From volunteers to voluntours: shifting priorities in post-disaster Japan

This paper analyses the emergence of post-disaster ‘voluntours’ following Japan's 2011 disasters. An overwhelming, yet haphazard volunteer response to previous disasters spurred extensive collaboration between the state, relief organizations, and would-be volunteers in the wake of 3.11. However, when mapped onto to the massive devastation of the 3.11 disasters, this collaboration almost immediately turned many post-disaster volunteers into ‘voluntourists’, a problematic category commonly associated with visitors from the Global North volunteering for social and environmental causes while on holiday in the Global South. Japan's post-disaster voluntours demonstrate how uncoordinated and potentially risky volunteers have been channelled into a carefully-controlled and long-term response that satisfies people's desire to help disaster victims, while ultimately encouraging tourism (sans volunteering) as the most desirable form of disaster recovery assistance. This shift toward voluntourism potentially undermines post-disaster volunteering and threatens to trap parts of Tōhoku, like other disaster sites, in a position of permanently ‘post-disaster’.     

NGOs as intermediaries in post-disaster rural reconstruction: findings from research in India

Drawing upon research conducted in Gujarat, India, this article identifies the potential and limitations for NGOs to serve as intermediaries (between beneficiaries, governments, and international relief/development organisations) on post-disaster rural reconstruction projects. Findings reveal that NGOs can play important roles in facilitating the design and construction of high-quality, culturally appropriate housing; revitalising and diversifying livelihoods; and reducing physical and social vulnerability to future disasters. NGOs should have clearly defined roles, responsibilities, and accountability measures in post-disaster reconstruction projects, but they also need a certain amount of autonomy to protect their organisational philosophies and flexibility to make day-to-day decisions.     

Livelihood recovery after disaster

A lack of monitoring and evaluation on the outcomes of livelihood recovery programming has typified many post-disaster recovery initiatives. This article uses a case study of the 2006 Yogyakarta, Indonesia earthquake to analyse longer-term impacts of livelihood programming after disaster. The article includes an overview of the programming implemented in five case study villages and the perspectives of impacted populations on the livelihood interventions. Results indicate the importance of longer-term programming, early interventions, local leadership, and an integrative strategy focusing on replacing assets, providing capital and credit to jumpstart entrepreneurial activities, capacity and skills building, and developing markets and networks.     

Accountability mechanisms in community-driven reconstruction in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo

A lack of accountability is often considered a root cause of conflict. Many post-conflict reconstruction efforts therefore aim to enhance accountability between authorities and the population through community-driven reconstruction programmes. This article examines the accountability mechanisms in the Tushiriki community-driven reconstruction programme in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The ethnographic research found little impact of formal programme accountability. Rather, accountability was shaped differently and had its own context-specific meaning. To make accountability more sustainable, stronger embeddedness in local institutions and more appropriate translations of abstract concepts into the local context are needed.     

NGO–government partnerships for scaling up: sexuality education in Mexico

Governments in developing countries need effective programmes to advance public policies and improve social welfare. NGOs often have well-tested programmes and research outcomes that are relevant to such needs, yet the scaling up of pilot programmes to national level is difficult to achieve and frequently unsuccessful. This article presents a case of successful scaling up for an adolescent sexual-health and psychosocial-competencies programme in Mexico, through an NGO–government partnership involving IMIFAP, a Mexican NGO. The case illustrates how an NGO can create a successful partnership with government to scale up effective programmes, in ways that meet key needs of the target population while protecting the NGO's core values.     

Social and economic inclusion of people with disabilities: practical lessons from Bangladesh

People with disabilities remain one of the most excluded minorities, often deprived of the benefits of mainstream development programmes. This practical note reports on lessons learnt in delivering a programme combining a community based rehabilitation (CBR) and self-help group approach with disabled persons in rural Bangladesh. Our findings demonstrate how targeted programmes can bring about the social and economic inclusion of disabled persons. We also highlight the greater effectiveness of CBR programmes when targeting a more diverse client base, when not based on debt recovery, and how targeted programmes can even benefit the wider community.     

