Constructing an electronic fieldwork diary (EFWD) using OneNote

A fieldwork diary (FWD) is a useful tool for capturing and reflecting on fieldwork experiences, triangulating ideas, and inciting creative thinking. Traditionally, a FWD has involved handwritten notes; however, constructing an electronic fieldwork diary (EFWD) means that notes can involve multimedia content, data can be coded and easily searched, accessed on various portable devices, and securely protected and backed up. This article shares lessons learnt from creating an EFWD using OneNote, including structuring and organising the diary, writing fieldwork notes, and tips for coding. An EFWD can be a useful tool for social science researchers or development practitioners undertaking fieldwork.     

Participatory research practice at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)

This study assessed the extent to which participatory methods had been used by CIMMYT, and how the scientists perceived them. Results suggest that participatory approaches at the Center were largely ‘functional’ – that is, aimed at improving the efficiency and relevance of research – and had in fact added value to the research efforts. The majority of projects surveyed also placed emphasis on building farmers' awareness. This is understandable if we think that the limiting factor in scientist–farmer exchange is the farmers' limited knowledge base. Thus, in situations such as marginal areas and in smallholder farming, exposure to new genotypes and best-bet management options would be a first requirement for effective interactions and implementation of participatory approaches.     

Reflexive engagements: the international development blogging evolution and its challenges

Writing weblogs (blogs) has become a substantial part of how development is discussed on the Internet. Based on research with development bloggers and the authors' own social media practice, this article is an exploratory case study to approach the impact of blogging on reflective writing, work practices, as well as knowledge management. Based on interviews with bloggers, the article undertakes an analysis of bloggers' motivations and the potential as well as limitations of blogs for different sectors of the industry, for example in academia, inside aid organisations, and in understanding expatriate aid workers. Finally, the article explores the question of whose voice is represented in blogs.

Engagements basés sur la réflexion : l’évolution des blogs consacrés au développement international et les défis qu'elle présente

Les blogs sont devenus un élément considérable de la forme que prennent les discussions ayant trait au développement sur internet. Cet article se base sur des recherches menées auprès de blogueurs dans le secteur du développement et sur la propre pratique des auteurs en matière de médias sociaux, et présente une étude de cas exploratoire visant à aborder l'impact des blogs sur l’écriture réflexive, les pratiques de travail, ainsi que la gestion des connaissances. Sur la base d'entretiens avec des blogueurs, l'article entreprend une analyse des motivations des blogueurs et du potentiel, ainsi que des limites, des blogs pour différents secteurs de l'industrie, par exemple dans le milieu universitaire, au sein des organisations d'aide et au moment de comprendre les travailleurs humanitaires expatriés. Enfin, cet article examine la question de savoir quelles sont les entités dont la voix est représentée sur les blogs.

Intercambios reflexivos: la evolución del blog en torno al desarrollo internacional y sus retos

Los blogs se han convertido en un componente sustancial de la discusión sobre desarrollo que tiene lugar en Internet. Apoyándose en investigaciones realizadas con blogueros del desarrollo y en las experiencias de los autores con medios sociales, el presente artículo hace referencia a un estudio de caso exploratorio, cuyo objetivo se orientó a conocer el impacto que han tenido los blogs en los artículos analíticos, en las prácticas laborales y en la gestión de conocimientos. Mediante entrevistas realizadas a blogueros, el artículo analiza sus motivaciones, así como el potencial y las limitaciones de los blogs a nivel de distintos sectores —por ejemplo, en la academia, en las organizaciones de ayuda humanitaria y en la comprensión de los funcionarios de estas organizaciones en el extranjero. Para finalizar, el artículo examina la pregunta ¿de quién es la opinión que se expresa en los blogs?

