Beyond PRA: experiments in facilitating local action in water management

As a tool both for research and for structuring community-level interaction, Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) is now well embedded in development practice. This paper, however, argues that in order to play an enabling role towards community action, facilitators need to offer much more than the traditional PRA approach. Based on work with groups of women and of men in North Bengal, the paper describes how local politics and facilitators' strategies interact and complicate the use of PRA-like planning approaches. The article stresses the need for effective and long-term facilitation strategies that take into account organisational, methodological, and contextual considerations, and argues that organisations need to invest far more in ensuring the quality of facilitators than is generally the case.     

Operationality in turbulence: the need for change

What are the implications for NGOs of the increasingly unpredictable environment in which they work? This article highlights lessons from the natural sciences and from private-sector management. If development is about the process of change, then we need a more refined analysis of what change is. Food crises and conflicts are about struggles over power and rights and are, therefore, but moments in continuing processes of change. Strategic intervention demands an understanding of such change if it is to trigger wider transformations. It also demands a different style of management and an increased degree of collaboration with other agencies.     

Integrated land-use planning for sustainable agriculture and natural resources management in the Vietnamese Mekong delta

The greatest concern confronting resources managers for years in the Vietnamese Mekong delta was mismanagement of land use and natural resources. This paper considers the integrated land-use planning approach developed by Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) to assess the suitability of agricultural production systems and examine socioeconomic factors affecting household (HH) land-use decision making and natural resources management in agricultural landscapes. Various data were spatially and socioeconomically gathered through HH survey and qualitative methods. The findings indicated that a large proportion of the area under existing production systems didn’t match its land requirement and the resources management was partially effective due to socioeconomic driving forces. Land-use options and management measures were thus made upon the land suitability and socioeconomic analyses to secure the rural livelihoods in respect to restoration of degraded native ecosystems. This could only be realized if having institutional instruments and an improved awareness of farmers on land mapping units (LMU) through agricultural extension and credit assess services.

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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.     

Trade unions and NGOs: the need for cooperation

The challenges posed by economic globalisation make it imperative that civil society organisations break down the barriers that have traditionally divided them, in order to ensure that the rights of those who are marginalised or vulnerable are kept firmly on the international agenda. In particular, globalisation brings fresh impetus to the need to forge alliances between the trade union movement and NGOs concerned with social and economic development. While there is plenty of evidence of successful cooperation, major problems, fears, suspicions, and at times hostilities remain between them. Some of these are substantial and sharp policy differences, but others are the consequence of colliding political or organisational cultures, prejudices, financial competition, and a mutual lack of understanding of respective roles and objectives. Debates surrounding the organisation of workers in the informal economy, including the ILO discussion in June 2002, provide a useful case study.     

Critical evaluation of planning frameworks for rural water and sanitation development projects

Poor initial planning processes have been implicated in the high failure rate of rural water and sanitation development projects. This article critically examines 17 existing planning frameworks for rural water supply and sanitation projects with respect to key attributes of good planning practice, in order to discover the extent to which these address the elements of planning that relate to sustainability. It identifies sustainability-related factors from the sector that have been recognised as such and incorporated into current frameworks, as well as factors that are not yet well covered, and makes recommendations to practitioners wishing to employ such frameworks.     

Size matters: the need for human-scale economic institutions for development

Current mainstream development thinking, with the exception of a few areas like microcredit, tends to favour size over substance. This article aims to challenge the belief that large-scale companies, markets, and institutions are the most effective means of ‘delivering development’. We argue that, by designing institutions to meet different needs at different scales, long-term sustainable development outcomes are more likely. Through an analysis of ‘new economics’ thinking, we look specifically at how the concept of subsidiarity could be applied to development thinking at the community and business levels, and we draw on some examples of where the concept is already manifest in practice, such as energy and commodity production.     

The role of local institutions in sustainable watershed management: lessons from India

The implementation and effective management of watershed-development projects is recognised as a strategy for rural development throughout the developing world. Several government and non-government agencies have launched watershed-development projects to tackle the challenges of soil conservation, improving land productivity, and economic upliftment of the rural poor for efficient use of natural resources. Participatory community-driven institutions of integrated watershed management are considered vital for the sustainability of natural resources. This study focuses on the impact of local institutions on watershed development in India and examines the degree of women's participation in relation to the effective management of natural resources and sustainable development.     

Web-based communication: the need for more valuable on-line information

Abstract

Numerous studies about the Internet have already been conducted or are in the process of being conducted. However, after several years there still is no clear understanding of what form Web-based or on-line communication should take to make it really valuable to the consumer.

The contribution of this article is its attempt to address the current contents of Web-based communication and to provide some ideas with regard to the shortcomings in this regard. It addresses the impact of the Internet on the South African society, the Internet as a new communication medium as well as its effect on organisational communication. It also argues that an on-line presence is no longer enough and that online customers want more value in terms of their online experience.

Although Web-based communication has become an integral part of many organisational practices, traditional communication channels or media will not necessarily become obsolete. The Internet is a new communication medium with much potential and can eliminate problems associated with traditional media and channels.

Web-based communication has become a powerful new means of communication in South Africa. Information has become more accessible, more affordable as well as more manageable to both individuals and organisations and has in the process also empowered South African society with more knowledge. However, new technologies are not only concerned with the availability of new communication channels, but also with the development of new credible communication messages for successful communication.

