Global Society's Response to HIV/AIDS: Botswana's Experience

Approximately 37% of Botswana's population was HIV-positive in 2005. This study examines Botswana's experience of the HIV/AIDS threat in order to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the response by global society. Botswana is particularly useful in evaluating the pandemic threat and national and global responses since it is considered a sub-Saharan leader in establishing a national infrastructure of HIV/AIDS governance—one closely coordinated with global society's infrastructure and culture of HIV/AIDS governance. This paper argues that a polyarchic notion of governance and authority has relevance to the sphere of HIV/AIDS governance and this is evident in Botswana's experience. This study analyses the key features of the global response to the pandemic. It then explains and evaluates Botswana's administrative, financial and operational responses to the pandemic. The paper concludes by identifying critical policy challenges for the further development of effective global–national HIV/AIDS governance.     

Are savings groups a livelihoods game changer for young people in Africa?

The triad of entrepreneurship, self-employment, and financial inclusion underpins policy and development interventions meant to address the youth employment challenge in Africa. Youth savings groups are being widely promoted as a first step toward financial inclusion and economic empowerment. This article reports on the links between income-generating activities of 57 members of youth savings groups in Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Ghana, and their membership in savings groups. It concludes that while savings groups can help to facilitate operational expenses and cash flow – and thus support members’ micro-enterprises – in opportunity starved contexts their transformational potential is probably being oversold.     

Amartya K. Sen and social exclusion

Andries Du Toit (2004) argues that the concept of social exclusion has limited use in the field of development studies, since chronic poverty is often the result of incorporation on particularly disadvantageous terms (‘adverse incorporation’) rather than any process of exclusion. Du Toit therefore advocates going beyond thinking about ‘exclusion’ and ‘inclusion’ in binary terms and looking more closely at how different kinds of power are formed and maintained. This article argues that thinking about social exclusion has already moved beyond a simple ‘included/excluded’ dichotomy, and that use of Sen's analytical framework assists researchers to tease out the complex, interconnected factors underlying chronic poverty, such as that experienced by agricultural workers in South Africa's Western Cape district of Ceres.     

The Afterlives of Global Capital

ABSTRACT

Decay and decomposition have long been important to the histories of capitalist development but what are the particular forms that characterize the relationship between “waste” and value in post-2008 financialization? I argue that financialization is characterized by the organized conversion of distress into forms of financial value. To make this argument I lay particular emphasis on the rehabilitation of “toxic” assets through the practices of asset management in Ireland's National Asset Management Agency. I extend this argument by foregrounding political interventions staged around post-crisis housing, a critical strategy which seeks a certain point of confrontation between the abstract and the visceral. This strategy identifies the “afterlives of global capital” as sites that could incubate imaginative work designed to challenge finance in key ways. This provokes questions about financialized value: do we now locate value in forms of financial integrity or in decay, decomposition and detritus?     

More money,new household cultural dynamics: women in micro-finance in Ghana

This article reports on research into the impacts of micro-finance on gender roles, the extent to which socio-cultural factors influence these changes, and how such changes affect the well-being of rural Bogoso households in the Wassa West District of Ghana. Findings indicated that micro-finance has changed men's and women's control over decisions and resource allocations, which consequently affected financial responsibilities and the education of children, and largely contributed to household well-being. However, the small size of the loans was a limitation. The article concludes that socio-cultural factors may promote or inhibit well-being in rural households, and that micro-finance is not a sufficient tool in itself to promote women's and households' well-being. It is recommended that if rural people's well-being matters, collaborative efforts in the appraisal, monitoring, and evaluation of micro-finance initiatives, with the government providing leadership, are imperative.     

