Poverty reduction

The idea of poverty reduction naturally attracts all kinds of angels – in NGOs, government departments and international financial institutions – but their ministrations are frustrated by many obstacles. These include the narrow and static way in which economists define the poor; the remoteness of the poor, their social invisibility and elusiveness to most forms of targeting; and the absence of political will to engage in poverty-reduction policies. The angelic response to these obstacles has been to trumpet a global campaign of poverty reduction with millennial goals, international aid targets, and poverty-reduction strategy papers. It would be better to re-discover the language of risk, vulnerability, and social insurance. The message of the association between risk and reward, and the collective need for social mechanisms that will allow individuals to bear increased risk without exposure to irreversible damage, is the one that really needs to be delivered.     

‘Knowledge management’: a case study of the World Bank's research department

This article looks at ‘knowledge management’, using a case study of the World Bank's research department, located in the Bank's Development Economics Vice-Presidency (DEC). Despite the Bank's presentation of its research arm as conducting ‘rigorous and objective’ work, the author finds that the Bank's ‘knowledge management’ involves research that has tended to reinforce the dominant neo-liberal globalisation policy agenda. The article examines some of the mechanisms by which the Bank's research department comes to play a central role in what Robert Wade has termed ‘paradigm maintenance’, including incentives in hiring, promotion, and publishing, as well as selective enforcement of rules, discouragement of dissonant views, and manipulation of data. The author's analysis is based both on in-depth interviews with current and former World Bank professionals and on examination of the relevant literature.     

Development as a buzzword

Despite its widespread usage, the meaning of the term ‘development’ remains vague, tending to refer to a set of beliefs and assumptions about the nature of social progress rather than to anything more precise. After presenting a brief history of the term, the author argues that not only will development fail to address poverty or to narrow the gap between rich and poor, but in fact it both widens and deepens this division and ultimately creates poverty, as natural resources and human beings alike are increasingly harnessed to the pursuit of consumption and profit. The survival of the planet will depend upon abandoning the deep-rooted belief that economic growth can deliver social justice, the rational use of environment, or human well-being, and embracing the notion that there would be a better life for all if we moved beyond ‘development’.     

‘Country ownership’: a term whose time has gone

The term ‘country ownership’ refers to a property of the conditionality attached to programmes, processes, plans, or strategies involving both a ‘domestic’ party (generally a nation state) and a foreign party (generally the IMF, the World Bank, the Regional Development Banks, and other multilateral and bilateral institutions). Under what circumstances and how can the concept of country ownership be relevant to a country with a myriad heterogeneous and often conflicting views and interests? Or to a country whose government's representational legitimacy or democratic credentials are in question? The author argues that the term has been abused to such an extent that it is at best unhelpful and at worst pernicious: a term whose time has gone.     

Reducing poverty in sub-Saharan Africa: the need for participatory governance

Traditional approaches to fighting poverty have yielded unsatisfactory results in some African countries, and have been positively damaging in others. Economic growth and social expenditure on the part of both national governments and international donors have been ineffective in some countries, while in others they have exacerbated poverty. The author considers that this is due to the absence of participatory governance. From a theoretical perspective, support for participatory governance stems from Amartya Sen's approach to understanding poverty, which conceptualises poverty as a lack of capabilities, leading to social exclusion. The lack of such governance has led to the failure of traditional approaches in the fight against poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. Finally, the author proposes a tool for assessing the quality of governance, and its application in Cameroon.     

Meaning versus measurement: why do ‘economic’ indicators of poverty still predominate?

It is virtually undisputed that poverty is multi-dimensional. However, ‘economic’ or monetary measures of poverty still maintain a higher status in key development indicators and policy. This article is concerned with the apparent contradiction between the consensus over the meaning of poverty and the choice of methods with which to measure poverty in practice. A brief history of the meaning and measurement of poverty is given, and it is argued that ‘economic’ determinism, while it has gradually retreated from centrality in the meaning of poverty, has continued to dominate the measurement of poverty. This is followed by a section that contrasts the relative merits of ‘economic’ and ‘non-economic’ measures of poverty. The question is posed: why do ‘economic’ measures of poverty still have a higher status than non-economic measures?     

