of coordination has undermined its ability to achieve policy change. There is a need to develop new forms of global cooperation in order to avoid fractures within the movement and the loss of impetus.
  • Reviewed by Luz María de la Mora, Trade Representative of the Mexican Ministry of Economy at the EU, Brussels
  • In English only
  • In English only
  • The challenges posed by economic globalisation make it imperative that civil society organisations break down the barriers that have traditionally divided them, in order to ensure that the rights of those who are marginalised or vulnerable are kept firmly on the international agenda. In particular, globalisation brings fresh impetus to the need to forge alliances between the trade union movement and NGOs concerned with social and economic development. While there is plenty of evidence of successful cooperation, major problems, fears, suspicions, and at times hostilities remain between them. Some of these are substantial and sharp policy differences, but others are the consequence of colliding political or organisational cultures, prejudices, financial competition, and a mutual lack of understanding of respective roles and objectives. Debates surrounding the organisation of workers in the informal economy, including the ILO discussion in June 2002, provide a useful case study.
  • Trade unions in India work mainly with workers in formal employment, particularly in the public sector. However, most people in India work in the informal economy, and their needs are attended mainly by voluntary agencies or NGOs. Economic globalisation and the policies associated with it are resulting in the increasing informalisation of work; as representatives of working people, unions and agencies alike are being further marginalised. Paradoxically, this situation is encouraging these organisations to overcome the mutual mistrust that has characterised relations between them in the past, and to join forces in order to pool their strengths. This article describes the background and current situation in general terms before presenting a case study of the National Centre for Labour (NCL), an apex body of labour organisations of all kinds working in the informal sector in India. Its members include unions and agencies active among workers in the construction industry, as well as in forestry, fishing, and domestic work. Such collaboration has not only enhanced the effectiveness of both the unions and the agencies, but has also increased the unions' representative character.
  • This article describes an action-research project which has the multiple objectives of mapping the range of home-based work in different countries, investigating the ways in which such work is embodied in local or international production chains, and developing a methodology which will facilitate the establishment of sustainable organisations of home-based workers. The article focuses mainly on Latin America and in Eastern Europe, though the project is also active in India and has begun to explore the possibilities of working in China.
  • The garment and textile factories and assembly plants in the Central American free trade zones, known as the maquila industry, have given rise to new actors on the labour scene, as women's organisations and local monitoring groups now work alongside the traditional trade union sector. Furthermore, some of these new organisations are linked to networks based elsewhere, mainly in the USA and Europe, and are actively involved in transnational campaigns to improve working conditions in the maquila. To date, attempts between trade unions and these new labour actors to collaborate have been disappointing and often characterised by conflict. Challenging the idea that trade unions and NGOs are in competition for the same limited `space', by looking at the relations between trade unions and women organisations, this paper asks whether such conflicts are inevitable, and suggests ways in which the two kinds of organisations could work together to improve the conditions of workers in Central America.
  • Concern about working conditions in a global supply chain has brought unions and NGOs in the North around the same table. Collaborative initiatives include campaigns such as the European-wide Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC) and ethical trade forums, like the UK Ethical Trade Initiative (ETI). Relationships have not always been easy. Unions and NGOs have different ways of working, and there have been insensitivities on both sides. What we see emerging, however, are new forms of labour internationalism which can respond in effective ways to the threat that globalised production poses to workers rights.
  • The author describes the evolution of the garment-manufacturing sector in the district of Totonicapán in the Guatemalan highlands, an area long associated with weaving and related skills. Producers have been shrewd in finding ways to take advantage of changes in the global economy, for instance by importing cheaper fabrics from Asia to reduce the cost of the final products. Producers have thus been able to exploit the domestic and regional market niche for lower-cost garments than are available in the department stores, adapting their output to respond to fashions and trends. This adaptability has in turn generated more local employment and wealth among home-based workers and village workers, as well as among townspeople and traders, and a high level of self-employment. Paradoxically, a factor that has contributed to this situation - as opposed to becoming involved in maquila production - is that the failure of unions to organise the workers in the 1960s eventually brought about more equitable relations between the traditional elite and their former employees and a higher level of mutual dependence than exists in the maquila.
