NGOs and income-generation projects: Lessons from the Joint Funding Scheme

A visit to a number of small enterprise and income-generation projects supported under the ODA's Joint Funding Scheme in Zimbabwe and Kenya has raised a series of key points which have wider implications for practitioners and donors. The article discusses each point and makes nine ‘recommendations?s for NGOs and donors who support them. While the general benefits of NGOs — such as their relatively low cost, ability to reach the poor, and innovativeness — are affirmed, the article argues that the challenge facing NGOs is to progress further from this base. In particular, it argues that NGOs need to develop more business-like operations, focusing on the most practicable forms of enterprise structure, but without losing their priority of seeking to benefit the poor and other disadvantaged groups. Technology-oriented projects need to ensure that they concentrate on the application of technology in a market context, rather than developing it for its own sake. NGOs with donors need also to strive for a realistic definition of sustainability, to work towards a more credible project-planning process, and to be aware of the dangers of very visible and expensive investment in project transport undermining NGOs' efficiency.     

Analysing pig traders in Uganda: sampling issues,marketing activities,and constraint analysis

An integral part of the pig and pork value chain in Uganda is trader activity. This article reports on a study that quantifies the nature of these traders in Mukono district, a major pig and pork marketing site adjacent to Kampala, Uganda. Little guidance is available from the literature about the sampling of traders for this kind of research, and the second task addressed by this study is to test sampling mechanisms and report on their influence on the statistical results generated. Different sources of sampling frame provided different samples, with some limited overlap. The two samples exhibited distinctly different profiles of traders.     

阿米巴经营与市场型企业

京瓷公司阿米巴经营取得了极大的成功,其原因在于构建了独特的组织形式与运行机制,即在阿米巴的组织基础上,通过核算机制引入了市场价格,再利用其独特的权威机制来克服企业内部价格机制的不足。这样,使得企业的外部激励内部化,低能激励高能化,从而提高了企业对市场的反应速度与企业的竞争力。我们称这种引入市场机制的企业为市场型企业,但我们也发现,随着企业的增大,企业内部的价格机制就越难以发挥作用,故阿米巴经营也有它的局限性。     

Learning from innovation: implications of an integrated development project in Chiapas,Mexico

This is a case study of an integral local development project combining elements of agro-ecology, fair trade, and risk-conservative finance, operated in partnership between a grassroots organisation and a promoter organisation. We conclude that insurance is a key element in the transition from a traditional rural household economic unit to a family enterprise. We reflect on the need for (and limits of) development projects to meet the complexity of structural poverty. The text concludes with an exhortation to value experimentation in development practice, with ethical responsibility, and in terms that can be shared in the larger public arena.     

广西企业开拓东盟市场的营销对策分析

经过努力,东盟已连续多年成为广西最大的贸易伙伴。随着中国-东盟自由贸易区构建进程加快,中国-东盟博览会自2004年起每年都在广西南宁举行,这为广西企业拓展东盟市场提供了新的机遇。在这样的背景下,我们有必要分析广西企业在拓展东盟市场过程中面临的优势和遇到的困难,提出具有针对性的对策措施,才能进一步开拓东盟市场。     

美国企业孵化器发展及对我国的启示

企业孵化器发源于美国,在培育和扶持初创型小企业、培育区域经济增长点、促进产业结构调整、增强技术创新能力等方面发挥了重要作用。我国的企业孵化是在借鉴美国的经验并结合中国国情发展起来的,具有自己的特色,也存在一定的问题。为了促进其进一步发展,还必须增强市场意识、服务意识和社会网络意识,使其向企业化、国际化发展,并不断优化融资环境,提高管理队伍的素质,推动我国企业孵化器的健康发展。     

论东北老工业基地振兴中的企业文化创新

东北老工业企业的发展离不开企业文化的参与和创新。振兴东北老工业基地不仅是经济问题,更是企业文化的问题。从历史文化观的角度审视,东北有许多优秀的企业文化传统。然而,又由于这种文化存在种种缺陷,造成东北地区经济上的落后。因此,振兴东北老工业基地,建设新型工业社会与社会主义市场经济,就必须以企业文化的创新为先导,以企业观念的更新为动力,转变东北老工业企业文化的观念,大力倡导与市场经济相适应的新思维、新理念,这也是振兴东北经济的关键所在。     

