Volume 15

  • This article argues for a combination of long-term engagement in providing security, culminating in training and mentoring of new security forces; a comprehensive approach to reintegrating ex-combatants that also benefits civilian host communities and helps to ensure that agricultural livelihoods are made viable; and the opening of a space for discussion of governance issues and revenue distribution that is supported by a revenue-collection trusteeship that takes some of the key areas of economic pillage out of the purview of the state and deposits state revenues transparently into the state's coffers, leaving it to a new breed of Liberian politicians to emerge.
  • Since the early 1990s, the international community has become increasingly involved in efforts to (re-)build states that have been torn by war and violent conflict. Today, the United Nations alone is engaged in more than ten political and peace-building missions around the world. Roland Paris's most recent work, At War's End: Building Peace after Civil Conflict (2004) examines 14 of the major UN peace-building missions launched between 1989 and 1999. In particular, Paris questions whether the predominant models of peacekeeping, with their emphasis on rapid democratisation and market liberalisation, are appropriate in fragile post-conflict contexts. In this interview, Roland Paris shares what can learned from the peace-building record about its effectiveness as a means of preventing the recurrence of violence in post-conflict situations.
  • A critical review of five contrasting publications on peace building, including the 2004 UN report A More Secure World.
  • This annotated list highlights some 70 recent publications and organisations that focus primarily on what happens after rather than before or during armed conflict. Issues covered include the political, economic, and social aspects of post-war reconstruction, and questions related to transitional justice and post-conflict reconciliation, and we have sought to offer a sample of the growing theoretical and empirical literature analysing the contemporary challenges involved in peace building and post-war reconstruction.
  • The overarching challenge facing the growing number of international peace-building interventions is to achieve sustainable peace. This paper illustrates this proposition through a brief investigation of the situation in East Timor as the UN mission withdraws at the five-year state-building mark, and in Haiti as a ninth UN mission is established. Adopting the view that participatory democratic governance will best ensure long-term peace, the paper maintains that to build sustainable peace requires transformation on three inter-related fronts: (a) transformation of the society from one that resorts to violence to one that resorts to political means to resolve conflict, requiring that the elite negotiate and that there should be widespread social dialogue and reconciliation; (b) reform of the governance framework to seek to ensure both that a negotiated governance arrangement between parties prevents future conflict and the adoption of basic democratic governance; and (c) the creation of meaningful institutions that will be sustainable after the mission leaves. These institutions cannot be imposed from outside, but must be bodies that are able to perform their core function and are committed to doing so.
  • A recent report by the World Bank reiterates the widely-held view that donor agencies commit large amounts of funding in the immediate post-conflict phase, only for this to taper off to more `normal' levels once the crisis is over. The World Bank criticises this phenomenon, referred to as `frontloading', claiming that damages the prospects of economic growth, which in turn undermines the peace. This article argues that the Bank's analysis is flawed because it does not distinguish between commitments and disbursements, or take sufficient account of other factors influencing aid patterns over time and in different settings. Moreover, the link between official aid and post-war economic performance is of only marginal significance. Any critique of aid policies needs to be based on a detailed analysis of what is delivered rather than what is promised, and of the impact of donors' assistance on the ground.
  • In English only
  • This article explores three main themes in comparing the transitional processes in Afghanistan and Iraq: (i) the clarity of the transitional frameworks and the need to separate discussions on such frameworks from debates on new constitutional arrangements; (ii) the degree of representation in the transitional institutions and the availability of channels for political consultation in the transitional processes; and third, the participation of civil society and the public at large in the transition processes.
  • This article focuses on the debate about the developmental impact of migration on the sending countries. Throughout the post-World War II period, temporary labour migration has been promoted as a path to development. Remittances have grown to rival or surpass official development assistance and have increased living standards in the sending countries. However, the evidence over time is that the remittances do not lead to development or even to higher incomes that are sustainable without further migration. Some determinedly temporary labour migration schemes offer promise. But where the pattern of migration and remittances locks into a semi-permanent arrangement (the standard line is `There's nothing more permanent than "temporary" migration'), then this may be a developmental trap for the South whereby, in a semi-permanent `3 D's Deal', the South foregoes self-development in favour of being a long-range bedroom community to supply the labour for dirty, dangerous, and difficult jobs in the North.
  • This Research Round-up summarises the findings of the 2004 Control Arms Report: Guns or Growth? Assessing the Impact of Arms Sales on Sustainable Development, published by Amnesty International, IANSA, and Oxfam International, in association with Ploughshares and Saferworld.
  • This paper reports on a collaborative research project that shows how participatory social research can be used as a strategy for combating social exclusion. The Crime Prevention Partnership Project brought together dominant and disempowered groups to explore social issues of mutual concern and identify potential solutions. Indigenous Australian undergraduate students played a central role in this project, working with the police as customer service trainees and with the university as members of a project research group. This project became an opportunity to train and empower new researchers who, as people from disadvantaged groups, brought their own knowledge, concerns, and worldviews to a research process that they helped design and carry out themselves. The result was a learning process for all involved, referred to here as multidirectional empowerment. It led to tangible bridge building between mainstream, powerful institutions and a disadvantaged community. The project process offers a model for using participatory research as a framework in which to address development issues.
