Twenty reasons why local knowledge will remain relevant to development

Local knowledge has continued to gain popularity among development practitioners in the last four decades. However, the future of local knowledge seems hazy to some academics and researchers, perhaps due to the methodological challenges in operationalising local knowledge in development research. Rather than appropriate its full potential for sustainable (global) progress, renditions on the relevance of local knowledge in development research agenda have largely become rhetoric. Nonetheless, this viewpoint outlines 20 pertinent reasons in support of the relevance of local knowledge and why it has a future in development theory and practice.     

Harvested rainwater: quality,adequacy, and proximity in Ghanaian rural communities

This article presents a study that aimed to assess the accessibility, use, and quality of harvested rainwater in three rural communities in Ghana where the government of Ghana and local and international development organisations have sponsored domestic rainwater harvesting. The results showed that rainwater storage facilities were within the recommended distance of 1000m from each house. The amount of rainwater per person per day was below the recommended amount. The majority of the respondents therefore depended on other sources of water. Though the physico-chemical quality of rainwater met the WHO guideline limit for drinking water, the bacteriological quality did not. The majority of common water-associated infections experienced prior to the project have not been experienced after the project.     

When development breeds contempt: case examples of community-driven health systems initiatives

This article discusses case examples of community-led initiatives triggered by the introduction of an external development programme in Senegal and Mali. These are community initiatives that learn from projects initiated and funded by an external donor organisation, and transform interventions to better meet their own needs. The circumstances leading to the demand for, and successful establishment of, health infrastructure are examined to understand the triggers. These breakthroughs demonstrate unintended benefits of development, and the need to leverage donor-led initiatives. Therefore, community involvement, participation, and empowerment are key in establishing local ownership in development projects.     

Social construction of capabilities and intersectional complexities in a Tamil village

India is an ethnographic museum, well-known for its national motto of “unity in diversity”. It is a country of diverse hierarchies where the social reality is intersected by the varied grades of caste and class, among others. Against this backdrop, this article conceptualises the intersections of primordial identities. The concept of intersection underscores how diverse social positions interact in a Tamil village in India. As intersectionality is “the mutually constitutive relations among social identities” (Shields 2008), the interactions of caste, class, and gender in education are conceptualised to understand the formation of capabilities.     

Public Sector Reform

Reform is never far from the centre of public administration practice and scholarship. In this article Doug McTaggart, the chairman of the Queensland Public Service Commission, and Janine O'Flynn, from the University of Melbourne, explore the challenges of reform and the state of play. McTaggart, who was a commissioner on the Queensland Commission of Audit, sets out the case that business as usual will no longer suffice given the range of challenges faced by governments. He sets out to explain how we ended up in our current state and what needs to happen to repair it, drawing on deep experience in the practice of reform. O'Flynn positions reform as one of the central questions in public administration and management and makes the case for rethinking reform conceptually to drive change in practice. In doing so she points to our weaknesses in determining whether reform fails or succeeds and makes the case that, until we rethink reform, business as usual might be all we end up with. McTaggart and O'Flynn bring together the expertise of practice and academia to bring new insights in this persistent challenge of public administration, and raise a series of questions for debate.     

Innovation in the Public Sector

Why does the public sector innovate, how should the public sector innovate, and, even more basically, should the public sector innovate? These are some of the questions that these contributions explore and to which they provide some salutary answers. Martin Stewart‐Weeks, an independent consultant working at the intersection of government, innovation, and technology, draws some lessons from his direct experience and advisory work about how the public sector catches the innovation ‘bug’ and turns it into in‐ spired action. From infection to inspiration to implementation, the public sector needs to lower its defences and put itself ‘in harm's way’ to engage with innovators and new ideas. Tim Kastelle, one of Australia's leading innovation scholars and practitioners, sets out some practical ways that the public sector can extend and entrench its innovation practice. These include managing innovation as a process, shifting the risk equation, and experimenting.     

提升社会治理效能:社会企业生产要素社会性变革及其制度优势

社会企业通过市场机制参与社会治理的行动根植于经济嵌入社会的关系之中。生产要素本身具备多种属性和功能,长期以来商品经济理论对生产要素的单向商品化使用,造成了经济与社会、文化等非商品化属性的隔离。正如波兰尼所言,土地作为自然存在,劳动力和企业管理者作为社会人,本身并不是生产出来供销售的商品,资金使用的信用、信任和合法认可也不能作为商品去生产。因此,重新审视经济行为的目的,可以发现社会企业的发展动因。社会企业以社会企业家精神为内生动力,以企业家管理才能为社会目标通向经济行动的镶嵌通道,通过制度创新改变社会问题,并运用社会管理技术系统提升社会治理效能,将组织的制度优势转化为社会治理效能,对推动良性社会运行具有积极的作用。     

Escaping Poverty and Securing Middle Class Status: How Race and Socioeconomic Status Shape Mobility Prospects for African Americans During the Transition to Adulthood

This article draws on extant research from the disciplines of psychology, sociology, and economics to identify linkages between individual, family, community, and structural factors related to social mobility for African Americans during the transition to adulthood. It considers how race and class together affect opportunities for social mobility through where African Americans live, whom they associate with, and how they are impacted by racial and class-related stigma. Of particular interest is social mobility as accomplished through academic achievement, educational attainment, employment, economic independence, and homeownership. Research on five issues is reviewed and discussed: (a) the unique vulnerabilities of newly upwardly mobile African Americans, (b) wealth as a source of inequality, (c) racism and discrimination, (d) the stigma associated with lower-class status, and (e) social and cultural capital. The article concludes with a summary and directions for future research.

Production networks,economic integration and the services sector: Implications for regional trade agreements in southern Africa

Debate on an appropriate framework for economic integration in southern Africa has hitherto focused largely on matters relating to trade in final goods, with little analysis of the potential benefits of production sharing and fragmented trade, or of challenges related to the accompanying role of the services sector. The first goal of this article is thus to explore the possible benefits for the development of specialisation and trade expansion related to the international fragmentation of production, and whether such benefits may be better harnessed by southern African countries in a context of regional integration. Secondly, the critical role of the services sector in production-sharing arrangements leads to questions about developing country services sectors and regional versus multilateral services liberalisation. The article therefore considers the importance of the services sector in the fragmentation context, and the growing debates surrounding services aspects of developing country regional trade agreements. It is argued that while there may be a case for the promotion of production-sharing arrangements in regional trade agreements in southern Africa, key constraints that continue to hinder the region's trade and development agenda remain the conflicting rules of origin in economic arrangements with overlapping membership, and non-tariff barriers to trade, particularly intra-regional transport costs.