Utilising an Ubuntu-Centred Communication Management Framework to Analyse CSR Messages on SNSS

ABSTRACT

This article is the result of qualitative research conducted on the corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication disseminated by two financial institutions, FNB and Capitec, on their social networking sites (SNSs). The research employed a phenomenological research paradigm to explore the interactions between the financial institutions and their stakeholders on Facebook and Twitter. Collected data were analysed by means of interpretative discourse analysis as well as two computer-aided qualitative data analysis software programmes, Leximancer and Centim. The authors categorised the financial institutions’ CSR communication in themes and coded it according to a newly formulated theoretical framework of Ubuntu-centred communication practices on SNSs. It was found that FNB's CSR communication was based on Ubuntu values whereas Capitec's CSR communication did not exhibit key characteristics, such as the inclusion of narratives and archetypes, sound conflict resolution strategies, and the presentation of mutually beneficial solutions to societal issues. Based on the findings, it is proposed that organisation-stakeholder interactions can be facilitated when organisations disseminate CSR messages and constructively engage with stakeholders on SNSs. Moreover, culturally-specific communication management strategies, such as Ubuntu-centred communication, should be infused in holistic communication models to foster participatory online communities which are characterised by dialogue, mutual trust and reciprocity.     

Naturalist Law and Japan's Legitimization of Empire in Manchuria: Thomas Baty and Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Thomas Baty (1869–1954), a prolific, British international law scholar, achieved prominence in diplomatic affairs by serving as Japan's Foreign Legal Adviser in the years spanning two world wars. Baty's advice to the Japanese government was rooted in the non-mainstream natural law philosophy of international legal theory. Baty's law became the defence of the Japanese government before the League of Nations with Japan's occupation of Manchuria in the early 1930s. Baty contended that China's objections to Japanese actions had no basis in the natural fabric of the nation-state system since China was a non-state.     

Transformative learning and mind-change in rural Afghanistan

This article presents the results of a quantitative/qualitative enquiry into ‘transformative learning’ and ‘mind-change’ dynamics among rural community representatives participating in the Government of Afghanistan's National Solidarity Program [NSP]: a community-driven, nationwide initiative to rehabilitate the country's infrastructure. Drawing on frameworks for ‘transformative learning’ proposed by Mezirow (1990) and Freire (1993), and ‘mind-change’ proposed by Gardner (2004), it is argued that NSP catalysed transformative development learning through (1) its responsiveness to the expressed needs and interests of project participants; (2) engagement of community representatives as active development partners; (3) delegation of project-management responsibility throughout all stages; (4) provision of social space for reflection and critical analysis; (5) opportunities to achieve project outcomes that are meaningful, attractive, and profitable; and (6) programme features compatible with the social and cultural realities of rural Afghanistan.     

Balancing act: Business and household in a small Bolivian city

Sucre is a city of micro enterprises. The lines between business and household are often blurred: accounts are mixed, space is shared, and partners from outside the household are rare. On the surface, this kind of business organisation seems most inadequate for economic success. Yet a closer look at the internal workings of Sucre's businesses suggests that the complex 'balancing act' between business and household may represent not sloppy management (as micro-enterprise development agencies often maintain), but a flexible strategy for household well-being. Sucre's businesses essentially follow 'triple bottom line' accounting at the household level, taking into account both financial and non-financial goals.     

Does microfinance alleviate poverty and inequality? Studying self-help groups in Bodoland,Assam

This article aims to assess the impact of microfinance through a government-sponsored SHG–bank linkage programme (SBLP) of the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) in India, on poverty alleviation, employment, and achievement of financial inclusion in the Bodoland area of Assam. Empirical results from an impact evaluation showed that the programme had a positive and statistically significant impact on the monthly income, employment days, and financial inclusion level of participants of the SHG programme, compared to a control group of non-participants.     

The European Programme for the protection of critical infrastructures – meta-governing a new security problem?

Critical infrastructure protection (CIP) constitutes a paradigmatic as well as challenging case for EU security governance, which has received limited academic attention to date. This article draws on a heuristic framework to survey the EU's capacities to ‘meta-govern’, that is, to stimulate and steer governance efforts across multiple sectoral and political divides, in this complex issue area. The main part of the paper assesses the European Programme for Critical Infrastructure Protection (EPCIP), which comprises a variety of policy instruments and initiatives, on this basis. It is shown that the attempt of an authoritative regulation of European critical infrastructures has remained narrow and of questionable effectiveness. Scientific networks have developed more dynamically, while the participation of private companies and corresponding EU financial instruments are yet to show their potential. Finally, the EU's organizational capacity in CIP suffers from a lack of coordination structures in the European Commission, but also needs to take the scarcely known Joint Research Centre (JRC) into account. The conclusions highlight the barriers to comprehensive governance of as well as large research gaps on European critical infrastructure policies.     