  • As a tool both for research and for structuring community- level interaction, PRA is now well embedded in development practice. This paper, however, argues that in order to play an enabling role towards community action, facilitators need to offer much more than the traditional PRA approach. Based on work with groups of women and of men in North Bengal, the paper describes how local politics and facilitators' strategies interact and complicate the use of PRA-like planning approaches. The article stresses the need for effective and long-term facilitation strategies that take into account organisational, methodological, and contextual considerations, and argues that organisations need to invest far more in ensuring the quality of facilitators than is generally the case.
  • Kenya is not yet a major emigration country, but emigration of Kenyan professionals and technicians is increasing in importance. Kenyans and those with links to Kenya living abroad are a potentially important resource for national development. It is thus useful to examine the various ways in which this potential can be more effectively realised. The paper first discusses the patterns and impact of emigration before exploring the different ways in which the contribution of Kenyans abroad can be enhanced. It then puts forward proposals for priority action to implement the suggested initiatives.
  • The World Bank and world religions are two of the most powerful forces in the developing world. The Bank has access to vast financial resources, while faiths have vast social access and credibility. Partnership between the Bank and religious groups could have a significant impact on development efforts, but dialogue between them appears impotent. That appearance is deceptive. The dialogue stems from the Bank's long-term shift towards poverty alleviation and popular participation. As long as the Bank continues to address these issues, its actions will bring it into contact with faith groups. Despite its limitations, the Bank - faith dialogue, has fostered a greater openness to faiths among Bank staff, which in turn has resulted in specific roles being given to faiths in several major Bank programmes and opened the door to future partnerships.
  • Global workers' remittances have grown noticeably in recent years. Remittances are now a key macroeconomic factor in many developing countries, representing an increasingly large percentage of total monetary inflows. For many developing countries, remittances are comparable to or greater than total export earnings, official development assistance (ODA), and foreign direct investment (FDI). Remittance flows are also more progressive than these other international flows as they more equally distributed. The relative volume of this resource and its sharp increase over the past decade makes remittances increasingly significant in terms of development. Focusing in Nicaragua, this paper reviews the increasing importance of remittances and examines their potential to bring positive development outcomes to developing countries.
  • Based on primary research on the applicability of social exclusion frameworks to the experiences of people with leprosy in Bangladesh, this article compares two means of intervention: health education of society, and socio-economic rehabilitation of individual patients. These interventions commonly remain distinct, but it is concluded that only by integrating the two approaches can deep-seated prejudices be removed, facilitating early detection and elimination of leprosy. Processes of inclusion are more effective when they involve the same actors that promoted exclusion, and when they create bridges across the rigid divides separating the excluded from the excluding society or group.
  • Total remittances from migrant workers (US$80bn in 2003) significantly outstrip the total amount of overseas development assistance (US$55bn in the same year). Many conclude that such remittances make a positive contribution to development in the global South. However, the experiences of women health-care workers and migrants contradict easy and hopeful assumptions about the positive effects of migration. Further, the more economistic analyses of the benefits of migration do not subtract its gendered and social costs when calculating labour savings in the North or income from remittances in the South.
  • In English only
  • Non-formal education often represents a last chance for adolescent girls who do not attend school to receive some education to improve their health before they become mothers. This paper describes the development of a literacy and health education curriculum for adolescent girls in southern Malawi who will never enter formal schooling. The curriculum was redefined in the light of participants’ feedback and providers’ observations. The health messages could effect change but would have had limited impact on girls’ health practices without the participation of the wider community. The curriculum’s innate visibility ‘under the trees’ was a key factor in facilitating villagers’ involvement and exponential learning.
  • Few issues in the development process raise as much heat as the role of the international private sector in the form of transnational corporations (TNCs) and foreign direct investment (FDI). This article reviews the most recent research on the impact of FDI on economic growth and poverty reduction in developing countries. A brief history of FDI is given. This is followed by discussion of the conceptual transmission mechanisms linking FDI, growth, and poverty. The available empirical evidence is then discussed. It is argued that it is not a question of whether FDI is good or bad for social and economic development, but that its impact is determined by the terms upon which FDI is accepted. Although overall the evidence on FDI, growth, and poverty is not conclusive, research has had a tendency to suggest the benefits of FDI are linked to the FDI policy regime; and that the current orthodoxy of maintaining a highly liberal FDI policy regime leads to a situation whereby developing countries have a precarious trade-off to make between attracting FDI and maintaining policy instruments to extract the benefits of any inflows.
  • This paper investigates how, why, and when community-based strategies are effective in promoting corporate accountability (CA) to the poor. It argues that mainstream approaches to corporate social responsibility (CSR) underestimate the importance of power in the relationship between corporations and the communities in which they invest, which limits their applicability to many developing country contexts in particular. In addressing this neglect, the article draws on literatures on power, accountability, and citizen participation in order to analyse 46 cases where communities have attempted to hold corporations to account for their social and environmental responsibilities. The paper argues that more attention should be paid to a number of state-, corporation-, and community-related factors, which are found to be key to the effectiveness of strategies aimed at enhancing CA to the poor.
  • Although the concept that corporations are responsible not only to their shareholders but also for the social and environmental impacts of their activities has now entered the mainstream, pressure is still required to ensure that companies honour their public commitments. This article describes the work of the Ecumenical Council for Corporate Responsibility in harnessing the power of individual shareholders and ethical investors in order to hold companies to account, with particular reference to the activities of Shell in Nigeria and the Republic of Ireland. It is argued that companies do not exist to carry out community development, and so should be judged not on these grounds, but rather on the impact of how they conduct their core business.
