Resources

The importance of community-based and participatory approaches to rural development in developing countries has long been emphasized.  This book demonstrates how rural people can best participate in development projects when they are collectively organized.  With the input of collaborators in the field, this book identifies the local social mechanisms that motivate and control people’s self-organizing activities.

Wealth-ranking is a participatory tool enabling people to group others in their community into wealth bands, and thus identify the very poor.  The method has been developed to include the broader aspects of well-being – such as social standing and health – that people value as much as material wealth.  It tells the story of the development of these assessment methods since the rise of wealth ranking in the 1980s and looks at the results of well-being ranking exercises and how they help identify important differences within communities and monitor changes in well-being over time.  Exploring strengths and weaknesses of methods it suggests that understanding differences within communities is essential for good development aid work.  The book goes on to describe the successful use of ranking tools over large populations and the value of using multi-dimensional models of well-being, and briefly explores the ideas used to make assessments of well-being at national levels.

This report came out of the learning and inspiration event held in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania from 26th - 28th May 2014, which was part of the Making All Voices Count programme.  It is for participants and others with an interest in technology for transparency and accountability

This book explores the idea that although the value of participatory approaches is now fully established, the assumption that all participatory interventions are efficient and beneficial is a long way from the reality.  It suggests that this has long been ignored and suggests that meaningful participation is an eminently political process, usually struggled for from below rather than granted from above.  Using contributions from across the world, the authors show that this involves issues of power, mobilization and collective action which needs to be supported by all elements of civil society.

The Listening to People Living in Poverty Study was undertaken by ActionAid Nepal in order to break away from traditional poverty analysis. It aimed to be an in-depth, wide-ranging investigation of all the details that are usually omitted from reports, and to document poverty from the eyes of poor men and women themselves.  The study produced a number of outputs, one of which was the Nepal Country study which is divided into two volumes.  This first volume is a collection of poor people’s stories: over 60 in total covering 10 districts across Nepal.

This toolkit contains guidance and tools on how to plan, design, implement, monitor and evaluate advocacy strategies to promote national evaluation policies and systems that are equity-focused and gender-responsive. It aims to help users understand the role of advocacy in increasing demand for evaluation, and develop operational strategies to promote demand for evaluation services.

This research report presents the findings of case study research with youth in six locations in Zimbabwe, carried out within the Power, Violence, Citizenship and Agency (PVCA) programme. It shows how young people experience growing up as citizens in a country known for its repressive regime, and highlights the differences for young men and young women.

Young people consider political violence as one of many forms of violence and other challenges they face in life. Election periods bring increased risk, when youth feel targeted. After the turbulence of elections has waned, surveillance by state security agents persists, affecting how young people use the public sphere. Between elections, forms of structural violence pose more challenges to youth than physical, political violence: patronage along party or ethnic lines is a major barrier to finding jobs, and generational differences deny young people a voice. High unemployment levels can result in youth participating in violence orchestrated by political actors.

This research shows also that family and peers have a strong influence on how young people choose to engage in the public sphere and respond to the polarised political environment. Youth empowerment strategies thus need to go beyond economic empowerment. This report argues that a shift in vision is required so that government, aid agencies and civil society recognise the importance of active citizenship among youth and make it a priority area for interventions. Programmes should build the citizen capabilities of young people and improve relations between them, their parents and communities, and public authority.