Women's empowerment in challenging environments: a case study from Balochistan

This article offers strategies for women's empowerment in conservative, tribal, and religious environments, based on an innovative programme in Pakistan. Mainstreaming Gender and Development (MGD) encouraged participants to build on their communities' strengths, minimised resistance among families and communities by including them in the development process, and succeeded in building a cadre of women activists. Drawing on its experience, the author questions the importance of collective action, suggests that the selection of participants should be based on aptitude rather than socio-economic status, and highlights the potential for women's empowerment in challenging environments.     

Building the capacity builders: lessons from a multi-country training programme for local consultants

Local consultants are an implicit, but overlooked, part of many capacity development strategies. It takes a trustworthy consultant to facilitate genuine change in a civil society organisation. This practical note identifies the learning from a local consultant formation programme (“Consultants for Change” – C4C) implemented in five countries in 2016–17. The note highlights six factors critical to C4C’s apparent success: recruitment; focus of the learning; design of the process; assignments between modules; mentoring support; and the human/financial resources. These same factors may be relevant and applicable to other capacity development programmes.     

Partnerships in transition: the case of the EU and middle-income countries (MICs)

The EU has introduced a differentiated approach to development cooperation by reducing financial support for countries graduating to middle-income status from development cooperation. Differentiation will likely be applied in additional countries in the next budget cycle; as such, the way the EU organises differentiation makes for an important pilot case. This article reviews the factors that led to the graduation of certain countries and how this matches with the EU’s aspirations to policy coherence for development. The analysis concludes that ambiguous differentiation policy horizontally led to vertical incoherencies in the ways policy objectives are conveyed to financial instruments, and how they subsequently facilitate programming.     

Re-thinking the integration of women in population development initiatives

This article argues that the integration of women in population development initiatives was largely the outcome of four overlapping historical events: the decolonisation of the South; the population ‘explosion’ following World War II; the momentous developments in contraceptive technology; and the re-emergence of women's movements in the North. These developments pushed women to the forefront of development initiatives, in part because of lingering assumptions that population size is associated with poverty. As a result, policies heavily focused on reducing birth rates largely eclipsed those concerned with improving women's sexual and reproductive health and rights.     

Sorting out the Conceptual Muddle: The Role of the Japanese Economy in the Asian Financial Crisis

Karel van Wolferen argues that, since Japan's political economy was the main factor in creating the circumstances that led up to the East Asian financial crisis, studies must focus on it to understand this event. The Japanese economy, which is here described as a war economy operating in peacetime, provided the model for East Asia's 'tiger economies' that imitated the Japanese government in its targeting of sectors for investment, especially the construction industry in the 1980s. These other East Asian economies proved more vulnerable to crisis than the Japanese economy because they were more open to foreign investment and did not have Japan's closely knit economic and financial networks and institutions. After presenting this preface to the crisis, van Wolferen then criticizes the current East Asian economic situation, in which international institutions continue to force the Western ideals of transparency and deregulation on most of the East Asian economies while permitting Japan to remain the least transparent economy of the entire region.     

Words count: taking a count of the changing language of British aid

A word analysis of six UK government White Paper policy statements on aid (selected between 1960 and 2006) compares the top 20 words and key word pairs used in each document. Characteristic sentences are composed of the top 20s to represent the spirit of each paper. Results illuminate changes in the content of White Papers on aid, and point to trends in the history of the UK's approach to international development. A characteristic sentence to illustrate the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness is contrasted with a sentence of words that did not appear in that document. Readers are invited and challenged to identify words they would like to be used and acted on more commonly in development.