  • Economic issues associated with poverty are complex and require holistic responses in order to realise the goals of sustainable development. While business alone may have significant economic impacts, the link between business-level behaviour and macro-level development aspirations is unclear. By developing a sound grasp of how companies understand and manage these impacts, we are better placed to understand how corporate responsibility clusters, or partnerships with other companies, civil society organisations, and governments, can harness corporate impacts to deliver qualitatively better sustainable development outcomes at the macro level.
  • As corporate social responsibility (CSR) increases in large corporate organisations, a genuine approach to sustainable development is often best achieved through the supply chain. This is directly applicable to North-South supply chain interactions (private sector organisations, NGOs, and donors). CSR has adopted techniques from their `development' usage, yet a reverse flow is not observed back to the `development' sector. This is unfortunate. Private sector organisations and NGOs (especially the larger ones) are well placed to take advantage of the increase in CSR relating to developing countries. More importantly, donors of all types would have increased influence if they took up CSR principles. Opportunity costs are not high and the advocacy potential is huge. This paper reviews CSR techniques and argues for donors to accept the challenge of incorporating them into their operations to influence more efficiently the process they seek to change.
  • A corporation has only limited ability to create social capital through philanthropic activity, and in the context of a decline in official aid, the corporate sector is increasingly assuming a de facto developmental role. The presence of social capital assists communities in moving towards sustainable development and may contribute to the business case for corporate- community partnerships. While it is not the role of corporations to deliver social services, their ability to enhance social capital by partnering with community organisations can both contribute to development and work to their own commercial advantage. Such partnerships, whether philanthropic or commercial, will be more effective if delivered through balanced and transparent relationships with community organisations that help to create social capacity at the local level.
  • Current mainstream development thinking, with the exception of a few areas like microcredit, tends to favour size over substance. This article aims to challenge the belief that large-scale companies, markets, and institutions are the most effective means of `delivering development'. We argue that, by designing institutions to meet different needs at different scales, long-term sustainable development outcomes are more likely. Through an analysis of `new economics' thinking, we look specifically at how the concept of subsidiarity could be applied to development thinking at the community and business levels, and we draw on some examples of where the concept is already manifest in practice, such as energy and commodity production.
  • In the corporate world, design has received increasing attention over the last 50 years and is now firmly embedded within almost all aspects of corporate activity. This article explores the role of design in development. Design is widely used and understood, within capitalist economies, to denote a diverse set of tools, used to maximise market share, sales, and profits, and support market differentiation and brand identity of products. The progress of two convergent design-related threads is briefly charted: the growth, since 1950, of a view that design has a real contribution to make to social responsibility and sustainability; and the increasing evidence of design-like skills being used in development contexts. The article reviews several alternative models that are being developed and concludes with a number of short case studies, which illustrate these models and highlight the potential of their largely process-based methodologies for private sector activity in a development context.
  • Many governments and aid agencies believe that small businesses can contribute to promoting more equitable development, as well as enhancing the competitiveness of local industries within a global economy. While small, micro, and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) may have a role to play in creating jobs, and generating and redistributing wealth, they need to overcome many obstacles. This article stresses the importance of understanding the specific context, establishing priorities among competing policy goals, and distinguishing between the actual and potential roles of different kinds of enterprises (by sector, size, and geographical location). Only on such a basis is it possible to identify the resources and policies most appropriate for each goal and each type of enterprise. These arguments are illustrated with reference to South Africa, whose government has sought simultaneously to promote SME-development, Black Economic Empowerment, and global competitiveness.
  • Since the mid-1980s, aid agencies have endorsed the need to support the development of private enterprise in low-income countries as an instrument for overall economic development and poverty reduction. Facilitated collaboration between firms in industrialised and developing countries has become one of the most popular forms of assistance in this endeavour. Although such collaborations vary in design, they all involve third-party organisations that identify partners and sponsor the first steps in the establishment of a business platform for the cooperation. This paper discusses the mechanisms involved in such facilitation and assesses the effectiveness of the catalyst institutions in nurturing collaboration between companies in industrialised and developing countries. The discussion is illustrated with case studies drawn from Ghana.
  • Microcredit, defined as small loans to people who have no regular access to credit, is an innovative strategy in the fight against poverty. Microcredit institutions can obtain funding from Private Institutional Investors (PIIs) that channel funds from donors, private lenders, and socially-responsible investors. Private financing of development aid is likely to become more important and microcredit presents an investment opportunity within this context. Microcredit institutions (MCIs) need to become more transparent, however, and require more incentive to seek commercial funding rather than relying on subsidies. With better information about MCIs, PIIs could achieve more impact with their investment.
  • Since the 1990s, development agencies and international institutions have promoted private-sector involvement in infrastructure, assuming that this would inject both investment and efficiency into the under-performing public sector. In the water and energy sectors, these expectations have not been fulfilled. Private-sector investment in developing countries is falling, multinational companies have failed to make sustainable returns on their investments, and the process of privatisation in water and energy has proved widely unpopular and encountered strong political opposition. This paper examines the role of this opposition in delaying, cancelling, or reversing the privatisation of water and energy. Local civil society has successfully mobilised highly effective political activity, its opposition being based on the perceived conflicts between privatisation and equity, and over the role of the state and community in these sectors. Such opposition has involved dynamic interactions with existing political parties and structures, including the use of existing electoral and judicial mechanisms. Its success poses challenges for the multilateral and donor community, NGOs, the opposition campaigns themselves, and the future of national systems of electricity and water.