Engajamentos reflexivos: a evolução de blogs sobre desenvolvimento internacional e seus desafios

Escrever weblogs (blogs) tem se tornado uma parte expressiva de como a questão sobre desenvolvimento é discutida na Internet. Baseado em experiências de blogueiros, este artigo realiza um estudo de caso investigativo para abordar o impacto dos blogs sobre textos reflexivos, práticas de trabalho e gestão de conhecimento. Tendo como base entrevistas com blogueiros, o artigo realiza uma análise das motivações dos blogueiros e o potencial e as limitações dos blogs para setores diferentes da indústria, como por exemplo na academia, dentro de organizações de ajuda humanitária e no entendimento de trabalhadores expatriados de ajuda humanitária. Por fim, o artigo examina a questão relativa a quais vozes são representadas nos blogs.     

Participation in the Knowledge Society: the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) movement compared with participatory development

The possibilities and limits of participation at the ‘bottom’ (represented, for example, by PRA and PLA) have been well articulated in development literature. However, the emergence of the Knowledge Society has opened up spaces for what we could call participation at the ‘top’ (free software, wiki, open access), the implications of which Development Studies is only beginning to grapple with. Building upon recent debates on the issue, we take the cases of the free software movement and participatory development, arguing that they share common ground in several ways. We aim to offer a few pointers on conceptualising development in the Knowledge Society.     

Assessing the fit of RapidSMS for maternal and new-born health: perspectives of community health workers in rural Rwanda

This article examines field results that show the potential for mobile health (mHealth) technologies to support community health workers (CHWs) in delivering basic maternal and new-born services in Rwanda. The fit of RapidSMS, a UNICEF/Ministry of Health (MOH) mHealth technology is examined through focus groups with CHWs. The results highlight the need for more training in the use of RapidSMS, continued upgrading of mobile phones, devising innovative ways of charging mobile phones, and ensuring the availability of ambulances. We suggest that CHW supervision be a two-way process built into RapidSMS utilising real-time communication to enhance effectiveness.     

Impact assessment of farmer institutional development and agricultural change: Soroti district,Uganda

This article is based on participatory development research conducted in Soroti district of Uganda with the aim of assessing the impact of agricultural development among poor farmers. The central argument is that a combination of farmer empowerment and innovation through experiential learning in farmer field school (FFS) groups, changes in the opportunity structure through transformation of local government staff, establishment of new farmer-governed local institutions, and emergence of a private service provider has been successful in reducing rural poverty. Based on an empirical study of successful adaptation and spread of pro-poor technologies, the study assesses the well-being impact of agricultural technology development in Soroti district. The study concludes that market-based spread of pro-poor agricultural technologies requires an institutional setting that combines farmer empowerment with an enabling policy environment.     

Indigenous floating cultivation: a sustainable agricultural practice in the wetlands of Bangladesh

Floating-bed cultivation has proved a successful means to produce agricultural crops in various wetland areas of the world. In freshwater lakes and wetlands, vegetables, flowers, and seedlings are grown in Bangladesh using this floating cultivation technique, without any additional irrigation or chemical fertiliser. No detailed study of this indigenous cultivation technique has been published to date, although the laboratory method, hydroponics, is well documented in the professional literature. Our study is focused on the nature and characteristics of the Bangladeshi system, where local farmers have demonstrated the potential for the sustainable use of such common-property local water resources. We seek to establish a reference point for further research into this technique for its possible refinement and an assessment of its suitability for replication.     

Participatory risk assessment: a new approach for safer food in vulnerable African communities

Women play the major role in food supply in developing countries, but too often their ability to feed their families properly is compromised; the result is high levels of food-borne disease and consequent limited access to higher-value markets. We argue that risk-based approaches – current best practice for managing food safety in developed countries – require adaptation to the difficult context of informal markets. We suggest participatory research and gender analysis as boundary-spanning mechanisms, bringing communities and food-safety implementers together to analyse food-safety problems and develop workable solutions. Examples show how these methodologies can contribute to operationalising risk-based approaches in urban settings and to the development of a new approach to assessing and managing food safety in poor countries, which we call ‘participatory risk analysis’.     

