‘Communities of practice’: prospects for theory and action in participatory development

‘The myth of community’ permeates both the understanding and the practice of participatory development. Yet the idea that communities exist as coherent units of people who inhabit bounded geographic spaces and are ready to be mobilised for development restricts the very agency that participation promises. This article offers an alternative model of community: one that is more compatible with the ideal of people-centred, participatory development. Using Etienne Wenger's concept of ‘communities of practice’, and drawing on narrative theory and cognitive approaches to policy analysis, the article argues that community should be created and sustained around shared meanings.     

Local voices on community radio: a study of ‘Our Lumbini’ in Nepal

This article explores local involvement in community radio and the changes that it has brought to the lives of ordinary people in Nepal. We argue that since Nepal's first independent radio licence was granted in 1997, community radio has become an important vehicle for popular views. Drawing on a case study of a radio series produced by a community radio station broadcasting Radio Lumbini's Hamro Lumbini (‘Our Lumbini’), this article addresses the ways in which local community involvement is currently understood and discussed by listeners and programme producers, and the implications of this involvement.     

Monitoring and evaluating advocacy: lessons from Oxfam GB's Climate Change campaign

This article examines Oxfam GB's learning from its attempts to improve monitoring and evaluation (M&E) processes within a global advocacy campaign. It outlines the Climate Change campaign team's practical experience of piloting different approaches to M&E, and the lessons emerging from the process. The experience suggests that while some ‘traditional’ elements of M&E are helpful in advocacy work, a greater focus on light, real-time monitoring systems is necessary. The findings highlight the organisational as well as methodological challenges of integrating M&E into advocacy campaigns: without a culture that rewards reflection and learning, improvements in staff capacities or data-collection systems will not be sustained. Indeed, the process of improving M&E practice mirrors that of an advocacy campaign itself, requiring analysis of power relations, opportunities, and constraints; monitoring of progress; and adapting plans on the basis of on-going learning. Finally, the article suggests possible ways forward, based on experience.     

The role of self-help groups in empowering disabled women: a case study in Kathmandu Valley,Nepal

The literature on self-help groups (SHGs) shows a mixed record on empowering women both economically and socially, while the literature on Women with Disabilities (WWDs) highlights the problems of isolation that exacerbate their disadvantages. This article, asking whether SHGs can empower WWDs, is based on a study conducted in Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. It concludes that being an SHG member is useful for gaining employment that leads to better recognition in the family and society. However, employment opportunities and organisational experiences mean that the benefits are not equally shared among all members.     

东亚-北美经济失衡与再平衡分析

本文从国别结构和产品结构分析了20世纪90年代以来东亚—北美经济失衡的变化,认为美国贸易逆差不断扩大是其对外产业转移的结果,东亚地区贸易顺差与日俱增是其承接产业转移的结果。其中,东亚内部再次产业转移导致中国顺差迅速膨胀。为了实现东亚—北美经济再平衡,美国需要采取一些措施扩大出口,控制过度的信贷消费,并对美元采取更加负责的政策;东亚地区需要努力实现由外需驱动型向内需驱动型增长方式的转变,加快产业调整与升级,并把产业链向其他地区延伸。     

Changing families and communities: an LGBT contribution to an alternative development path

Until now, most discussions on the place of lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender (LGBT) people in global civil society have focused on their access to citizenship, rather than their socio-economic rights and role in development processes. This article argues that an alternative vision of development should challenge heteronormative family structures; build alternative, queer communities; wage activist, sexually emancipatory campaigns on concrete social issues (as the Treatment Action Campaign has done on HIV and AIDS in South Africa); and rethink existing models of democratic participation. The author emphasises the paradoxes of LGBT organisation in the context of neo-liberalism and globalisation, with an eye toward queering, or challenging heteronormativity in, global social-justice movements.     

Indigenous protest,social networks,and ethnic stereotyping: some insights from the Peruvian Amazon

This article examines the nature of social protest undertaken by an Amazonian indigenous organisation against international energy companies working in Peru. It analyses the response of Peruvian and international NGOs to the indigenous group's activities and challenges certain stereotypes concerning the nature of indigenous collective action and perceptions of community. In particular, it focuses on the way in which NGO workers attempt to explain the failure of the indigenous organisation to mobilise and sustain collective protest. The article highlights the dissonance between romanticisation of indigeneity and the lived reality of the indigenous group. It advocates the use of anthropological studies and social-movement theory to explore the limits to indigenous mobilisation and suggests their use for more sensitive planning of initiatives with indigenous groups. As demand for oil and gas grows across the globe, and governments in developing countries seek to increase revenues from lucrative extractive industries, clashes between indigenous groups and energy companies are likely to increase. The need for sensitive engagement between NGOs and indigenous groups is therefore of the utmost importance.     

Oxfam Australia's experience of ‘bottom–up’ accountability

Oxfam's experience suggests that ‘bottom–up’ accountability can be an important mechanism whereby men and women living in poverty can hold others to account. The first section of this article illustrates this with two examples of Oxfam experience in Vietnam and Sri Lanka. The second section draws out some of the lessons from these examples and attempts to situate them within the broader debate about approaches to accountability. In the third section some suggestions are put forward about what would need to change if active citizenship and ‘speaking truth to power’ were to become the renewed focus of accountability.     

Reflections on innovation,assessment, and social change: a SPARC case study

This article challenges the terms on which donor agencies evaluate development success, drawing on a particular case to make its point. It describes the resettlement of 60,000 people squatting along the railway tracks in Mumbai, a process planned and carried out by a federation of the railway dwellers themselves, with support from the NGO SPARC (the Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres). The article argues that this effort, which met donor criteria for a successful project, was the tip of an iceberg. Without an appreciation of the years of learning and innovation that preceded it, and the underpinning of principles and relationships built up over many years, this achievement cannot be adequately assessed or understood – and certainly not replicated. Yet in the world of formal assessment and evaluation, there tends to be a lack of interest in the deeper learning about social change that makes such success stories possible.     

Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers and the rhetoric of participation

The World Bank and IMF have proposed the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) framework for all poor countries as a condition of receiving unconditional debt relief under the HIPC Initiative. The PRSPs will also be the key vehicle for the World Bank and IMF and other donors for various assistance packages, including loans. Like its predecessors, the PRSP framework promotes the ideas of ‘participation’ and ‘ownership’. This article argues that ownership of such a grand framework cannot possibly rest with the poor countries or their people if the whole idea is the product of World Bank and IMF think-tanks. It discusses participation in the development of Bangladesh's PRSP and argues that neither participation nor ownership was the target in preparing a national poverty-reduction strategy: they were merely necessary components of a document required for the continuation of debt and lending relationships with the World Bank and IMF.