  • Post-conflict recovery and development is the subject of current attention and a major challenge is that of post-conflict economic development, which is central to reducing poverty and improving local livelihoods. In this regard, many post-conflict development plans place a high priority on private sector development. This paper examines the role of the private sector in post-conflict situations and discusses possible interventions for economic recovery based on a review of the literature and fieldwork in Timor-Leste. The paper identifies key factors critical to pro-poor private sector development in post-conflict situations, with particular reference to Timor-Leste, considers some of the major obstacles, and suggests public policies to identify promising export products and to strengthen small and micro enterprises that might help the country to achieve pro-poor economic recovery and growth.
  • This article is concerned with the question of whether participation in the global economy leads to sustainable income growth. It examines the furniture industry of Central Java, which has grown rapidly since the financial crisis in 1997. The article shows that the exporting small and medium-sized enterprises generated substantial employment and income growth. However, this growth is not sustainable because the viability of exports has become dependent on wood which is logged illegally and risks depletion. Government and donor projects aimed at small enterprises risk driving these enterprises deeper into the race to the bottom. The article then discusses ways to avoid this, stressing the need for a coalition of public and private actors along the local-global axis.
  • The World Bank's Community Empowerment and Local Governance Project (CEP) was the key donor programme to assist with community reconstruction in a newly independent Timor-Leste. Commencing in 2000, the US$18 million project provided funds to over 400 local development councils that had been newly created to meet their community's development needs. Rather than creating genuine participatory structures, tight deadlines to disburse project funds and bureaucratic project rules reduced the councils to little more than transmission lines to Bank-controlled dollars. By bypassing existing governance structures, including that of the fledging government, the councils also bypassed sources of local legitimacy and technical knowledge, which resulted in community conflict, indifference, and poor project sustainability. The CEP's poorly administered micro-credit scheme led to a proliferation of unviable kiosks - underlining the folly of hastily attempting to construct a market economy on a deeply scarred subsistence economy.
  • In the last two decades, the private sector has been placed under intensifying pressure to ensure it operates in an environmentally and socially responsible manner. Companies have moved through various phases of response, starting with a `deny and defend' position, moving to `paying penance' through donations and philanthropy, and currently settling on risk management through mitigating the negative impacts of their business operations. Drawing on research undertaken by Oxfam International mainly in the retail sector, as well as in the coffee and pharmaceutical sector, this article argues that the current approach is, as yet, inadequate. Simply mitigating negative impacts through castigating intermediaries or suppliers does not contribute to sustainable solutions. For the private sector to meet corporate social responsibility pledges, companies need to pursue alternative business models that forge connectivity, coherence, and interdependence between their core business operations and their ethical and environmental commitments.
  • As retailers in the North increasingly adopt codes of practice containing social and/or environmental provisions in global supply chains, there is a need for rigorous assessment of their social impact. Moving beyond the rhetoric, it is important to establish the actual impact of such codes on poorer workers, their families, and other local stakeholders. This paper sets out the key methodological and conceptual issues arising in such an assessment as identified by a three-year study on the South African wine. It reviews the different motivations and approaches employed by code bodies, donors, academics, and practitioners, and highlights the lack of workers' voices in the debate on corporate responsibility as well as some of the early research findings. Finally, it explains how the inherent power inequalities in global supply chains make it more difficult to adopt a truly empowering approach to assessing the impact of codes.
  • The debate among NGO and union activists about how to improve working conditions and labour rights has been dominated by proponents of specific approaches, arguing variously that the best route is through company codes, legislation, organisation of workers, or sweatshop-style campaigning. This article describes a campaign by NGOs and trade unions that integrates these approaches to improve the labour rights and conditions of UK homeworkers. Its `change model' is to seek changes in company behaviour as part of a strategy to strengthen legislation while also exploring the opportunities and mechanisms for leveraging change in (company) practices and (government) policies: the susceptibility of brand-name companies to campaigning creates an opportunity to leverage changes in their practices; campaigning (threatened or actual) invigorates, and should underpin, engagement with retailers and brand-name companies on the implementation of voluntary codes; and the establishment of a `level playing-field' dynamic means that companies meeting higher standards can become allies in advocating better corporate practices and labour legislation. International development NGOs, with their ability to campaign, engage with brand-name companies, and work alongside unions and workers' organisations across the North-South divide, are uniquely placed to facilitate such integrated strategies.
  • Ethical trade, through codes of practice, forms an important part of the value chains for horticultural products sourced from Africa by major European buyers. This paper explores the relationship between value chains in the horticultural sector, the employment patterns of African producers, and the process of code implementation from a gender perspective. It asks whether, in the context of the gendered economy, codes alone can improve working conditions for all workers. Using case studies of Kenyan flowers, South African fruit, and Zambian flowers and vegetables, the article highlights the implications of flexible employment strategies for workers, and shows that social codes have not necessarily achieved better outcomes for women and informal workers, owing to the gendered economy. Ultimately, it is only by addressing the local gendered economy that the employment conditions of all workers, including those of marginal workers and women, are likely to improve.