Changing the world of development research? An insight into theory and practice

Development research has been through many stages over the past few decades and during this time has experienced fluctuating appreciation by development practice. There is an increasing gap between different ways of doing development research. For some, the purpose of development research is primarily to influence policies, and in order to do this development research has to reframe its whole approach, language, and methodology. Others maintain that development research needs to distance itself, maintain an analytical and even critical approach towards development practice, and become an academic discipline in its own right.     

Using technology to deliver social protection: exploring opportunities and risks

Providing cash transfers to vulnerable groups reduces vulnerability and chronic poverty; but delivering cash to remote, rural locations can be expensive and insecure. Alternative delivery systems using technology are thus being piloted. This article uses examples from southern Africa to highlight the opportunities and risks involved in using technology to deliver social protection, with particular focus on two schemes in Malawi. It concludes that there is great potential for the use of technology in delivering social protection, especially if employed at a national scale and taking advantage of the full spectrum of uses to ensure cost-efficiency.     

Svalbard Global Seed Vault: a ‘Noah's Ark’ for the world's seeds

News about Norway's plans to establish a ‘doomsday vault’ for seeds in the permafrost of the Artic archipelago of Svalbard as a back-up for conventional gene banks reached the world press in 2006. The idea of a Global Seed Vault, which today is considered a ‘Noah's Ark’ for seeds, was previously regarded with suspicion and considered to be unrealistic. In 1989 the Norwegian government offered to construct an international depository for seeds in permafrost, but the initiative was sidelined in the agitated debates between developed and developing countries over access to and control of plant genetic resources. The realisation of the FAO International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (2004) resolved some of the most difficult issues and made possible the launching of a new Norwegian initiative to safeguard some of the world's most important plant genetic resources for the future.     

Transdisciplinary innovation research in Uzbekistan – one year of ‘Follow-the-Innovation’

In 2008, a German-funded interdisciplinary research project in Khorezm province, Uzbekistan, initiated a participatory approach to innovation development and diffusion with local stakeholders. Selected agricultural innovations, developed by the project and identified as ‘plausible promises’, have since then been tested and modified accordingly by teams of researchers, local farmers and water users. This paper discusses the challenges faced in this process of joint experimentation and learning between researchers and local stakeholders whose behaviours, attitudes and actions are heavily shaped by the local context, academic discipline and hierarchical culture of knowledge governance.     

The lost 1990s? Personal reflections on a history of participatory technology development

This article traces a history of agricultural participatory research, largely from the author's personal experience. Participatory research in the 1970s was mostly led by disciplinary scientists, and characterised by innovative activities and open academic debate, with some recognition that policy and development practice was a political process. The 1980s saw a shift to learning from past experience, and a participatory mainstream developed, seeking methods for scaling up. Meanwhile, others sought to understand and influence policy and institutional change in their political and cultural contexts, and to keep open the academic debates. The author considers the 1990s as ‘lost years’, during which mainstream participatory practitioners became inward-looking development generalists, not so interested in learning from others outside their paradigm. The late 2000s provide a chance to re-recognise the political and cultural embeddedness of science and technology; re-introduce strong, widely based disciplines; and learn from past activities that resulted in positive development outcomes (planned or unplanned).     

Integrating participatory elements into conventional research projects: measuring the costs and benefits

Until recently, participatory and conventional approaches to agricultural research have been regarded as more or less antagonistic. This article presents evidence from three sub-projects of a Thai–Vietnamese–German collaborative research programme on ‘Sustainable Land Use and Rural Development in Mountainous Regions of Southeast Asia’, in which participatory elements were successfully integrated into conventional agricultural research as add-on activities. In all three sub-projects the costs of studying local knowledge or enhancing farmers' experimentation consisted of additional local personnel, opportunity costs of participating farmers' time, and travel costs. However, these participatory elements of the research projects constituted only a small fraction of the total costs. It may be concluded that conventional agricultural research can be complemented by participatory components in a cost-effective way, while producing meaningful benefits in terms of creating synergies by blending scientific and local knowledge, scaling up micro-level data, and highlighting farmers' constraints affecting technology adoption.     

