Engaging elite support for the poorest? BRAC's Targeted Ultra Poor programme for rural women in Bangladesh

This article draws preliminary lessons from the experience of engaging village elites in support of a BRAC programme for ultra-poor women in rural Bangladesh. It describes the origins, aims, and operation of this programme, which provides comprehensive livelihood support and productive assets to the extreme poor. Based on field research in the rural north-west, the article examines the conditions under which elites can support interventions for the ultra-poor, and the risks and benefits of such engagement. It describes the impact of committees mandated to support ultra-poor programme participants, and attempts to understand the somewhat paradoxical success of this intervention. Conclusions and lessons from the experience involve revisiting assumptions that dominate scholarship and programmes relating to the politics of poverty in rural Bangladesh.     

Meeting the demand for skilled and experienced humanitarian workers

The humanitarian aid sector faces a growing skills shortage, at a time when it aspires to expand the scale, quality, and impact of its response to humanitarian needs. Rapid staff turnover has been identified as one of the major constraints on both staff capacity building and organisational learning. A study undertaken for Oxfam GB supports previous findings that traditional human-resource practices in the humanitarian field, with many staff employed on short-term contracts, have inhibited skills development and constrained programme and organisational learning.     

Can bilateral programmes become learning organisations? Experiences from institutionalising participation in Keiyo Marakwet in Kenya

The concept of learning organisations is gaining prominence in the non-profit sector. Most organisations see the concept as a means of attaining organisational change for greater impact on development. While the principles of organisational learning (i.e. team learning, shared vision, common goal, and strategy) seem to have produced impressive results in the private sector and some non-profit organisations, the question is whether these principles can be adopted with similar results in complex bilateral programmes. This article explores this question in relation to a programme between the Dutch and Kenyan governments in Keiyo Marakwet, Kenya. It analyses the process of institutionalising participation as both a learning and a conflict-generating process. In the highly politicised context of bilateral programmes, learning is not necessarily carried forward from one phase to the next due to rapid changes in actors, national politics, diplomatic considerations, and the international development agenda.     

Practice-based insights in developing and implementing a sport-based programme for girls

Parivartan Plus is a structured sports mentoring programme for girls, implemented in a Mumbai slum where social expectations around gender-appropriate behaviour and good parenting restricts girls’ mobility and visibility in public spaces. This article presents practice-based learning from developing and implementing programme theory to empower girls in achieving changes in their everyday social interactions at home and beyond. Gender and social norms theory were combined with local practical wisdom to turn main implementation challenges into opportunities. The article reflects on the strategies that gave visibility to, and achieved community endorsement for, the erosion of restrictive gender norms while ensuring community safety.     

ICTs and decision making: findings from the Poverty Assessor

Pro-poor decision making depends on an understanding of the complexities and inter-relationships between household livelihood, demographic, and economic factors. This article describes the design and implementation of the Poverty Assessor, a software programme to assist practitioners, policy makers, and researchers in visualising the direct impacts on poverty of specific livelihood factors and events among populations living in poverty. The software enables users to upload their own data and profile households in relation to the national poverty line, by selecting from a range of demographic and livelihood indicators. The authors present findings from the programme, using a dataset from Bolivia.     

Reflections on mentoring experiences for evidence-informed decision-making in South Africa and Malawi

This article is based on the consensus that the availability and utilisation of research enhances policy discussions. The article reflects on the experiences within one approach: capacity building through mentoring. The UJ-BCURE programme aimed to increase the capacity of decision-makers to use evidence in decision-making via mentoring models. Mentoring is described as an interactive, facilitated process that promotes learning. The features of the models that have contributed to the programme’s success are orientation workshops with mentees combined with participatory, needs-led, and flexible approaches. UJ-BCURE experiences are relevant to the field of evidence-informed decision-making in an African government context.     