Web-based communication is a more complex task and requires a much more skillful approach to be successful than is the general belief among communication practitioners. After the initial rush to obtain an on-line organisational presence, organisations are currently concerned with the effective integration of the Internet into their traditional marketing communication mix. Marketers, public relations practitioners and advertisers today benefit from the advantages of Web-based communication in conjunction with traditional media. However, even though it is clear that the Internet has an impact on organisational communication (integration), it is less obvious what form on-line information should take to make it really valuable to the consumer.     

Designing a dispute resolution system for water policy and management

Conclusions The Montana state water planning process represents one example of how a government agency with decision-making responsibilities can design and facilitate a dispute resolution system. Dispute resolution systems can increase the participation of all affected interests in developing and implementing public policy. This, in turn, should increase their ownership in the final decision and in seeing that it is implemented. A dispute resolution system may not decrease the volume of conflicts, per se, but it should reduce the high costs of conflict and realize the benefits of conflict more efficiently.The use of dispute resolution systems to address complex, multi-party public policy issues also provides other benefits, including the consideration of diverse perspectives and interests; the cooperative and systematic analysis of technical and scientific information; the formation of more pragmatic, equitable, and mutually acceptable goals and alternatives; and the improvement of relationships among diverse, often competing interests, government agencies, and policymakers. Matthew McKinney is a policy analyst and facilitator with the State of Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, 1520 East Sixth Avenue, Helena, Mont. 59620.An earlier version of this article was presented at a conference titled Innovation in Western Water Law and Management, held at the Natural Resources Law Center, University of Colorado School of Law, 5–7 June, 1991.     

The need for reliable systems: gendered work in Oxfam's Uganda programme

This paper considers the results of a gender review of Oxfam/Great Britain's work in Uganda that sought to determine what gender approaches had been adopted (theoretically and actually) and how they could be improved. After a desk review in the UK, a team conducted a field visit to Uganda where an initial conventional approach that "targeted" women had given way to efforts to conduct an in-depth gender analysis of programs. The team noted that the post of Gender and Development Program Officer in Uganda had been eliminated so that the entire staff would be responsible for addressing gender concerns. The review revealed that the staff exhibited a poor understanding of key concepts, was unwilling to challenge traditional roles and attitudes, deployed ad hoc initiatives, and failed to interact with appropriate local organizations. This situation occurred because of a lack of systematic procedures for planning and evaluation. Also, the fact that there was no extra compensation for staff living in harsh and insecure conditions discouraged female staff from seeking or maintaining positions in the field. Oxfam needs to develop a clear and binding strategy that will spell out the type of social change the Uganda program is seeking, integrate gender concerns, and implement monitoring and evaluation mechanisms. There is also a need to adopt a more political approach to gender concerns by taking advantage of opportunities and confronting attendant risks.     

海湾妇女：历史、现状与未来

历史上海湾妇女在社会、政治、经济等方面地位低下。自20世纪50年代以来，由于政府倡导及社会经济发展等原因，海湾妇女的社会地位有了很大提高，经济独立性增强，也取得了一定的政治权利。虽然受伊斯兰传统影响，海湾妇女状况仍存在诸多问题，如妇女就业仍受限制，享有的经济、政治权利仍不容乐观，但展望未来，相信跨入新世纪的海湾妇女必将展示出新的风采。     

Working together: local and global imperatives for women in Mongolia

Mongolia is a country in transition. Domestic violence has just begun to reach the public and political agenda, due in large part to the activism and lobbying of women’s groups within Mongolia. State attention to domestic violence accords with Mongolia’s declared democratic and human rights agendas which are driven by political and economic shifts within society, the influence of trans-national feminism and the activities of two of the most influential non-governmental organisations (NGOs), each of which focus on violence against women. Local, feminist campaigning intersects with the global imperatives of treaty obligations and has resulted in the introduction of new legislation on domestic violence in 2004. Since then it has become apparent that there is a gap between the rhetoric of the law the reality of implementation. Women’s groups are battling this lack of political will to effectively implement changes.

Women in the informal sector

This article reviews the extent to which the educational system has acknowledged the importance to women of the informal sector of the economy, and the extent to which it has sought to prepare them for employment or self-employment within it. It assesses the record of both formal and non-formal education in providing women with the necessary skills to compete with men for employment, and concludes that both have generally failed to assist women to obtain skilled, well-paid, and secure jobs, leaving them in overwhelming numbers in subsistence-level activities in the informal sector. Within the non-formal approach to education, the article examines training in income-generating projects, which are a major conduit for ssistance to poor women in developing countries. Some recommendations for improved strategies of education and training provision are presented. 1     

Women and the extreme right: A comment

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Danny O. Coulson and Elaine Shannon, No Heroes: Inside the FBI's Secret Counter‐Terror Force. New York: Pocket Books, 1999.

Jessica Stern, The Ultimate Terrorists. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1999. Pp.214. $22.95 (cloth). ISBN 0–674–61790–8.

Ehud Sprinzak, Brother Against Brother: Violence and Extremism in Israeli Politics from Altalena to the Rabin Assassination. New York: The Free Press, 1999. Pp.366. US$27.50, Can.$41.00. ISBN 0–684–85344–2.