Editorial (21.1)

On 1 July 2010, INTRAC (the International NGO Training and Research Centre) took over the editorship of Development in Practice, with myself as Editor-in-Chief. In the issues published since then, we have been handling the content that was carefully crafted and prepared by the previous Editor-in-Chief, Deborah Eade. This is our first editorial (although the contents for this issue, and the next, are also the result of Deborah’s work), and I must begin by thanking Deborah and the previous editorial team for their dedication and hard work in building up the journal to what it is today.

INTRAC is delighted to be editing Development in Practice, given its strong record of bridging the divide between academics and practitioners, and the fact that it has gone from strength to strength in expanding its scope and readership since it was founded in 1991. INTRAC is particularly pleased to be taking over the editorial role because it shares with the journal a commitment to disseminating research and practice in the field of international development to a global audience.

Over the years Development in Practice has managed to act as a peer-reviewed journal which publishes high-quality articles, while at the same time offering a platform for new authors and front-line development workers – from the global south as well as the global north – who wish to share their experiences. We intend to strengthen both of these functions further. First, we wish to continue encouraging writers from around the globe. Already a large proportion of our writers and reviewers are from the developing world, and we are enjoying working with them. Through core subscriptions, and a raft of Routledge initiatives, the contents of Development in Practice are disseminated to a truly global readership. Many of these initiatives offer access to articles at subsidised rates.

To help expand our global reach even further, we are appointing a small group of contributing editors who will act as representatives for DIP in their respective regions and channel new authors towards us, encouraging the brightest and best young thinkers and practitioners to submit articles. Secondly, we hope to reinforce the quality and rigour of the publication. We have applied through Routledge for inclusion in the Reuters-Thompson citation index, which we know is increasingly important to academics. At the same time, in both peer-reviewed articles and other contributions (Viewpoints and Practical Notes) we are committed to maintaining the practical focus of the journal.

We are fortunate to retain most of the previous advisory board and are looking for a few new members to ensure that we are fed new ideas and have a ‘sounding board’ with broad conceptual, thematic, and geographic coverage. In addition we are of course always interested in recruiting more collaborators to act as expert peer-reviewers, helping to ensure that DIP is publishing the best articles possible on the topics that we cover.

We have already taken steps to introduce some innovations in the Book Reviews section. For example, we are asking major actors in development to write about three significant publications which have influenced their own careers and thinking.

We must of course thank the team at Taylor & Francis (Routledge), who have been so helpful in the handover process, and Oxfam GB for further financial support which will help to ensure that we can maintain the mandate and quality of the journal. Thanks are due also to my excellent editorial team. We can all be contacted via the Development in Practice email address:  We are confident that we are now in a good position to continue building upon DIP’s sound subscriber base and excellent reputation; and we hope you will join us in supporting the journal by reading, reviewing, or contributing articles which provide a platform for global voices reflecting on development in practice.

In the current issue, many of the articles address the values, ethics, faith, and assumptions that commonly underpin development practice but are often insufficiently examined or questioned. Rick James notes the importance of faith-based organisations, but calls for improved ‘faith literacy’ among aid agencies which have often in the past had ambiguous attitudes to FBOs. Matthew Clark et al. take a detailed look at FBOs working with people with HIV/AIDS and argue that their comparative advantage is their ability to work at the community level and with a longer-term commitment than is normal in many secular NGOs. Victoria Palmer considers whether being a Muslim faith-based organisation provides advantages of ‘cultural proximity’ when working in humanitarian programmes with Muslim populations. She concludes that although the potential is there, experience of working with the Rohinga in Bangladesh shows that the relationship is by no means simple.

Several papers question assumptions about the nature of community-driven development and ask whether ‘community based’ initiatives automatically provide a good basis for development. Jelke Boesten and Anna Mdee show how apparently voluntary and community-based work is not always well integrated into local governance systems and conclude that there are many problems of accountability and sustainability in such situations. This is reinforced by C.A.P.S. Msukwa and Dan Taylor, who use experience from Malawi to show that participation is often resented as ‘forced labour’, or merely perceived as offering only temporary gain. They argue that this failure is due to a lack of community ownership of the processes and agendas of development agencies. The article by Deborah Cummins traces the initial experience of introducing gender-based quotas into local government structures in Timor Leste and describes continuing barriers to the full participation of women who are appointed to local leadership committees.

Three articles refer to the nature and approaches of development workers. The first, by Susie Jolly, raises questions about our heterosexual-normative approach to all aspects of development, and our limited awareness of gender roles and the differences between people with whom we work. Ishbel McWha considers how the status of development workers and volunteers affects their relationships with each other and those they work with. A piece by Rachel Napier-Moore challenges us to look at the often negative relationship between ‘front line’ workers in humanitarian programmes and the long-term displaced people whom they try to support.

A Practical Note by René Véron and Ananya Majumdar on micro insurance in West Bengal prescribes caution in assessing some of the more optimistic claims made on behalf of micro insurance for the poor, noting the slow progress being made in partnerships between insurers and NGOs. Finally, we have included a Viewpoint describing one aspect of the work of Sigrid Rausing and her Trust’s support for the power of artistic contributions to capture the public imagination and cultivate a fuller understanding of crucial social issues.

These articles are all good examples of the journal’s aims to publish work that ‘challeng[es] current assumptions. . . [and] stimulate[s] new thinking and ways of working’ through the ‘exchange of ideas and practical experiences among practitioners, scholars, policy shapers, and activists’.
 

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