Drones,state terrorism and international law

The conventional wisdom among US foreign policymakers is that drones enable precise strikes, and therefore limit collateral damage. In contrast, critics point out that many civilian casualties have ensued, and they variously cite poor intelligence and imprecision of the strikes as reasons for this. Critics have also raised concerns that the US and its allies are engaging in “lawfare” to legitimise violations of human rights law. As such, some have questioned whether academic engagement with the legal questions surrounding targeted killings amount to collusion with state attempts to legitimise human rights violations. This article will argue that by conceptualising the targeted killings programme as a form of state terrorism, we are better equipped to provide a critical analysis of the drones programme within the context of a long history of violence and terrorism which has underpinned the imperial and neo-imperial projects of the UK and US. The article will then argue that there are important similarities between the targeted killings programme, and previous UK and US counterinsurgency operations, including prior uses of air power, and operations involving the internment of terror suspects, and the targeting of specific individuals for interrogation and torture or disappearance. Common to these programmes is that they are forms of policing aimed at crushing rebellions, stifling disorder and constructing or maintaining particular political economies, through terror. Also common to these programmes are the attempts made either to conceal illicit actions, or in the event they are exposed, to shroud them in a veil of legitimacy. The article concludes by offering some brief reflections on why we should not abandon the quest to resolve the thorny legal questions around the targeted killings programme.     

Working with local NGOs: WaterAid's programme in Nepal

This article describes the evolution of WaterAid's programme of work in Nepal, based on the author's experiences while working as WaterAid's Representative Engineer in Nepal from 1987 to 1991. It examines how WaterAid's philosophy of working in partnership with local organisations was actually put into practice. Various problems and constraints are identified and discussed, and certain points are highlighted which may be of general interest to other external support agencies working in similar ways in other countries and sectors. The overall conclusion is that this programme represents a viable methodology for an international NGO to achieve useful results in supporting local NGOs working in development.     

Teaching Negotiation Using Web-Based Streaming Video

This brief essay describes the author's experiences using web-based, streaming video technology in the Spring 2002 Legal Negotiation workshop at the University of Colorado's School of Law. He first describes the practical and pedagogical problems with traditional videotaping approaches that led him to consider streaming video. He then explains the project, how it was implemented, and its pedagogical costs and benefits. He also presents the results of a short survey of students indicating how useful the students found this feedback format. Appendix One describes the technical aspects of the project, including startup costs and the software and hardware used.     

Heifer International: Growing a learning organisation

Heifer International (HI) has been applying participatory approaches to rural development for nearly 60 years. Organisationally, HI focuses on building the capacity of its country programmes and NGO partners to work independently toward a unifying mission. An open structure allows HI to validate and incorporate the rich and diverse experience of its project holders and country programme offices into organisational planning and daily operations. This article analyses three recent HI initiatives which incorporate deliberate processes to facilitate organisational learning. It outlines different strategies that HI uses to institutionalise learning without imposing limitations on it.     

Post-disaster reconstruction: lessons from Nagapattinam district,India

As disaster losses continue to rise around the world, it has become increasingly important to understand the long-term outcomes of post-disaster recovery programmes. Often, disaster recovery projects have an abbreviated planning period, involve multiple NGOs, and lack long-term plans for evaluation. This article describes outcomes of the shelter reconstruction programme following the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in Nagapattinam, India. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected to assess the effect of the programme on housing, community infrastructure, and livelihoods. The study provides useful lessons for future reconstruction programmes and demonstrates the importance of evaluating post-disaster recovery programmes after projects end.     

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.     

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.     

Organisational learning in NGOs: An example of an intervention based on the work of Chris Argyris

The research work of Harvard professor Chris Argyris gave rise to much of what is today called organisational learning, an approach subsequently promulgated by Peter Senge and his team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The first section of this paper argues the relevance of organisational learning to NGOs, despite its origins in the study of the private sector. The second section describes a particular project intervention based on organisational learning theory which is currently underway in a Brazilian NGO.     

