Microfinance,wage employment and housework: a gender analysis

This paper examines the loan-use pattern of women involved in wage employment and their benefits from such loans in Bangladesh. The effects of wage employment on gender relations and how these women balance loan use, wage employment, and housework were also explored. The study was conducted among women enrolled in the Ayesha Abed Foundation (AAF) of the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) in Jamalpur district, central Bangladesh. The AAF was established to generate employment and income for poor rural women. Data were gathered through survey, interviews, and focus-group discussions. Findings revealed that women wage earners avail themselves of the BRAC loans for consumption, asset accumulation, land purchase, and other productive purposes. About 53% of their loans were used by others and only 34 out of 341 women in the sample actually used the loans themselves. The loans were repaid by sewing or subsistence work, mainly in the subcenters (52%), through income from rickshaw pulling by their husbands (24%), and by selling vegetables, eggs, or milk. Furthermore, findings showed that the household work of women wage earners is generally taken up by other women in the family and has resulted in more men taking part in household responsibilities. In conclusion, wage employment plays an important factor in the promotion of the economic and social empowerment of women. Economic empowerment is observed in the greater degree of control women have over the money they earn. Social empowerment is manifested in the expanding mobility of women, whereby they are able to interact with other women and generate support systems.     

Women’s NGOs as intermediaries in development cooperation: findings from research in Tanzania

This article employs research conducted with the Kivulini Women’s Rights Organization in Tanzania to discuss opportunities, constraints, and broader lessons about the role of women’s NGOs as intermediaries in development projects. Findings reveal that women’s NGOs often have insecure positions in development projects and are undervalued by executing agencies because advocating for gender equality is perceived as a “natural” extension of women’s roles in patriarchal societies. Women’s NGOs are “feminised” and consequently trivialised in their role as intermediaries, putting gender equality objectives at risk of attrition or abandonment. Under certain circumstances, women’s NGOs can be pushed out of partnership projects altogether.     

国际金融中心:上海与莫斯科的博弈

基于对世界金融体系、区域金融布局、本国经济金融发展和政治影响力等方面的考虑,中俄两国相继提出要建立国际金融中心。通过对两国经济、金融、政策、基础设施和人才等多方面的现状比较可以发现,上海相对于莫斯科在建设国际金融中心的综合优势更加明显。但作为战略目标相近、地理位置相邻的两个大国,在未来两国建设国际金融中心的过程中,对于战略空间、金融资源、金融创新和货币领域的竞争将不可避免。因此,建议在竞争的同时,还要加强政策、资本市场、货币领域的合作,力争实现错位发展。     

Does China have a geoeconomic strategy towards Zimbabwe? The case of the Zimbabwean natural resource sector

The Chinese party-state and Chinese companies have become increasingly active in Sub-Saharan Africa, especially in the natural resource sector. Accessing natural resources is assumed to be one of the main goals of both the Chinese government and relevant Chinese companies in resource-rich African countries. In the article, the interplay between Chinese party-state and state-owned enterprises in Zimbabwe is analyzed from the viewpoint of China’s geoeconomic strategy. While existing literature has focused on various facets of China’s Africa policy, details of collaboration between Chinese party-state and corporate actors remain largely unexamined. In the natural resource sector, such collaboration ranges from negotiating access to natural resources to arranging large Chinese-financed projects repaid or collateralized in natural resources. The article analyzes in detail the cases of three companies that have been involved in such arrangements in Zimbabwe’s natural resource sector between 2000 and 2013: NORINCO, AFECC, and CMEC. The central argument advanced in the article is that China’s Ministry of Commerce, Eximbank and CDB have pressured the Zimbabwean government to offer resources as collateral for further Chinese loans, in particular in the mid-2000's. The article concludes that while a geoeconomic strategy seems to be in place, its implementation is hindered by the great variety of actors involved.     

Performance-based partnership Agreements for the reconstruction of the health system in Afghanistan

The reconstruction of the health system in Afghanistan is in its early stages, and donors have proposed Performance-based Partnership Agreements (PPAs) through which to subcontract the delivery of health services to private organisations, both for-profit and not-for-profit. Beyond ideological debates, this article sets out to explain the model underlying the PPA initiative and sheds light on empirical data concerning the assumed benefits of such an approach. The article studies privatisation and the contracting-out of health services, though there is as yet no information that can demonstrate the superiority of private over public service provision. Similarly, the merits of subcontracting have not been fully proven and such arrangements raise several ethical issues. Where PPAs are to be attempted, it is important to remain cautious and to ensure that operations are organised in such a way as to permit proper comparison. The paper concludes with recommendations to organisations involved in or considering the advantages of PPAs.     