  • The global garment-manufacturing industry will confront significant changes from 2005, when the system of quotas established under the Multi-Fibre Agreement comes to an end. These changes pose serious threats to jobs in the Central American assembly plants, or maquila industry. One possibility, however, is that `politically correct' consumption could provide a niche market for firms that are committed to corporate social responsibility and the respect for human rights, and that this might even be a way to improve working conditions in the region. In this sense, notwithstanding the grave risks it represents for the very poorest, the market could serve to bring about changes favourable to working people.
  • Fair trade represents an innovative approach to make the rules of global trade work for disadvantaged producers in the South and for sustainable development. But who are the real beneficiaries of fair trade? Has fair trade resulted in any discernible improvements in the lives of small coffee producers and their communities? This paper examines the effectiveness of fair trade as a development tool and the extent of its contribution to the alleviation of poverty in coffee-producing regions of Nicaragua. The paper argues that it is crucial to analyse the experiences and problems of small coffee producers and producer organisations involved in the fair trade market to ensure that the objectives and claims of fair trade are achieved in practice. The study concludes that there are limits to the extent to which fair trade can significantly raise the standard of living of small coffee producers because of factors such as the debt problems faced by cooperatives, lack of government support, and volatile international coffee prices.
  • The movement to promote sustainably produced coffee is one of many efforts aimed at linking social responsibility and market capitalism. In the wake of a worldwide coffee crisis in which prices have fallen to levels that do not support small-scale production or living wages for plantation workers, non-profit certifying and labelling organisations are working to develop a market that is sustainable for workers and the environment. They seek to influence cultural and political values in such a way that consumers and corporations in the North will have to respond to them by incorporating the welfare of Southern workers and ecosystems into their purchasing decisions. This paper discusses and evaluates current strategies to link producers and consumers within this movement, all of which involve a great deal of education. It argues that partnerships between businesses and NGOs are essential for broadening the corporate base of the market for fairly traded coffee and promoting norm change among consumers, and discusses the challenges and opportunities that such partnerships create.
  • This article discusses the privatisation of public services in Argentina in light of the severe crisis that afflicted the country between 1999 and 2002. An inadequate regulatory framework and the absence of effective regulatory agencies resulted in the exercise of monopolistic power over public-service fees. The emergence of a series of external shocks, starting in 1997 with the SE Asia crisis, weakened the country's external accounts. In the context of a strict fixed exchange-rate regime, rising public-service fees and overseas obligations contracted by the privatised firms placed growing pressure on the balance of payments. Although privatised firms were not directly responsible for the four-year recession or the balance of payments crisis, their actions contributed to the onset and prolongation of the difficulties faced by Argentina.

  • This paper addresses the introduction of a public-private partnership (PPP) for water provision in urban Congo. It describes the organisational context before and after PPP and discusses the various outcomes of the partnership, both positive and negative. Despite some promising early results, the PPP arrangements did not develop as planned and the private enterprises ran into financial problems. The role of the political environment in compromising the potential benefits of PPP was important, and the article closes with some policy recommendations in light of Congo's ongoing negotiations with the international financial institutions to secure their assistance for new economic reforms.
  • This article evaluates potential mechanisms for facilitating increased private sector engagement in agricultural research for development and technology transfer (ARDTT), with particular emphasis on Bolivia. It reviews the mixed results of efforts, in developed and developing countries alike, to decentralise ARDTT and to encourage private sector investment. Potential mechanisms for Bolivia are considered within three broad categories: taxation schemes; co-funding arrangements; and output-based approaches. The constraints to participation in ARDTT by the private sector that arise from concerns over high transaction costs, intellectual property rights, and the legal and regulatory environment are also assessed. The article concludes that a compliance, or a hybrid of a compliance and competitive co-funding scheme, is most suited to Bolivia's needs. A flexible approach to intellectual property rights systems is required, although it remains a challenge to identify appropriate taxation regimes.
  • Radical approaches to introduce public-private partnerships (PPPs) for infrastructure provision in South Asia have been largely unsuccessful. Yet the region is home to a thriving informal private sector and several regional NGOs have become engaged in efforts to involve communities in improved infrastructure provision. Many line agencies and local authorities have devolved some responsibilities for service delivery to the private sector through small-scale service and management contracts. This paper explores the possibilities for expanding and building on these activities, bearing in mind institutional factors, including both organisational structures and the attitudes and assumptions of the various stakeholders. Particular attention is paid to the options for regulating the private sector and the balance to be struck between encouraging competition and promoting improved stakeholder cooperation. Options for moving to `higher' forms of PPP are considered, and brief concluding remarks summarise key findings and suggest some possible directions for the future.
  • Since Vietnam introduced its Doi Moi reform policy in 1986, the development of the private sector has been a main policy concern for the government and the ruling Communist Party. The main development challenge for Vietnam is how to sustain economic growth and reduce poverty as the labour force continues to expand. It is envisaged that the private sector will play a major role in that respect. This article looks into the issue of whether the private sector can live up to widespread expectations. High and stable economic growth indicates that reforms have been consistent but also that private sector initiatives have moved ahead of formal institutional changes. Private sector development is new in Vietnam and starts from a low level. The public and foreign investment sectors are major players compared to the domestic private sector, which comprises many small firms. Poverty reduction has been impressive but it is only now that private sector development is becoming an important contributor. Stemming the growth in inequality remains a challenge where the private sector's contribution to increasing public revenue has yet to materialise.