‘Good governance’: the itinerary of an idea

The concept of good governance originated among African scholars in relation to state–society relations in Africa, expressing the concern that these be developmental, democratic, and socially inclusive. The term has since been taken up by the international development business – in particular the World Bank – and used by them as a new label for aid conditionality, in particular structural adjustment in all its various manifestations.     

Rethinking neo-liberal state building: building post-conflict development states

In attempting to rebuild post-conflict failed states, the international community has drawn heavily on neo-liberal development paradigms. However, neo-liberal state building has proved ineffectual in stimulating economic development in post-conflict states, thus undermining prospects for state consolidation. This article offers the developmental state as an alternative model for international state building, better suited to overcoming the developmental challenges that face post-conflict states. Drawing on the East Asian experience, developmental state building would seek to build state capacity to intervene in the economy to guide development, compensating for the failure of growth led by the private sector to materialise in many post-conflict states. The article concludes that such an approach would, in the first instance, require the international community to accept more honestly its developmental responsibilities when it decides to intervene to rebuild failed states.     

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.     

Facilitators of development or Kapos for capital: the primrose path to GATS

This article arose from work undertaken on behalf of a UK-based NGO developing a policy response to the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). It looks at GATS as a key to locating development NGOs (NGDOs) within the broader field of development aims and practices, examining the long-term implications of GATS with respect to the idea of a ‘fourth position’ for such NGOs. It is argued that this theoretical position fails to take into account changing imbalances of power between NGDOs and their Southern counterparts that began under structural adjustment, as a consequence of which many NGDOs now occupy a position from which effective mediation between civil society, the state, and the market would be difficult if not impossible. In addition, GATS represents a step-change along the evolutionary path towards a market-oriented ideology whose verticalist worldview represents a profound contradiction to the avowedly progressive aims of most NGDOs.     

Sustainability

As a consummately effective ‘boundary term’, able to link disparate groups on the basis of a broad common agenda, ‘sustainability’ has moved a long way from its technical association with forest management in Germany in the eighteenth century. In the 1980s and 1990s it defined – for a particular historical moment – a key debate of global importance, bringing with it a coalition of actors – across governments, civic groups, academia and business – in perhaps an unparalleled fashion. That they did not agree with everything (or even often know anything of the technical definitions of the term) was not the point. The boundary work done in the name of sustainability created an important momentum for innovation in ideas, political mobilisation, and policy change, particularly in connection with the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio in 1992. All this of course did not result in everything that the advocates at the centre of such networks had envisaged, and today the debate has moved on, with different priority issues, and new actors and networks. But, the author argues, this shift does not undermine the power of sustainability as a buzzword: as a continuingly powerful and influential meeting point of ideas and politics.     

Gender justice: the World Bank's new approach to the poor?

Gender inequality is now widely acknowledged as an important factor in the spread and entrenchment of poverty. This article examines the World Development Report 2000/01 as the World Bank's blueprint for addressing poverty in the twenty-first century, together with several more recent Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), with a view to analysing the manner in which gender is incorporated into the policy-making process and considering whether it constitutes a new approach to gender and poverty. It is argued that the World Bank's approach to poverty is unlikely to deliver gender justice, because there remain large discrepancies between the economic and social policies that it prescribes. More specifically, the authors contend that the Bank employs an integrationist approach which encapsulates gender issues within existing development paradigms without attempting to transform an overall development agenda whose ultimate objective is economic growth as opposed to equity. Case studies from Cambodia and Vietnam are used to illustrate these arguments.     

How partnership works

Partnerships can achieve results, but they do not develop smoothly. Members must explore their differences before they can perform well together. Some agencies look inwards at their own priorities and expect their partners to follow them. This leads to a blend of co-operation and competition. Other organisations turn outwards and look for partners who can contribute to shared results. They see themselves as others see them. They do not look back to make sure that others are following. This leads to a blend of mutual respect and reciprocity which is as important for success as finely honed memoranda of understanding.     