Digital technology uses for sustainable management of natural resources in multicultural contexts

This article questions the notion that the use of digital technologies guarantees better policy development for the sustainable management of natural resources, particularly in multicultural contexts. It is argued that input of digital technologies could positively or negatively affect the geopolitical projects and development strategies pursued by indigenous peoples.     

What determines poverty transition? An investigation of women livestock farmers in Bangladesh

This article evaluates poverty transition using self-assessment in a quasi-experimental framework. Data are drawn from a survey conducted in 2006 of 400 women who were the beneficiaries of a poverty-alleviation programme which involved longer-term interventions towards building the strength of government departments, participating organisations, and beneficiaries. During the survey, when the project was approaching its conclusion, about 50 per cent of these farmers were still in the programme. The article addresses a number of key questions related to pathways out of poverty through livestock-based activities, heterogeneity in livelihood choice and its impact on household welfare, and wider applications.     

Participatory communication for development in practice: the case of community media

Since it emerged, the field of communication for development has undergone a constant process of redefinition. Since the 1990s, the importance of participation in social and communicative processes has been stressed, and studies carried out during those years focused on participation as an important component to be considered. The so-called community media are privileged forces driving the participatory communication for development approach. Since their emergence and up to the recent studies, community media have been characterised by the centrality of citizenship participation in the creation of widespread messages, and in the processes of social change that they promote.

Communication participative pour le développement dans la pratique : le cas des médias communautaires

Depuis son apparition, le domaine de la communication pour le développement a traversé un processus constant de redéfinition. Depuis les années 1990, l'importance de la participation aux processus sociaux et de communication a été soulignée, et des études effectuées durant cette période-là se sont concentrées sur la participation comme élément important à prendre en compte. Ces « médias communautaires » sont des forces privilégiées qui impulsent l'approche participative pour la communication pour le développement. Depuis leur naissance et jusqu'aux récentes études effectuées, les médias communautaires se sont caractérisés par la position centrale de la participation citoyenne à la création de messages généralisés, et aux processus de changement social qu'ils promeuvent.

Comunicación participativa para el desarrollo en la práctica: el caso de los medios comunitarios

Desde que inició, el ámbito de la comunicación para el desarrollo ha experimentado un proceso constante de redefinición. A partir de los años noventa, ha comenzado a insistirse en la importancia de participar en los procesos sociales y comunicacionales. Los estudios realizados durante esa década, se centraron en la participación como componente primordial que debía ser tenido en cuenta. Los llamados medios comunitarios constituyen fuerzas privilegiadas que impulsan el enfoque de la comunicación participativa para el desarrollo. Desde que iniciaron sus actividades y hasta las últimas investigaciones realizadas al respecto, los medios comunitarios se caracterizaron por la significación otorgada a la participación ciudadana en la creación de mensajes de amplia difusión y en el proceso de cambio social promovido por dichos mensajes.

Comunicação participativa para o desenvolvimento na prática: o caso da mídia comunitária

Desde que surgiu, a área de comunicação para o desenvolvimento tem passado por um processo constante de redefinição. Desde a década de 1990, a importância da participação em processos sociais e comunicativos tem sido ressaltada e estudos têm sido realizados durante estes anos tendo como foco a participação como componente importante a ser considerado. A chamada mídia comunitária constitui-se em forças privilegiadas que dirigem a comunicação participativa para a abordagem de desenvolvimento. Desde o seu surgimento até estudos recentes, a mídia comunitária tem se caracterizado pela ênfase na participação dos cidadãos na criação de mensagens disseminadas e nos processos de mudança social que elas promovem.     

东亚电子信息产品的出口与经济增长

本文论述了东亚电子信息产业发展的历史和现状,分析了东亚电子信息产品出口与经济增长的关系, 指出东亚的经济增长过分依赖于电子信息产品的出口是导致2001年经济衰退的直接原因。