  • Stakeholder dialogue, participation, and partnership have become mainstream concepts in international development policy, in particular in the field of corporate social responsibility (CSR). However, the accountability of multi-stakeholder initiatives on CSR to their intended beneficiaries in the global South is increasingly questioned. This paper looks at how the agendas of some initiatives in the areas of ethical trade and sustainability reporting are driven by what Western NGOs push for, what large companies consider feasible, and what consultants and accountants seek to provide. It describes how the resulting practices and discourse restrict change and marginalise alternative approaches developed by Southern stakeholders. It is argued that enthusiasm for stakeholder dialogue, participation, and partnership in CSR matters, and beyond, needs to be reconceived with democratic principles in mind. `Stakeholder democracy' is offered as a conceptual framework for this endeavour, and some recommendations are made for NGOs, companies, and governments.
  • The corporate social responsibility (CSR) agenda has taken off since the 1980s, with both civil society and business actors involved in mobilising around it. This paper examines the reasons for civil society mobilisation on CSR issues, the types of organisations involved, and their different forms of activism and relations with business. It then identifies the ways in which big business is engaging with and shaping the CSR agenda, but questions whether this agenda can effectively contribute to development. The paper argues that the CSR agenda can deal with some of the worst symptoms of maldevelopment, such as poor working conditions, pollution, and poor factory-community relations, but that it does not deal with the key political and economic mechanisms through which transnational companies undermine the development prospects of poor countries. A final section considers how this agenda may evolve on the basis of recent developments in CSR activism and regulation.
  • In English and French Only
  • In English only
  • This article identifies the need for an appropriate methodology for evaluating Fair Trade, given that most evaluations to date have been in-house or commissioned reviews and hence not followed a consistent approach. Focusing on the development aspects of Fair Trade, the article reviews a range of impact evaluation methods and presents a detailed methodology for analysing Fair Trade that incorporates standard project evaluation criteria and is based on a wide range of proven methods for collecting and analysing data, principally qualitative but also quantitative. This framework is a modular package from which practitioners may select according to their needs and means, while still retaining an overarching logic. The article illustrates its use by reference to evaluations undertaken in Costa Rica, Ghana, Nicaragua, and Tanzania. The approach allows for a comprehensive understanding of Fair Trade programmes and enables these to be compared with conventional development projects.
  • This article discusses the burgeoning field of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), with a particular focus on the opportunities for its application as part of the international women and development agenda. We discuss recent theoretical developments in critical GIS and feminist theory which have created this opportunity, as well as the problems inherent in using GIS for gendered research. We focus on the obstacles created by inadequate gendered data sources and the ability of GIS to represent women's issues.

  • The article discusses the methodology and application of the Key Informant Monitoring (KIM) tool as used by the Nepal Safer Motherhood Project (NSMP). NSMP aims to achieve sustained increase in the uptake of midwifery and essential obstetric care services by addressing, among other things, constraints on access to such services. Data collected by community-based Key Informant Researchers (KIRs), are synthesised and used by NSMP and key project partners for monitoring and planning purposes. NSMP has used KIM findings to modify its main interventions at the local level. International and Nepali NGOs have adopted KIM in their safe motherhood and other development programmes. Village Development Committees, with support from NGOs and NSMP, have responded to issues raised by KIM by running maternal health awareness-raising campaigns, working with traditional healers, improving the quality of care, and facilitating local emergency transport and funding schemes. KIRs have proved effective as sources of information and as change agents, spreading safe motherhood messages to promote behaviour change.
  • Andean farmers have traditionally adapted and selected varieties of quinoa and potatoes to reduce their vulnerability to a range of environmental risks. Data suggest that this strategy is being undermined. Market pressures, particularly the requirements for consistency and quantity along with the import of subsidised wheat products, are leading to the displacement of quinoa and indigenous potato varieties. This paper explores the feasibility of maintaining crop diversity while ensuring that farmers benefit from market opportunities. For potato, the most promising approach is one of `conservation through use' whereby development practitioners identify market niches for local rather than cosmopolitan varieties. Meanwhile, quinoa production and consumption has been enhanced by government-sponsored initiatives that use quinoa in food- support programmes. The success of these efforts to enhance livelihood security requires an enabling policy environment that encourages extension approaches, where the emphasis is on farmers' active participation, and supports public and private interventions in remote rural areas.
  • Full-text sample article FREE from Taylor & Francis With the inability of international economic integration to create opportunities for important segments of society, many Mexicans are searching for ways to forge their own alternatives. These strategies are the concrete manifestations of the realisation that the `mainstream' path of the search for proletarian employment is no longer viable and that a return to traditional forms of cooperation, organised around mechanisms for ecosystem management, might offer greater security and a better quality of life. People are finding ways to strengthen their communities, to ensure that their families can remain in the rural areas as part of dynamic communities searching for a new relationship to their regions, and to the nation of which they wish to continue to be a part. The article illustrates this process with an analysis of a project that focuses on creating a new product -low-fat pork- that can command a premium price in the market and in the process contribute to strengthening a community, providing new opportunities for women, and improving environmental management.

  • HIV/AIDS is having profound impacts on livelihoods in sub-Saharan Africa. These include the deaths of working-age adults, the diversion of resources to caring, and the rupture of traditional chains of knowledge transmission. NGOs are responding by providing assistance to communities affected by the epidemic in the fields of agriculture, skills training, and microfinance, as well as by offering home care and support. A key feature of such initiatives is the focus on previously neglected groups such as women, school dropouts, and orphans. Factors of success include the use of participatory processes to identify target groups, and the involvement of local political leaders and adults trusted by young people in project activities. Challenges include the improvement of monitoring systems, effective dissemination of lessons learnt, and persuading donors, whose responses to the epidemic are currently focused on preventive and curative health services, to support livelihoods interventions as a matter of urgency.