Cooperation in EU disaster response and security provision: circulating practices

There is a profound disconnect between the practice and scholarly study of security in Europe. The 2010 Internal Security Strategy added disasters such as forest fires, earthquakes, and floods to the list of European Union (EU) internal security concerns, expanding on the more traditional anxieties over militaries, border protection, and the effects of poverty. This article explores how evolving practices of disaster response, a policy area once separate from EU security discourse, have become part of the EU's wider security provision and with what implications. Based on interviews conducted at the Directorate-General (DG) for Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection (ECHO), it provides a detailed study of three EU disaster response practices – monitoring, training, and information co-ordinating – and their circulation to the wider field of EU internal security provision. It uses this case to outline that new understandings of what it means to “voluntarily co-operate” in European security projects have been radically under-theorized.     

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.     

Combining sanitation and women's participation in water supply: an example from Rajasthan

Water supply and sanitation provision are key elements in progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Women's participation is considered integral to the sustainability of the projects created to meet these two MDGs. Bringing feminist and geographic critiques to bear on gendered approaches to improving sanitation coverage, the research reported on in this article indicates that latrine building and women's participation may be contradictory goals for sanitation projects, despite the fact that women are the target group for latrine-building interventions. The findings of the analysis suggest that attention must be given to latrine building as both a technical undertaking and a gendered political intervention.     

The human organisation: challenges in NGOs and development programmes

It is frequently contended that NGOs and the wider context of development are intrinsically different from other organisational settings within which Human Resource Development (HRD) is believed to play an important role. The author outlines the basic concepts underpinning human development within organisations, and organisational development, and sets out the arguments for greater investment in people. While this can raise ethical and practical issues in organisations that depend on external funds rather than generating their own income, the failure to develop the staff on whom a development organisation ultimately depends carries far greater risks. Management and specifically HRD are not desk-bound activities that can be pursued through the application of protocols and sanctions, but require vision, leadership, and hands-on engagement.     

论吉林村镇银行可持续发展问题

制约当前村镇银行可持续发展的最大障碍是慈善思维方式——农民因为贫穷需要廉价资金。村镇银行发放小额农户贷款被认为是扶贫的手段。村镇银行采取商业化方式,实施高利率小额农户信贷与支持、帮助农村中的贫困群体并不矛盾。完善小额农户贷款还需要信贷员激励机制。村镇银行需要政府扶助,但又要避免地方政府的过度干预,避免政府信用担保的道德风险,这样才能实现可持续发展。     

Yesterday's victims,today's perpetrators?: Considerations on peoples and territories of the former Ottoman empire 1

This article seeks to place the conflict in present‐day Bosnia within a historical context. It does this by comparison with other areas within the former Ottoman empire, particularly where emerging national movements have contended for, the same territory. Ethnic cleansing and genocide have resulted on several occasions. But victims have ‐ usually on a smaller scale ‐ also become perpetrators. Part of the problem, it is argued, is the very concept of the nation‐state, which demands people‐homogeneity and, therefore, either the forcible assimilation or removal of competing ‘national’ groups. A rethinking founded on pluralism, diversity and federal structures is posited as the best hope for the future avoidance of such conflicts.     

Overcoming stigma and fostering participation: mechanisms for community reintegration in Colombia

ABSTRACT

Mechanisms for community reintegration are under-researched. In Colombia and elsewhere, scholars outline the importance of effectively reintegrating ex-combatants into local communities, but they hardly consider the practicalities of it. A major hindering factor to community reintegration is stigma. It leads to a fear of ex-combatants, causing people to refrain from participating in community reintegration projects. This article identifies and analyses four principal mechanisms that help to overcome stigma and foster participation: information provision, inclusion of target groups in design and implementation, provision of incentives for participation and a change in the narrative surrounding ex-combatants. The analysis is based on a series of interviews with project staff and ex-combatants, taking into account state-run and local projects in Colombia’s capital Bogotá. This article identifies potential for increased co-operation between state and local actors. Furthermore, it argues that projects should increasingly work with interest instead of geographic communities. Working with interest communities creates incentives for participation and facilitates community reintegration in urban environments. Accordingly, this article counters the argument that community reintegration in cities is difficult to achieve.     

Empowering peace: service provision and state legitimacy in Nepal’s peace-building process

There is growing demand for an understanding of peace beyond the absence of violence. As such research focuses increasingly on the issue of state legitimacy as a tool to assess and understand peace processes. In this paper the relationship between service provision and state legitimacy is studied to assess whether the provision of services like electricity to rural communities of war-torn countries through state actors contributes to the consolidation of the post-war political system. The qualitative analysis of two localities in post-war Nepal highlights that service provision in the form of electricity through micro-hydropower yields tremendously positive socio-economic effects for rural communities. However, socio-economic development in combination with interactions among villagers has strengthened local autonomy through emphasising alternative local governance structures. This highlights that the relationship between service provision and state legitimacy is more complex than previous research anticipates. The absence of a positive effect on state legitimacy raises the question of whether in its current case-specific form service provision is conducive to the broader peace-building efforts in post-war Nepal, because it stresses the divide between state and society.     

Could cognitive theory enhance development practice?