Social capital

In parallel with, and as a complement to, globalisation, ‘social capital’ has enjoyed a meteoric rise across the social sciences over the last two decades. Not surprisingly, it has been particularly prominent across development studies, not least through heavy promotion by the World Bank. As a concept, though, as has been argued persistently by a minority critical literature, social capital is fundamentally flawed. Although capable of addressing almost anything designated as social, it has tended to neglect the state, class, power, and conflict. As a buzzword, it has heavily constrained the currently progressive departure from the extremes of neo-liberalism and post-modernism at a time of extremely aggressive assault by economics imperialism. Social capital should not be ignored but contested – and rejected.     

El Niño: an adaptive response to build social and ecological resilience

Experience from adaptive and community-based resource management suggests that building resilience into both human and ecological systems is an effective way to cope with environmental change. El Niño phenomena are increasingly signalled in advance of their onset. We argue that it is beneficial to heed warnings of potential harm and to intervene in society to foster adaptations that might avert extreme negative ecological and social impacts which can trigger socio-political stress and widespread human suffering. The El Niño of 2004 in the island province of Bohol in the Philippines is used as an example of a successful intervention.     

Social accountability and community forest management: the failure of collaborative governance in the Wombat Forest

This article presents a critical analysis of what caused the failure of Australia's first Community Forest Management (CFM) trial. We explore how ‘community’ was conceptualised and represented through the dynamic CFM process, leading to contradictions and conflicts that could not be resolved. We examine the governance structures and institutions that were created to try to enable community participation in forest management. Ambiguity and uncertainty in the power and purpose of the CFM organisation, as well as power relationships within the organisation, all contributed to conflicts that eventually tore the CFM process apart.     

(Re-)building governance in post-conflict Africa: the role of the state and informal institutions

Post-conflict governance is an increasingly important aspect of foreign development assistance in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where the weakening and disintegration of the state undermine sustainable human development. A major challenge in post-conflict rebuilding in SSA concerns the incorporation of subnational non-state structures and informal institutions into the post-conflict governance apparatus. In order to tackle this apparent gap in sustainable peacebuilding, more theoretical and empirical research is needed into the nuanced role(s) and contribution(s) of the post-conflict state in reconstituting governance and rehabilitating communities. This article discusses the post-Washington Consensus (PWC), an emerging development approach which seeks to re-introduce the role of the state in development and post-conflict studies. The central proposition of the article is that, contrary to the anti-statist premise of the Washington Consensus, states, non-state structures, and informal institutions play an important role in cultivating institutional reconciliation, interpenetration, and integration between macro-level government structures and subnational social institutions.     

Privatisation of urban water and sewerage services in Turkey: some trends

This article describes the experience of privatised urban water-supply and sewerage services in Turkey, focusing on the cases of three cities that have opted for such privatisation. The article opens with an examination of the management of urban water and sewerage services in Turkey and explores the development of water services and water policies in local government institutions. The second section introduces case studies of cities that have transferred the management, operation, and maintenance of urban water services to private operators.     

Public advocacy and people-centred advocacy: mobilising for social change

Public and people-centred advocacy are shaped by the political culture, social systems, and constitutional framework of the country in which they are practised. It is the practice of advocacy that determines the theory, and not vice versa. If advocacy is not rooted in grassroots realities and is practised only at the macro level, the voice of the marginalised is increasingly likely to be appropriated by professional elites. However, the very credibility of advocacy practitioners depends on their relationship with mass-based movements and grassroots perceptions of what constitutes desirable social change.     

‘Development is a bag of cement’: the infrapolitics of participatory budgeting in the Andes

Reflecting on observations of participatory budget schemes in the Andean region of South America, this article argues that the statements and behaviour of those who take part in participatory budget meetings should be understood as a form of public performance which often differs significantly from the ‘backstage discourses’ of participants once they are no longer performing in public. The widespread prioritisation of small-scale infrastructure projects that involve large volumes of cement highlights the ways in which the participants in participatory budget meetings quietly but strategically adapt external schemes and policies to their own goals and strategies.