The effects of circulatory capitalism on democratization: Observations from South Africa and Brazil

This article argues that the democratization processes taking place in South Africa and elsewhere in emerging market economies cannot be separated from the global economic context within which these processes are taking place. The article illustrates that the mainstream political economy literature has not paid sufficient attention to the issue of the limits and constraints placed upon these newly emerging democracies by the new financial architecture, particularly the derivatives market, which now determines the value and price of emerging market currencies. The article concludes that the workings of this market not only heavily favour the interests of developed countries but that they deeply question the accountability of politicians in those emerging markets and thereby endanger the legitimacy of the democratic project in large parts of the post-colonial world. The article is divided into three sections: first, a critique of some of the leading political economy analyses and their position on the relationship between open-economy policies and democracy; second, an account of the development of the derivatives market since 1973 and a theorization of its implications for currency movements, particularly monetary volatility, of emerging market currencies; third, an illustration by way of the South African and Brazilian cases of the policy implications of currency volatility for creating improved social and economic conditions.     

中国海外投资与韩中产业合作新发展的探讨

近几年,随着中国经济的迅猛发展,中国企业逐渐发展为海外直接投资者,这将对世界经济的发展产生很大的影响。中国企业的全球化也将会进一步加速韩国国内产业结构的变化。中国企业与韩国企业不仅在世界市场上是竞争对手关系,在进入中国国内市场以及开拓海外资源等方面还可以成为战略伙伴关系。     

Women's empowerment and micro-finance programmes: strategies for increasing impact

This study summarizes findings from a pilot project that distributed information and ran workshops in Ethiopia, Ghana, and India, on women's empowerment and microfinance. The project was funded by the British Small Enterprise Development Fund of the Department of International Development. Links between microfinance and women's empowerment are viewed as optimistic, limited by design, cost effective in eliminating poverty, and a misplaced diversion of resources. Microfinance programs range from small scale self-help groups to large poverty-targeted banks. One model may vary in delivery, group functions and structures, and complementary services. This project identified 3 contrasting approaches to microfinance and women's empowerment: the financial sustainability approach, the integrated community development approach, and the feminist empowerment approach. However, program evaluations revealed the need to question the assumptions underlying all 3 approaches. In most programs, women benefited to a limited degree. Many women did not control the loan use. Most women were engaged in low paid, traditionally female activities, and increases in income were small. Resources and time invested in economic activity were limited by responsibility for household consumption and unpaid domestic work. Microfinance programs sometimes created domestic tension between spouses and loss of spousal income and support. Group repayment pressures sometimes created pressures between women. Many women focused on personal rather than social objectives. The author proposes a gender strategy for microfinance and sets priorities for further research.     

Two Critical Passages on the Road to Mercosur

This article challenges two traditional interpretations of the genesis of Mercosur. First, the literature is evenly divided among those who trace back the beginning of the process to the military administrations of Brazil and Argentina, and those who entirely credit their newly democratic administrations. By contrast, this paper argues that integration was initially discussed in a situation of regime asymmetry, Argentina having already returned to democracy and Brazil being still in the final stage of transition. Second, the creation of the common market is generally associated with the 1988 Treaty of Integration signed by Presidents Alfonsín and Sarney of Argentina and Brazil, respectively, while Presidents Menem and Collor are deemed to have simply reduced the period for its implementation from ten to five years. By contrast, this article suggests that in 1988 the project of a common market was still just an aspiration and that in fact that treaty only established a free trade area, its actual progression into a common market being undertaken by the latter two leaders. The first argument tempers the democratic mysticism surrounding integration, the second suggests a partial rehabilitation of the now discredited neoliberal presidents.     

A market-based solution to a sanitation issue in a marginalised area

Neo-liberal ideology, as an abstract technique of self-governance and population management, is often viewed as tolerant of extreme inequality within a market economy. However, the range of policy proposals that flow from the ideology are not necessarily insensitive to development projects in marginalised areas. Sensitivity to market mechanisms may inject pragmatism in contexts where states are unable or unwilling to supply capability enhancing public goods. Through an analysis of the Center for Urban and Regional Excellence’s proof-of-concept development project in India, this article argues that a market-oriented framework can be useful in mitigating collective action problems.     