  • This article explores the implementation of Convention 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour in Honduras. It highlights key lessons learned from a joint Save the Children Fund-UK and Ministry of Labour project. These lessons are of relevance to similar projects addressing the application of child labour legislation and to projects focusing on institutional strengthening and children's participation. The article examines the centrality of partnership and ownership, and the value of child-centred approaches. It also explores the capacity of NGOs to engage in national and regional level government, and the importance of linking national, regional, and local-level initiatives.
  • Full-text sample article FREE from Taylor & Francis. The debate over workplace codes of conduct has created tensions between trade unions and human rights NGOs. These tensions result from the inherent structural differences between interest-driven trade unions and ideals-driven human righst NGOs. The differences play themselves out in how these actors pursue social justice in a globalised economy. Human rights NGOs tend to see codes of conduct as a method to prevent violations, akin to their traditional work on legal reform and human rights monitoring. Trade unions assess codes for their potential to help empower workers, especially to help ensure freedom of association, which will lead to the realisation of participatory rights. In our understanding of human rights as a means of empowerment for vulnerable groups, we argue that the trade union perspective on human rights is a good long-term approach. Short-term successes, such as improving working conditions through outside patronage, seem useful only to the extent they serve this long-term goal.

  • In the context of globalisation, transnational social regulation is increasingly the product of NGOs intervening in the sphere of global trade. Drawing on empirical research in SE Asia, the author contends that what matters as much as codes of conduct are spillover effects whose force extends beyond building walls into the broader society of the host country. The basis for effective labour law lies within states, and activism must focus on improving legal, political, and social conditions for workers in the host countries, rather than on trying to affect corporate behaviour through consumer pressure.
  • The proliferation of corporate codes of conduct generates both alliance and tension between trade unions and NGOs that deal with workers' rights in the global economy. Alliance, because trade unions and NGOs share a common desire to halt abusive behaviour by multinational companies and a broader goal of checking corporate power in the global economy. Tension, because unions and NGOs have differing institutional interests, different analyses of problems and potential solutions, and different ways of thinking and talking about social justice in the global economy. There are fears that codes of conduct may be used to undermine effective labour law enforcement by governmental authorities and undermine workers' power in trade unions. The substance behind the rhetoric on this new generation of corporate codes of conduct is certainly open to question. However, this paper argues that, given unions' weak presence in the global assembly line and the rapid-response capabilities of many NGOs, such codes are a valuable asset. Trade unions and NGOs still have more in common with each other than either has with corporations, governments, or international organisations that see free trade and free-flowing capital as the solution to low labour standards. But both need to be clear-eyed about their differences and their proper roles as they navigate the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead.
  • Workers face tremendous challenges in their fight to organise, both in terms of personal risk and the sheer number of obstacles. Overcoming such challenges requires multiple strategies and broad-ranging collaboration. In this article we begin by reviewing the repression workers face. We then look at how voluntary workplace codes might help workers organise. Using the SA8000 standard as an example, we look at some of the elements that could be most useful in organising workers. Finally, we look at a collaborative project between the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers' Federation and Social Accountability International to develop a training programme that not only helps workers understand how to use codes to their benefit but also builds on their current organising and education strategies.
  • Full-text sample article FREE from Taylor & Francis. Trying to build alliances that span the divide between trade unions and NGOs as well as the divide between the North and the South might seem a utopian task. But this is exactly what an imaginative new generation of organisers from the western hemisphere's labour movements and NGOs are trying to do. This paper analyses two very different efforts working to bridge this `double divide'. The first is a combination of organisations, including unions and NGOs in both North and South, that are focusing on blatant violations of the dignity of workers in apparel export processing zones in the South. This `basic rights complex' has resulted in important victories. A second complex of organisations, also involving unions and NGOs in both North and South, has raised broad macro issues of governance focusing particularly on the anti-democratic character of current proposals for a free trade area of the Americas. Neither of these complexes is without its weaknesses, but each makes it clear that bridging the double divide should be thought of not as a utopian dream but as work in progress.