'New learning in old organisations': Children's participation in a school-based nutrition project in western Kenya

The integration of learning into community development processes and how that learning can stimulate positive change pose challenges that development practitioners have met with mixed success. Who the most effective change agents are, how they can be supported, and how their efforts can be diffused in the community and scaled up are key questions in the community development literature. The authors designed and implemented an action-research project in western Kenya on traditional vegetables, recruiting pupils as co-researchers. The purpose of the research was two-fold. One goal was to explore the feasibility of increasing the intake of traditional vegetables through a school-based horticulture programme. The other was to increase pupils' competence as effective change agents by empowering them in culturally compatible ways. The results offer lessons for practitioners regarding creative means to identify and empower change agents within traditional organisations and encourage innovative creation and diffusion of knowledge.     

Social policy from the bottom up: Abandoning FGC in sub-Saharan Africa

The authors analyse the experience of Tostan, a Senegalese NGO, with the abandonment of female genital cutting (FGC) in Senegal, the Sudan, and Mali. Tostan uses non-formal, participatory methodologies to support village-based social change, especially in the areas of human rights and women's health. Following Tostan's educational programme, some communities have declared a moratorium on the practice of FGC and have mobilised their families and villages to discontinue its use. This article describes the process used, considers issues that have arisen as the concept is marketed and disseminated beyond Senegal, and reviews implications for grassroots policy initiatives.     

A Primer on Problem-Based Learning for International Relations Courses

In recent years advocates of educational reform have encouraged and demanded changes in public education at all levels. A teaching method called active learning addresses many such concerns, promising several advantages to both teachers and students. One version of active learning is called problem-based learning (PBL). PBL is a pedagogically sound, scholastically beneficial, and socially desirable response to concerns about educational reform. According to recent research, PBL is the most effective technique for students to learn, apply, integrate, and retain information. Many students also prefer to learn in this style. Many teachers will find PBL a valuable alternative to current teaching practices. This essay is a brief primer on PBL techniques and resources. Abridged sections survey the structure and process of PBL, discuss the role of teacher as facilitator, describe PBL 'in action' in my courses, and address implementation.     

Management not models: adaptability,responsiveness, and a few lessons from football

Despite a swathe of critiques of logframes and other blueprint approaches to development over the last 30 years, most aid infrastructure continues to concentrate on the design and subsequent implementation of closed models. This article does not propose an alternative to blueprints, but challenges the inflexibility of their implementation, which is inadequate given the complex nature of social change. It proposes a supplementary management and learning approach which enables implementers to be dynamic, adaptive, and responsive to problems and opportunities. Emphasising the role of donors, the paper presents a case study of one donor-led programme in Bangladesh doing just this.     

Finding out rapidly: A soft systems approach to training needs analysis in Thailand

Thailand is experiencing the unfamiliar phenomenon of aid and multilateral agencies such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank lending money for internal development programmes. In the economic boom years, aid was neither sought nor required since structural development was funded from the growth which South-East Asian countries had begun to take for granted. Today, falling growth and rising unemployment linked to a depreciating currency and weak export markets have meant that Thailand has had to look elsewhere for development capital and to become proficient in managing educational projects. This article describes a rapid training needs analysis of the Thai educational sector commissioned by the British Council, the purpose of which was to discover the capacity of the education sector to undertake and deliver externally funded projects. Using the Kolb learning cycle as a paradigm of good practice, and an adapted version of the soft systems approach to planning, the paper describes a learning process for developing an action plan to produce a training package for enhancing project management skills. Finally, the paper reflects on the experience of the project and sets out some learning objectives for future exercises of this type.     

Web 2.0: a new chapter in development in practice?

This brief paper describes a range of facilities and new developments in Web-based and Internet services. While many of the applications are being used for publishing, dialogue, research, and feedback in development, the question still remains: how profoundly is the development of communications, and in particular the Internet, changing the international development community and the way in which it works?