Microfinance and women's empowerment: A lesson from India

This article describes an NGO project intended to empower scheduled caste women working in the silk-reeling industry in India through the provision of microfinance. It documents the impact that the project had on their economic and social status over a period of time and highlights the negative consequences of excluding male relatives from playing any meaningful role. It suggests ways in which the project might have been made more male inclusive while still empowering women. At the same time, it acknowledges that even if the men's hostility to the project had been overcome, the women's micro enterprises were unlikely to have been viable commercially. This is because the project insisted that the women operate as a group in what was a high-risk area of economic activity, with no clear strategy as to how their work could be sustained.     

Trading and trade-offs: Women's livelihoods in Gorno-Badakhshan,Tajikistan

This paper is based on a small micro-level study carried out to assess the impact of recent socio-economic changes in Tajikistan on the livelihoods and well-being of women in Gorno-Badakhshan. It examines the recent involvement of women in trading and informal economic activity with a focus on the trade-offs that women have faced as a result. It argues that the shift towards a market economy in a depressed economic environment has resulted in increasing socio-economic differentiation, insecure livelihoods, and declining social capital. Women's involvement in trading, along with the withdrawal of the state from basic social services, has increased women's workload. Women's participation in the political sphere is declining from an already low base. Increasing material poverty and multiple roles and responsibilities have made it difficult for women to take up opportunities for public participation, even at a local level. The article concludes that there are structural barriers to reducing poverty in Gorno-Badakhshan and raises questions about the possibilities for disadvantaged groups and regions to benefit from a strongly market-based development paradigm.     

Development versus enjoyment of life: a post-development critique of the developmentalist worldview

This article discusses the meaning of development from a post-development perspective, based on a case study of a goat-keeping project involving a small community of farmers from a rural town in north-east Brazil. The development project was fraught with conflicting views of development as it sought to impose an interventionist, ethnocentric, and modernist view of what was best for the community, even stipulating how the farmers should work together. The modernist interpretation has been criticised on various grounds, but nevertheless continues to condition how the ‘development industry’ defines its values and views its mission.     

A small state’s anticipation of institutional change: effects of the looming Brexit in the areas of the CSDP and internal market

ABSTRACT

Brexit will profoundly change politics in the European Union, and all countries will have to adjust to the new situation. But the issue is more pressing for small member states that are more dependent on international organisations than big states. This article studies how the institutional setting affects a small state’s preparations for Brexit in the areas of the common security and defence policy and internal market. Contrary to the expectations, it shows that the Czech Republic, the small state under scrutiny, has invested more effort into a preventive adjustment in the internal market policy than to the CSDP. This result is explained by the existence of alternative institutional frameworks that are expected to mitigate the impact of Brexit on EU’s security and defence policy. It also suggests that while small states profit from the existence of strong institutions, they also face the risk of unmitigated impact when these institutions change.     

风险资本与高新技术产业发展——新加坡的启示

2009年5月1日<深圳证券交易所创业板股票上市规则(征求意见稿)>正式发布,并且在以后几个月内相关的规则将陆续出台,这意味着我们期待已久的创业板不久就要启动.随着创业板的推出,风险资本和高新技术有了很好的结合平台,风险资本将为我国经济的发展尤其是技术创新和高新技术产业的发展起到巨大的推动作用.     

中国出版业开拓东南亚市场现状、问题及对策

20世纪90年代以来,中国出版业在面向东南亚“走出去”、与东南亚各国出版业合作的进程中取得了令人瞩目的成效,然而双方在市场体制、版权保护、人才结构、合作贸易机制等方面的问题也日益凸显。本文试图分析目前中国出版业在东南亚市场上面临的障碍及其成因、影响;对中国出版业开拓东南亚市场的对策展开探讨。     

基于企业视角的广西北部湾经济区经济型酒店的发展策略研究

自1997年锦江之星酒店成为国内最早的经济型酒店以来,我国经济型酒店逐渐迈向专业化、品牌化、连锁化,呈现蓬勃发展的态势.据中国商务部和中国酒店协会组织的一项最新调查显示,当前我国的经济型酒店以连续3年翻3番的速度增长.与此同时.     

俄罗斯在国际市场上的能源战略

布尔加斯——亚历山德鲁波利斯管道项目可使俄罗斯达到一石二鸟的目的。这个管道项目不仅有助于俄罗斯向国际市场寻求增加石油供应，而且可提供一条与BTC输油管线相对应的、可供选择的管道路线。