Post-disaster emergency and reconstruction experiences in Asia and Latin America: an assessment

From United Nations emergency responses involving tent camps, to the reconstruction approach of FUNDASAL in El Salvador and the post-disaster provision of housing by Caritas in Asia, it is clear that a giant step has been taken in thinking about emergency shelter, as well as about how prevention and reconstruction are managed. This article evaluates some current good practices in Asia and Latin America in post-disaster emergency shelter that use local skills, materials, and tools, and participatory processes.     

Capacity builders for governance: community-driven reconstruction in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo

Community-driven reconstruction (CDR) has become a new paradigm in post-conflict development. It combines infrastructure restoration with introducing good governance at the local level. Recent evaluations show that governance objectives are not easily met and significant change cannot be demonstrated. This paper adds to this argument on the basis of ethnographic research on a CDR programme in eastern DRC. It seeks to find explanations for the lack of demonstrable governance impact in the content and implementation of training. It identifies room for improvement by better adjusting capacity building to locally prevailing accountability mechanisms and by coordinating capacity building with other development programmes.     

The politics of the post-conflict and post-disaster nexus in Nepal

The intersection of the post-conflict reconstruction processes established in Nepal’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2006, and the post-disaster reconstruction effort that swung into action following the country’s devastating earthquakes in 2015 provides an important opportunity to observe to what extent synergies between the two reconstruction processes have been successfully exploited. This paper critically examines these two processes, demonstrating that despite a growing recognition of the value of linking these processes by researchers, in practice they often remain separate. It shows how certain actors have framed the post-disaster reconstruction as unrelated to post-conflict activities in order to avoid what they perceive as the risk of politicising – and thus delaying – the post-disaster reconstruction process. The paper suggests that this is a mistake. The process of post-disaster reconstruction is innately political and intricately entwined with the very same issues and activities the post-conflict reconstruction process attempted to address. Moreover, we argue that the entire process is taking place within a political context which is a product of the as-yet unresolved post-conflict polity. Any reconstruction process that does not take this into account risks being undermined by the same challenges that underpinned the country’s conflict.     

Applying an ecological model to orphans and vulnerable children programming

Research has shown that programmes that take a holistic approach to addressing the challenges of orphans and other vulnerable children (OVC) are more likely to achieve sustainable outcomes. However, OVC programme staff can feel overwhelmed by the challenge of designing holistic approaches due to realities on the ground. The paper introduces an adaptation of Bronfenbrenner's ecological model of development. The framework is designed specifically to assist programme staff in constructing more holistic and integrated OVC responses by translating an established theoretical background into an approachable way to better conceptualise and support OVC intervention(s) across multiple systems and multiple sectors.     

Real-time research: decolonising research practices – or just another spectacle of researcher–practitioner collaboration?

This article examines the experiences and outcomes from collaboration between a group of researchers and a Northern NGO to improve recovery work in Sri Lanka after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami disaster. A Real-Time Research methodology was established to follow and intervene in the recovery practices as they took place on the ground. What was learned and achieved through this collaboration is assessed, with particular reference to the relationships between various stakeholders in the collaboration.     

“The United States Stands Ready to Be of Assistance”: On the Politics and Humanitarianism of Natural Disaster

This article asks how American understandings of foreign natural disaster have evolved over time. Are the political and humanitarian concerns surrounding disaster and disaster aid radically different now from what they were a century ago? Through an analysis of presidential statements and major newspaper editorials following foreign natural disaster, I find that there has indeed been significant change. Notions of post-disaster humanitarianism have broadened significantly, with, among other things, disaster aid going from being discussed as an act of charity to an understood responsibility. Furthermore, the political side of foreign natural disaster has moved beyond the political effects of disaster itself to include the political causes of “natural” disaster and the political causes and effects of disaster aid. These and other patterns are used to consider the relationship between politics and humanitarianism more generally.     

