The persisting challenge of age-for-grade non-compliance in post-free primary education in Kenya

This article examines the prevalence of non-compliance on the age-for-grade policy in the post-free primary education system in Kenya. We utilised data from the 2009 cohort of enrolled primary schoolchildren. The analysis revealed non-compliance to be a persisting concern in the school system, characterised by both under-age and over-age enrolment at the age-for-grade level of analysis in spite of the introduction of free primary education in 2003. Irrespective of the nature of non-compliance, overcrowding in the lower grades is more prevalent, with potential for adverse compromises in quality of learning and the attendant added dimension of the mismatched grade-for-age curricula.     

Strengthening public health supply chains in Ethiopia: PEPFAR-supported expansion of access and availability

When the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)-supported Supply Chain Management System (SCMS) programme began working in Ethiopia in 2006, the estimated population of people living with HIV exceeded one million, while only 24,000 were on treatment and only 50 treatment sites were in operation. SCMS and other key partners entered into this context to support the Ethiopian government in significantly strengthening the public health supply chain system, with the aim of increasing the availability and accessibility of pharmaceutical products. The country now has 1,047 treatment sites and is nearing complete treatment coverage. This article discusses how priorities were set among many competing challenges from 2006 until 2014, and how the four-step strategy of build, operate, transfer, and optimise has resulted in a successful partnership.     

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.     

Learning from a leprosy project in Indonesia: making mindsets explicit for stigma reduction

International attention for disability recognises that it plays an important role in persistent poverty. Leprosy can cause preventable disability. Stigma associated with leprosy often has greater implications for people affected than physical impairments. The Stigma Assessment and Reduction of Impact (SARI) project in Indonesia employs an action research methodology to develop stigma reduction interventions. By exploring the different mindsets of the stakeholders in the reconnaissance phase of the project, the project identified differences in aspirations, attitudes to research, and conflicting intrinsic models of disability. The differences in mindsets are not symptoms of failure but, rather, should be actively sought out.     

Determinants of people's participation: a study of rural West Bengal,India

This article considers the determinants of people's participation in local level decision-making spaces in rural West Bengal, India. It defines participation from the perspectives of attending meetings, raising issues, making complaints, and making contributions. The results from a sampled household survey in East Midnapore district of West Bengal indicate that better awareness, increase in land holdings, organisational membership, and political affiliation tend to improve participation. Households showing livelihood dependency and entitlement, and belonging to socially and economically weaker sections are more likely to participate. However, the results point towards the possibility of ‘elite capture’ and ‘clientelism’ in participatory spaces.     

Who is rebuilding Aceh? Tensions between groups of staff in an NGO

This article takes its point of departure in an international non-governmental aid organisation (INGO) active in post-disaster and post-conflict Aceh. Using material collected through fieldwork conducted in the organisation, the article addresses the issue of how the intrinsic logic and workings of development reinforce the historically tense relationship between Acehnese and Indonesians.     

Queering accounts of “MSM” practitioner agency: recognising collateral benefits

This article demonstrates how donor resources can enable MSM/TG practitioners to exercise agency in diverse ways, which produce collateral benefits for sexuality/gender-diverse communities. By focusing on what Thai MSM/TG practitioners actually do, we illustrate how their practices respond to their own aspirations, not only the demands of donor funding regimes. We position our project as queer in the sense that it interrupts the normative absence of practitioner agency within current “MSM” development literature. We argue that our reading might enable greater recognition and donor support for MSM/TG practitioners who produce collateral benefits through their work.     

Withdrawal of Parental Responsibility: Lost Authority and a Lost Opportunity

This comment examines Re D (Withdrawal of Parental Responsibility), the first reported Court of Appeal decision on withdrawal of parental responsibility pursuant to section 4(2A) of the Children Act 1989. It demonstrates that the Court overlooked earlier Court of Appeal authority, resulting in tension in the Court's guidance. The comment criticises the Court of Appeal's characterisation of parental responsibility as entirely child‐centred and its uncritical acceptance that the child's welfare is the paramount consideration in applications for withdrawal of parental responsibility. It argues that such an approach may not adequately respect the parent's interests in retaining parental responsibility, especially in the context of an order which is more draconian in effect than a care order. The impact upon applications for removal of parental responsibility of the new presumption of parental involvement, which was implemented shortly after the decision in Re D, is also considered.     

Good Governance and Bermuda’s Public Access to Information Act

Abstract

This paper examines the context surrounding, and debates concerning, freedom of information-type legislation in the British Overseas Territory of Bermuda. It situates the law within a wider push by the British Government for good governance in the British Overseas Territories. It explores the expectation for more ‘open and transparent’ government held by international government organisations, the British Government, and the Bermudian electorate. It analyses the resultant political debates, which are framed by traditions of governance that encouraged secrecy and legacies of distrust between political parties formed soon after universal suffrage was introduced in the 1960s. It investigates the implementation of the Act in response to global, metropolitan and local pressures.     

Taking Freedom of Information into the Commonwealth: The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative at Work

Abstract

This article outlines the commitment of the Commonwealth and its institutions to a public right to official information, its promotion of the enactment and effective implementation of freedom of information (FOI) legislation, and progress to date in member states. It identifies obstacles to more widespread introduction of access to information laws, and describes the work of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative through years of advocacy for the adoption of such laws, the training of bureaucrats, lawyers and parliamentarians from around the Commonwealth, and collaborations with civil rights organisations, coalitions and activists. It stresses that engendering a regime of transparency is more complicated than merely enacting an FOI law. Citing successes of the Indian grass-roots movement in promoting the right to information, and successfully encouraging the use of enacted statutes through the dissemination of information about its provisions and usage, it calls for capacity building in both civil society and the media to work towards successful outcomes elsewhere in the Commonwealth.