Development brings about changes in people's lives and their ways of understanding and dealing with their world. It is possible to distinguish between two types of development intervention: (a) improvements in the external situation, chiefly through the provision of public goods; and (b) strengthening people's inner capacities, an endeavour which depends on cognitive processes. The article links basic concepts from cognitive theory to development practice and proposes avenues for further research to study the way in which people develop their capacities and to find ways of supporting such processes. A fuller understanding of cognitive change as a key factor could greatly enhance the sustainability of development projects.     

印度农村就业保障政策及对中国的启示

在社会转型过程中，印度农村失业和就业不充分现象日益凸显，成为影响农村经济社会发展的主要难题。为维护农村劳动力的就业权益，印度政府在农村就业保障工作方面做出积极探索和持续努力，综合运用立法、公共就业工程项目、开发职业培训计划等政策工具保障和促进农村劳动力就业，并取得一定成效。我国在解决农村就业问题时，可以借鉴印度的经验和做法，从而促进农村劳动力的充分就业。     

A closer look at the information provision rationale: Civil society participation in states’ delegations at the UNFCCC

The previous literature contends inter alia that states may welcome the participation of civil society groups in global environmental governance due to their provision of information. The following research takes this argument as a starting point for a closer examination of its validity within the international climate change regime (UNFCCC) and, specifically, with regard to civil society involvement in states’ negotiation delegations. First, the author theoretically unfolds the information provision argument from a demand, i.e., state perspective along the bureaucratic quality of a country, the salience of a negotiation issue, and regime type. From this foundation, secondly, new data on the composition of states’ negotiation delegations in the UNFCCC is analyzed. The results seem to indicate that the information provision mechanism is unlikely to apply in the context under study. The paper, thus, concludes by providing alternative explanations.     

俄罗斯外债问题研究

自20世纪90年代以来,俄罗斯走上了从计划经济向市场经济转轨的道路,并迅速积累了巨额外债。近年来,俄罗斯外债余额递减,但规模仍然庞大,外债结构亦日趋合理。俄罗斯外债危机后的外债重组任务艰巨,解决外债问题,可以考虑以货抵债、以股抵债和外债资本化。综观俄罗斯国内外形势,从总体上看,俄罗斯外债形势仍不容乐观。2003年是俄罗斯的偿债高峰年,其1 301亿美元巨额外债的偿还进程举世瞩目,对世界各国的外债实践都有着重要的借鉴意义     

EU–China relations in higher education

The internationalization of higher education systems has become critical to the educational success of a country. The purpose of this research is to carry out a study of the growing pace of internationalization in Chinese higher education in the contemporary period. The research focuses on the cooperation between China and Europe, especially the management of transnational projects related to improving collaboration between Chinese and European institutions of higher education. The move to mass higher education in the Chinese context and its implications stand as the starting point of the investigation. The project aims to analyze the main national policies for enhancing the internationalization of higher education both in China and Europe. Then, taking as examples some projects of particular relevance, it will consider the objectives and the consequences of these forms of cooperation and collaboration, especially for the development of the Chinese higher education system. Finally, a concise historical overview of the relations in higher education between China and Europe in the last 20 years will facilitate understanding of the changing role played by Europe in the Chinese context.     

The Impact of Institutional Coup-Proofing on Coup Attempts and Coup Outcomes

Coup-proofing pertains to political leaders’ strategies that will prevent groups inside or outside the state apparatus from seizing power via a coup d’état. One particular form of these strategies divides a country’s military into rivaling organizations, thereby creating an artificial balance between and structural obstacles for the armed forces. Despite the general claim that this institutional coup-proofing is indeed effective, a recent empirical study does not obtain evidence for a negative impact on the risk of coup attempts or coup outcomes. The authors take this finding as a motivation for their re-evaluation of the effect of institutional coup-proofing on coup risk and outcomes. By developing an argument that rests on the concepts of collective action and polarization, it is contended that institutional coup-proofing and coups are characterized by a U-shaped relationship: Institutional coup-proofing is likely to lower the likelihood of coup onsets and successful outcomes, yet only until a tipping point of about two equally strong military organizations. After this turning point, the risk of coup onset as well as coup success may increase again. Using time-series cross-section data for 1975–1999, the authors find strong and robust support for their claims in terms of coup onset, but not coup outcomes.     

Sustainable development at the sharp end

This paper takes an actor-oriented approach to understanding the significance for policy and practice of field-worker experience at the interface between project and people. It is set in the context of an Indian project which aims to reduce poverty through sustainable, participatory agricultural change, based on low-cost inputs, catalysed by village-based project staff. Diaries kept by such staff are analysed to reveal how the social position of field-workers enables and constrains their interactions within and without the project, and the ways in which ‘street level bureaucrats’ shape projects through their discretionary actions. They show the Village Motivators struggling to communicate project objectives, to establish their roles and distinguish themselves fromother village-level bureaucrats, to negotiate participation, to overcome hostility to Participatory Rural Appraisal, to arbitrate access to consultants and seniors, to interpret project objectives and lobby for changes in these without admission of failure, and finally to develop a shared vocabulary of participation and belief in success. Some of the implications for participatory approaches are that there may be significant contradictions between sustainability and participatory development.