  • Ever more NGOs are dedicated to the eradication of poverty, while various government bodies are also committed to the moral and material progress of the so-called `human family'. However, the record is bleak. The arms trade constitutes a crime against humanity against which NGOs can make little headway. On the contrary, single-issue campaigns, for example on landmines, may in fact distract them from the wider issues. Similarly, through their involvement in humanitarian missions, often mounted mainly to appease the consciences of citizens in the rich world, NGOs may unwittingly be helping to maintain the deeply unjust world order. We need to reflect upon what NGOs actually do, rather than on ways to increase their efficiency, given that NGO actions alone cannot secure human rights. If NGOs do not engage in self-critical reflection, the poor will be always with us, so will NGOs, and the system will not change for the better.
  • Based on reflections undertaken with members of a partnership between an NGO and Adivasi (original dweller) communities in the Indian state of Orissa, this paper examines various linkages among NGOs (international, state, district, or local), and grassroots organisations in terms of their prospects for advancing Adivasi activism for social change. International NGOs seldom work directly with village- level networks of NGOs and grassroots organisations, but assuming that people's participation, agency, and activism transcend their rhetorical significance for some NGOs, such involvement would bring international NGOs into direct contact with vested interests (often the cause of the Adivasis' impoverishment) and potentially lead to power being handled in a more democratic fashion.
  • The Royal Kingdom of Bhutan has not only a unique national environment but provides researchers with an opportunity to observe effective development in a relatively uncomplicated and controlled system that is government-led rather than donor-driven. This paper reviews recent progress in Bhutan's development and sees two inhibitors to this seemingly `ideal' situation: first, internal tensions between Drukpa and Nepali ethnic groups; and second, the impact of Bhutan's opening itself up to external influence through media and the Internet, supported by a willing donor community. Future developments in Bhutan could act as a useful barometer for global events.
  • Appreciative Inquiry (AI) has long been used as a methodology for understanding organisational learning and change. This paper discusses its applications to interview-based field research within the development context. While AI begins by looking at the best of an organisation or individual's experience, it can help researchers to gain a textured and detailed understanding of both their subjects' greatest successes and their most serious obstacles. Based on research conducted with directors of NGOs across Africa, the paper provides anecdotal evidence that using AI in interviews creates a comfortable and stimulating environment for interviewees that can yield an exceptional quality of information.
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  • Full-text sample article FREE from Taylor & Francis. The reconstruction of the health system in Afghanistan is in its early stages, and donors have proposed Performance-based Partnership Agreements (PPA) through which to subcontract the delivery of health services to private organisations, both for-profit and non-profit. Beyond ideological debates, this article sets out to explain the model underlying the PPA initiative and shed light on empirical data concerning the assumed benefits of such an approach. The article studies privatisation and the contracting-out of health services, though there is as yet no information that can demonstrate the superiority of private provision over publicly provided. Similarly, the appropriateness of subcontracting remains unproved and such arrangements raise several ethical issues. Where PPAs are to be attempted, it is important to remain cautious and to ensure that operations are organised in such a way as to permit proper comparison. The paper concludes with recommendations to organisations involved in or considering the merits of PPAs.
  • Legal reforms are increasingly seen as essential in combating various constraints women face in relation to property and inheritance. These efforts are reinforced by commitments countries have made by adopting such treaties as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), and by the incorporation into their constitutions of various Bills of Rights that recognise women's rights. It is expected that such commitments will reduce discriminatory practices and promote the upholding of women's rights. Based on findings of a study on women's property and inheritance rights in Malawi, this paper discusses the role of District Assemblies in the administration and adjudication of women's inheritance claims. It shows that the whole system is a fertile ground for opportunism and contributes significantly to undermining such rights. The paper illustrates that while human rights legislation plays an important role in the upholding of women's rights, the realisation of these entitlements requires that critical attention be paid to the institutions and administrative systems that are responsible for implementation. It is through these operations of the state that people experience law as practice.
  • While it is recognised that women play fundamental roles in the socio-economic development of their communities, they are often excluded from local decision-making processes because their views are not solicited and their interests are not taken into consideration in the formulation of local development programmes. Drawing on case studies from Ghana, this article identifies the benefits to the communities of involving women more in decision making, and assesses the constraints upon and opportunities available to women who seek to assume community leadership functions. Strategies for promoting a more `constructive engagement' with women in the decision-making processes of rural communities are discussed.
  • The article shares some ideas about community-based natural resource management programmes (CBNRM), which focus on three areas: rural development, nature conservation, and strengthening of local governance. Arguing that the prerequisites of a successful CBNRM programme are a favourable legislative context, a self-defined community, and the absence of basic felt needs, the article discusses the initial experiences of such a programme in Mozambique. It shows the rather slow response of an inland community that has some forest resources, but which is focusing on economic gains with minimum engagement of its own. By contrast, a fishing community was immediately inspired by the programme, organising itself into co-management committees and starting to use its already over-fished resources sustainably. The two cases show that CBNRM programmes are not universal blueprints but have to be adapted to each specific situation.
