Diary of a participatory advocacy film project: transforming communication initiatives into living campaigns

In August 2007, the government of Tanzania made a commitment to doubling the number of training places for skilled midwives, following a five-year campaign by the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood in Tanzania (WRATZ), which culminated in the first television screening of a participatory film, ‘Play Your Part’. With contributions from a range of health professionals, communities, a pop singer, and the Minister of Health, the message was that everyone at every level has a part to play in saving mothers' lives. WRATZ was successful because it was able to promote its message in a way that provides a model for advocacy, combining the reactive creativity of journalism and the methodological rigour of participatory video to bring about a tangible impact.     

Changing families and communities: an LGBT contribution to an alternative development path

Until now, most discussions on the place of lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender (LGBT) people in global civil society have focused on their access to citizenship, rather than their socio-economic rights and role in development processes. This article argues that an alternative vision of development should challenge heteronormative family structures; build alternative, queer communities; wage activist, sexually emancipatory campaigns on concrete social issues (as the Treatment Action Campaign has done on HIV and AIDS in South Africa); and rethink existing models of democratic participation. The author emphasises the paradoxes of LGBT organisation in the context of neo-liberalism and globalisation, with an eye toward queering, or challenging heteronormativity in, global social-justice movements.     

Talking of gender: words and meanings in development organisations

This article reflects on the vocabulary commonly used within development organisations to communicate about ‘gender and development’. It argues that the relevant terminology, though frequently used, remains problematic. Some terms are almost entirely absent, while others are used loosely and inappropriately – with the subtleties of carefully developed and much-debated concepts often lost. Terms such as ‘empowerment’, ‘gender’, and ‘gender mainstreaming’ which originated in feminist thinking and activism have lost their moorings and become depoliticised. Despite these problems, there are indications that debates and language may be taking a more radical turn with the acknowledgement of the shortcomings of the practices of gender mainstreaming, the deepening of interest in the notion of empowerment, and the explicit adoption of a human-rights language.     

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.     

Towards a policy framework for the empowerment of social movements

As they move from responding to needs and demands to a more rights-based approach, some French NGOs are rethinking both their areas of work and their ways of working. ‘Empowerment’ has become a key concept in this changing context, although it is sometimes difficult to know how best to apply it and understand what it really means in an NGO setting. This article shares some thinking on empowerment, analysing its ‘object’ (individuals, organisations, networks, or movements) and the ‘process’ through which it is realised. Drawing on the author's own experience and on a brief literature review, it is illustrated by the examples of the international disability and US gay rights movements.     

Counting the costs of HIV and AIDS to civil-society organisations

HIV threatens the survival of many civil-society organisations (CSOs) in Africa. While we know the range of potential costs to such groups, we lack a detailed picture of the extent of the impact. This article highlights important findings from exploratory research in Malawi. Respondents perceived that overall performance in the four CSOs studied declined by an average 20 per cent because they were working in a context of high HIV prevalence. Yet the CSOs' workplace response to this threat was very limited, and they remain highly vulnerable to future impact. We consider why the CSOs have not been more proactive, and we recommend that donor policy should help partners to respond to the epidemic and enable them to remain effective.     

Empowering families as an alternative to foster care for street children in Brazil

Although the emphasis in current thinking about work with street children has changed from aid-dependency towards youth protagonism, many organisations ignore the role of the children's families in their interventions. In so doing, they reproduce obsolete welfare traditions and also violate rights guaranteed by the Convention on the Rights of the Child and national legislation. This article illustrates the importance of child–family ties for both children and families, and argues that interventions that lack the involvement of parents and families serve to reproduce images of failed families and inadequate mothers. The author presents an alternative approach from Brazil which respects the rights and needs of children and families through family empowerment.     

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.     

The F-word and the S-word – too much of one and not enough of the other

This article questions the growing use of the term ‘faith-based’ in development policy and practice. It is argued that it homogenises people in minority migrant and developing-country contexts and excludes many who are working for human rights and social justice from secular perspectives, thus providing an unsound analytical base for policy. Against the background of the ‘war on terror’, the author also examines the differences in US and British development policy arising out of the term ‘faith-based’.     

The human organisation: challenges in NGOs and development programmes

It is frequently contended that NGOs and the wider context of development are intrinsically different from other organisational settings within which Human Resource Development (HRD) is believed to play an important role. The author outlines the basic concepts underpinning human development within organisations, and organisational development, and sets out the arguments for greater investment in people. While this can raise ethical and practical issues in organisations that depend on external funds rather than generating their own income, the failure to develop the staff on whom a development organisation ultimately depends carries far greater risks. Management and specifically HRD are not desk-bound activities that can be pursued through the application of protocols and sanctions, but require vision, leadership, and hands-on engagement.     

Violence,fear, and development in Latin America: a critical overview

This introduction presents the core concepts that shape this special issue on the impact of violence and the processes of development in Central and South America. The understanding of development is considered in terms broader than the economic context alone, in order to assess wider social and political aspects. With a similarly expansive scope, forms of violence are addressed that range from direct physical harm and bodily attack to the often more subtle aggression of racialised abuse or the pressures on community-centred production from dominant market forces. In these contexts, violence, economic initiatives, and political allegiances form unintended and often dangerous networks of consequence for development matters. All the articles in this volume exemplify further the spatial environments of violence and diverse ‘landscapes of fear’ that shape our existence and help to define our actions, territories, and understanding of what happens around us.     