Assessing civil society impact for democracy programmes: Using an advocacy scale in Indonesia and the Philippines

Democracy assistance programmes have always been notoriously difficult to measure in terms of outcome, but the need to show their impact (or lack of it) remains critical. This article represents part of a continuing endeavour to develop a tool for measuring civil society programme impact in the form of an advocacy scale encompassing democracy's critical components of participation, accountability and contestation. The scale is tested in the context of USAID-assisted initiatives in the Philippines and Indonesia, where it demonstrates a capacity both to monitor donor assistance outcomes and to suggest future programme initiatives.     

Deconstructing gender: evidence on how programmes address gender inequalities to improve health

A growing body of evidence demonstrates that incorporating approaches to address gender inequality in programmes can lead to improved health outcomes. This article aims to deconstruct the various dimensions of gender and identify how programmes address these domains to improve health. This study draws on a broader systematic review examining the impact of gender-integrated programmes on health outcomes in low- and middle-income countries. We identified 68 programmes meeting our criteria for inclusion. Our analysis found considerable variation in gender domains addressed across programmes, suggesting that more evidence is needed to understand the pathways through which gender-integrated programmes influence health.     

Post-project evaluation of the sustainability of development project outcomes: a case study in eastern Indonesia

The extent to which project outcomes are sustained years after development projects have ended is not routinely investigated. This study assessed the long-term impacts of a fire management project in eastern Indonesia seven years after the funding ended. Post-project evaluation increased understanding of the factors determining sustainability of project outcomes and links to development impacts. The continuation of community fire management and agroforestry groups was linked to demonstration of benefits to farmers and multi-level engagement. Activities had ceased where ownership was disputed. Some long-term impacts were outside the original aims of the fire project, including district government agencies applying fire mapping skills to other development issues.     

“I know! I live here”: poor women and the work of empowerment

To trace the effects of empowerment programmes in the Global South, attention needs to be focused on the everyday practices of frontline staff, or fieldworkers, who convey empowerment ideas and practices at the grassroots. This is especially critical when fieldworkers work in the marginalised communities where they also live. Instead of looking outward towards a programme’s outcomes, this article turns inward to examine the impact of women fieldworkers’ dual experiences of development on their decisions and practices in the field. The ethnography of women fieldworkers in a government-led women’s empowerment programme for the poor in Delhi, India reveals the uneasy relationship of women’s empowerment to the larger contradictory development paradigm that they work within. Fieldworkers used their experiences as poor women to meet programme quotas, while also side-lining social change in favour of shielding clients from ineffective programme activities.     

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.     

Resettlement and risk of adverse incorporation: the case of the Polavaram dam

This article argues that people involuntarily displaced by development projects face the risk of adverse incorporation into local processes of development, and that resettlement programmes should aim at mitigating this risk. The article also contends that investigating the risk of adverse incorporation enables the identification of context-specific factors and processes that are likely to affect the outcomes of resettlement. The argument is applied to the case of the Polavaram dam in Andhra Pradesh, India, which will displace 200,000 people. It demonstrates that the affected people face the risk of being exposed to landlessness, fragmentation of landholdings, and casualisation of labour as a result of resettlement.     

Coordinating post-disaster humanitarian response: lessons from the 2005 Kashmir earthquake,India

This article is based on a field study carried out in Indian-administered Kashmir after the 2005 earthquake. In this analysis of how non-governmental development organisations (NGDOs) engage and coordinate with one another and with other disaster response agencies during post-disaster relief and rehabilitation operations, it can be concluded that NGDO coordination was ineffective. The research points out that, even though there is coordination among the international and national NGDOs, local NGDOs are seldom engaged in the overall coordination processes. The paper advocates developing coordination among the humanitarian agencies as a pre-disaster initiative for a more effective collaborative humanitarian disaster response.     

Expensive English: an accessible language approach for Papua New Guinea agricultural development

Language used in capacity development programmes is usually that of the donor country, often English. However, research shows that the language used can be detrimental to the success of the programme. Little attention has been given to the issue of language, yet it is important that programme participants fully understand the capacity development programme’s concepts to ensure that the programme achieves its full potential. This article explores an accessible language approach to a Papua New Guinea development programme. Arguments are based on an in-country research project designed to provide women and men with deeper understanding of gender equity.