  • This paper analyses the trends and major themes in the fields of home economics (HE) and gender and development (GAD) focusing on different regions of the world and on change over the course of recent history. The interface of these two fields of education and practice are encompassed by the work of an NGO, the International Federation for Home Economics (IFHE). IFHE can facilitate the renewal of stagnate relationships, challenge stereotypes, and build new partnerships to empower women and improve the quality of life. The authors suggest implications for education, practice, and research.

  • Since March 2000, in partnership with the Women's Centre of Montreal and other units at Montreal universities, McGill's Centre for Developing-Area Studies has carried out an action-research programme on gender and human security issues in the context of war and reconstruction. Our interdisciplinary team of researchers and activists has been working locally with women refugees, asylum-seekers, and immigrants from various countries experiencing armed conflict, and internationally with women's organisations primarily in the Great Lakes region of Africa. Combining human security - the protection of civilians across borders - and gender - the different ways in which women and men are affected -- allows us to analyse the impact of gender inequality on the continued insecurity in war-torn societies. Our action-research in a community - university alliance addresses the personal needs (especially untreated trauma) and rights of women while also examining the socio-economic and political context of violent conflicts.
  • Civil society is increasingly seen as a necessary element of sustainable human development. Some Northern NGOs hope to contribute to the development of civil society by partnering with Southern NGOs. Recent scholarship, however, shows that partnerships are frequently dominated by the Northern NGO, thus inhibiting the establishment of vibrant, locally owned and managed civil society organisations. This paper explores some of the practical reasons for this failure and suggests strategies for working within what Alan Fowler calls `authentic partnerships'. Such partnerships keep Northern NGOs from dominating and thus help foster a climate more amenable to the growth of civil society. Suggested strategies for promoting authentic partnerships address funding, working relationships, phase-out, advocacy, and evaluation of the partnership itself. The paper draws on a case study of the partnership work of the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee (CRWRC), a North American faith-based NGO.
  • This article examines the role of state in the Joint Forest Management (JFM) programme in the northern province of Haryana in India. In the past two decades, significant developments pertaining to institutional reforms in promoting community - state partnerships in protecting and managing forests have been undertaken in the province. By reviewing the experiences in management of water- harvesting structures and lease of forest area to local communities, the article demonstrates that the adoption of `joint management' rhetoric does not guarantee successful partnerships at the field level. The implementation of the programme calls for a radical re-definition of the role of the state in order to establish credible commitments to the local communities in terms of both policy and practice.
  • Pastoralists are marginalised in the Horn of Africa and receive inadequate veterinary services. Under economic structural adjustment programmes, public veterinary services became increasingly ineffective and, in response, community-based NGO programmes were established in some pastoral areas. While these programmes were often considered to be effective, with few exceptions they were small scale, isolated from central government, and based on subsidised systems of drug distribution. Consequently, their sustainability was questionable. Governments now have incentives to improve veterinary services to pastoralists because of new possibilities for increasing livestock exports alongside new concerns about protecting consumers from livestock-related diseases. Current policy and institutional reform is encouraging a greater role for the private sector in service delivery but this is developing slowly, particularly in pastoral areas where future provision is likely to involve public - private partnerships.
  • This article explores the implementation of Convention 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour in the mining sector in Burkina Faso. It highlights key lessons from a project funded by DFID and Save the Children UK and implemented by COBUFADE, a Burkinabe NGO. Children were found to be important and capable actors in the fight against child labour, notably in research and lobbying, and the article explores the role that civil society can play in taking local voices to national policy makers and in linking the different actors implicated in Convention 182.
  • The British government has increasingly assumed the role of international arbiter and peacekeeper, both with and without a UN mandate. The hijacking of the moral high ground and recurrent assertion of global consensus - even in the presence of overwhelming opposition - reveals a disregard for the integrity of cultural diversity and opinion. Often `humanitarian' concerns have been used to justify military intervention, and the promise of aid is used to deflect dissent. Based on her experiences as an aid worker in post-conflict Kosovo, the author makes two central points. First, that the social, cultural, and institutional chaos precipitated by conflict is highly predictable and constitutes a powerful argument against military solutions. Second, that aid is not a universal panacea. It is a last resort and often, even with the best intentions, done badly. It should never be used to mask political imperatives.
  • In order to take up the challenge of responding to the thought-provoking insights found in The Selfish Altruist (Vaux 2001), the author brings together some of the threads in the book and combines them with her own psychological approaches to increasing self-awareness in order to put forward specific suggestions as to how personal development and self-awareness could be enhanced for both aid agency managers and frontline workers.
  • In 2002, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan established a Panel on UN Civil Society Relations, to which were appointed more than a dozen `eminent persons'. The establishment of this Panel was a signal that the UN at its highest levels recognised, rightly, that an opportunity was being lost for it to work more effectively with civil society, and to take more account of the views of civil society in the pursuit of human development.
  • Full-text sample article FREE from Taylor & Francis. This paper examines the excesses of the `audit culture' in relation to North-South development NGO partnerships. It argues that the focus on documentation needs to be reduced, and greater faith placed on personal interaction and judgement between Northern and Southern development NGO partners. In some circumstances, this is a strategy that can encourage more rigorous monitoring and accountability practices, which are able to move beyond a problematic focus on quantifiable targets. The paper draws attention to similar debates over the public sector in the UK, and the problems associated with micro-management in a culture of distrust.
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