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.     

Community development: Freire and Grameen in the Barrowfield Project,Glasgow, Scotland

This article is an attempt to examine one of the better-known failures in UK community development – the Barrowfield Project in Glasgow (1986–1996) – and to compare and contrast it with other attempts at community development, especially some associated with the work of Mohammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank, and the legacy of Paulo Freire. We conclude that both Freire and Yunus make assumptions about the pre-existence of community which limit the potential impact of their ideas in an area such as Barrowfield, where anomie and apathy were rife. We further find that just as actions intended to be liberating may reinforce the dominant hegemony, the converse may on occasion also be true. In recent years the Barrowfield Project has risen from the ashes of its previous demise, and so the present work needs to be seen in that context.     

Differences in health-promotion behaviour among the chronically ill in three South Pacific island countries

In this study, the Health Promoting Lifestyle Profile was used to compare health-promoting behaviours in three groups of chronically ill people being treated as outpatients at clinics and hospitals in Fiji, Nauru, and Kiribati. Significant differences were found between males and females and among groups in relation to practices and attitudes towards health responsibility, physical activity, nutrition, and stress management. Health professionals and educators must develop ways to transmit the message of healthy lifestyles to populations that do not pay much attention to conventional health-education methods.     

Analysing social-change practice in the Peruvian Amazon through a feminist reading of participatory communication research

This article analyses the social-change practices of Minga Perú, an NGO in the Peruvian Amazon which promotes gender equality and reproductive health through radio broadcasts and community-based interventions. This analysis, grounded in participatory research methods, reveals a feminist and gender-equitable approach, allowing participants to take the role of leader rather than of passive research subject. Such participatory research methods helped to empower both individuals and their communities in the Peruvian Amazon, encouraging the development of more productive group dynamics and leadership.     

Embracing marginality: place-making vs development in Gardenton,Manitoba

Based on a two-year, multi-method study of ‘development’ in one small community in rural Manitoba, Canada, the article examines how the community and people's reasons for living there have both changed and remained consistent since the beginning of the area's settlement by Ukrainian immigrants in the late nineteenth century. The community has much in common with marginalised areas of the global South, in terms of its treatment at the hands of those in the centre and those who promote ‘development’. The author argues that the concept of ‘place-making’ allows for both a greater understanding of the dynamics in the community and greater possibilities for building sustainable, liveable places, than does the concept or practice of ‘development’.     

Women and NGO professionalisation: a case study of Jordan

This article examines the impact of NGO professionalisation on the recruitment of NGO staff. Based on an in-depth survey of employees in 20 advocacy NGOs in Jordan, it demonstrates the gendered impact of professionalisation. The majority of NGO employees are highly educated women, often Western-educated, who work in NGOs primarily for career opportunities and because they are attracted by the NGO's goals. In contrast to existing literature, this article argues that gender considerations, such as job flexibility to accommodate household duties, play less of a role in determining the reasons why women seek work in NGOs and their degree of job satisfaction.     

Family-planning methods among the tribal population in south Gujarat: a case study of access and usage

The article explores knowledge and practices of family planning among the tribal population of south Gujarat, India. The authors examine the reasons for discontinuation and non-use of various modern contraceptive methods by tribals and draw contrasts with practices in the urban population. They consider the roles of women, family members, local leaders, and effective communication, along with NGOs and the private sector, and make recommendations for increasing access to and usage of various family-planning methods by the tribals.     

NGOs: between buzzwords and social movements

The associations that the term ‘NGO’ has acquired in development discourse need to be critically analysed in relation to practice on the ground. Drawing on an analysis of the rise of NGOs in Palestine, the author suggests that the development of the NGO movement served to demobilise Palestinian civil society in a phase of national struggle. Through professionalisation and projectisation brought about by donor-funded attempts to promote ‘civil society’, a process of NGOisation has taken place. The progressive de-politicisation of the women's movement that NGOisation has brought about has created a vacuum that has been increasingly filled by the militancy of the Islamic Movement (Hamas). As this case shows, ‘NGOs’ may be a development buzzword, but they are no magic bullet. Rather than taking for granted the positive, democratising effects of the growth and spread of NGOs as if they represented ‘civil society’ itself, this article contends, a more critical approach is needed, one that takes greater account of the politics of specific contexts and of the dynamics of institutionalisation.     

Participation: the ascendancy of a buzzword in the neo-liberal era

Participation was originally conceived as part of a counter-hegemonic approach to radical social transformation and, as such, represented a challenge to the status quo. Paradoxically, throughout the 1980s and 1990s, ‘participation’ gained legitimacy within the institutional development world to the extent of achieving buzzword status. The precise manipulations required to convert a radical proposal into something that could serve the neo-liberal world order led to participation's political decapitation. Reduced to a series of methodological packages and techniques, participation would slowly lose its philosophical and ideological meaning. In order to make the approach and methodology serve counter-hegemonic processes of grassroots resistance and transformation, these meanings desperately need to be recovered. This calls for participation to be re-articulated within broader processes of social and political struggle in order to facilitate the recovery of social transformation in the world of twenty-first century capitalism.