  • Human rights NGOs were the vanguard of the struggle for democratisation in Nigeria, but they had to forge alliances with labour unions and other groups to galvanise this process effectively. This paper explores the alliances between labour unions and NGOs in the struggle against military dictatorship in Nigeria to analyse how horizontal relationships have fared in exchanges within civil society. It argues that the exigencies of sustained political struggle throw up conflicts over issues of participation, accountability, and egalitarianism that in turn promote social capital within civil society by mitigating hierarchically structured and asymmetrical patterns of exchange among its members.
  • This paper examines the relationship between workers in the health sector and users of health services as seen through two case studies of trade unions and NGOs working together, one in Malaysia and the other in South Africa. In spite of a history of tensions between these two types of organisations, when they work together effectively, the results can be influential. The Malaysia Citizens' Health Initiative has set up a separate organisation and now has the power to mediate differences between trade unions, NGOs, and the government. The partnership between the Treatment Action Campaign and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) in South Africa is providing a unified voice demanding government action on HIV/AIDS.
  • With the passage of the 1999 Asylum and Immigration Act in the UK, a system of vouchers for all new asylum seekers was to be introduced from April 2000. These vouchers were widely regarded as iniquitous in that they discriminated against an already vulnerable sector of society. A unique coalition between two NGOs (Oxfam GB and the Refugee Council) and a trade union (the Trade and General Workers' Union - TGWU) led to a concerted campaign against the voucher scheme that included a range of media work, political lobbying, and public awareness raising. The voucher scheme was eventually scrapped. This article draws various practical lessons on how to develop successful collaborative relationships across different social sectors. The author concludes that the principal lesson is not that NGOs must work with trade unions, but that by working with others, united by a common goal, they can challenge injustice effectively and make a difference to people's lives.
  • A comparison of trade unions and NGOs in Iran demonstrates the diverse nature of their activities. Over the last 90 years, trade unions have played important roles in changing the political system in that country. However, unions are largely male- dominated organisations, which explains why some women have begun to organise women's trade unions. This article focuses, however, on the activities of women's NGOs, which are engaged in improving the socio-economic conditions of the most marginalised sectors of society. Their activities are limited and they are not engaged in structural change. However, they are challenging gender-specific access and influence over institutional power, matters that are crucial to the process of democratisation. It is argued that, since many trade unions and NGOs in Iran are strengthening community-based institutions in different ways, their collaboration would have a mutually transformational impact which would turn these organisations into more powerful forces in the process of democratisation.
  • Trade unions are typified as having `two faces'--one of social justice and the other of vested interest. This article examines the tensions and difficulties confronted by trade union movements in the South Pacific seeking to balance the `two faces' of unionism during a period of political and economic instability in the region. It looks at the difficult choices trade union movements in Papua New Guinea, the Fiji Islands, and the Solomon Islands have had to make to preserve their interests in response to sweeping microeconomic reforms and how they have sought to work with civil society organisations to restore political and social stability. The paper draws out some tentative lessons that may enable South Pacific unions to better respond to these difficult challenges.
  • This article describes the legal frameworks governing trade unions and NGOs in Ukraine, with the latter defined very much as organisations working for the benefit of their members and other citizens sharing the same interests rather than as philanthropic organisations whose mission is to assist others. Trade unions and NGOs are encouraged to collaborate in areas where their interests coincide, and the article describes two recent programmes - one to promote more sport and physical activity among the Ukrainian population in order to address declining health statistics, and the other to address the needs of the growing number of people with disabilities in the country - in which such collaboration has been central.
  • In 1987-1988, a national debate erupted in Canada on the desirability of entering into a free trade agreement with the USA and its potential effect on Canadian culture, society, and national sovereignty - as well as its economy. A national coalition of labour unions and civil society groups emerged to oppose such an agreement with the USA, and later its expansion to Mexico as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The coalition was hailed by members as a ground-breaking alliance between labour unions and civil society, as well as a new grassroots challenge to the neo-liberal economic policies of the government at the time. The experience led to a longer-term pattern of collaboration between unions and NGOs in Canada, but the coalition also experienced difficulties in reconciling the different approaches and goals of participants, which were resolved with varying degrees of success. This paper discusses the coalition in relation to gendered attitudes and practices; issues of representation and accountability; different approaches to organisation, hierarchy, leadership, and decision making; resource conflicts; class-based versus new views of challenge and social movements; and views within the Canadian labour movement on coalition work with civil society groups.