Resources

This fourth issue of the Voice for Change series is focused on children and their understanding of safe spaces, and their aspirations for each of those spaces such as water, sanitation, housing, open spaces, power and road and transport.  It is the result of a series of engagements with these groups and attempts to amplify voices of these communities on issues underlying these questions.

In the fast-moving world of development policy, buzzwords play an important part in framing solutions. Today's development orthodoxies are captured in a seductive mix of such words, among which ‘participation’, ‘empowerment’ and ‘poverty reduction’ take a prominent place. This paper takes a critical look at how these three terms have come to be used in international development policy, exploring how different configurations of words frame and justify particular kinds of development interventions.

It analyses their use in the context of two contemporary development policy instruments, the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (prsps) and the Millennium Development Goals (mdgs). We show how words that once spoke of politics and power have come to be reconfigured in the service of today's one-size-fits-all development recipes, spun into an apoliticised form that everyone can agree with. As such, we contend, their use in development policy may offer little hope of the world free of poverty that they are used to evoke.

This article draws on literature from both monitoring and evaluation (M&E) and organisational learning to explore synergies between these two fields in support of organisational performance. Two insights from the organisational learning literature are that organisations learn through ‘double-loop’ learning: reflecting on experience and using this to question critically underlying assumptions; and that power relations within an organisation will influence what and whose learning is valued and shared. This article identifies four incentives that can help link M&E with organisational learning: the incentive to learn why; the incentive to learn from below; the incentive to learn collaboratively; and the incentive to take risks. Two key elements are required to support these incentives: (1) establishing and promoting an ‘evaluative culture’ within an organisation; and (2) having accountability relationships where value is placed on learning ‘why’, as well as on learning from mistakes, which requires trust.

This report presents the findings of the programme evaluation on ‘civil society participation’ commissioned by the Dutch co-financing agencies Cordaid, Hivos, Novib/ Oxfam Netherlands and Plan Netherlands. It is the fourth study in a series of programme evaluations organised during the period 2003-2006 by the MBN, the Network of Co- Financing Agencies in the Netherlands.

Promoting the welfare of working animals is important not only for the sake of the animals themselves, but for the livelihoods of their owners. Sharing the Load aims to stimulate collective action among animal-owning communities to improve the health and husbandry of their draught and pack animals, by applying the methods of community facilitation and collective action to the pursuit of animal welfare. Since 2005, the Brooke has been pioneering the integration of animal welfare science with best practice from the international development sector to build communities’ responsibility for sustained improvement in the welfare of their working animals. Sharing the Load documents the outcome of four years’ development of this process and includes field-based participatory methods and tools designed specifically for this purpose, using lively illustrations and text boxes in accessible language on the theory of development practice and animal welfare science.

This is one of two manuals that highlight resource mapping as a tool for community forest management and protected area planning.  This manual draws on the experiences of Cross River State and involves a step by step methodology that ensures community mapping is used in a systematic process that allows local people to develop their Community Based Forest Management Plan. It is written to accompany a training activity so that many of the points and tips are to remind the trained facilitator how to proceed and what to think about at every stage.

This book has been compiled by a group of practitioners from South Africa, Ethiopia and Germany, and draws on their collective experiences in supporting local communities in adapting to increasing climatic variability and change. It aims to meet the widely expressed need amongst practitioners for a comprehensive tool that will support practical adaptation interventions.

The approach taken in this book is rooted in Participatory Action Research (PAR), which recognises that the people who are affected (in this instance) by climate variability and change are not only primarily responsible for determining and implementing responses within their own enterprises and communities, but also have a right to do so. If they are enabled to do so with the benefit of suitable technologies, accurate information, state of the art predictions and supportive institutions, they are far more likely to do so in ways that are effective and appropriate.

The book is organised into discrete sections to make it easy to access and use the information and tools that will be best suited to needs and requirements at different stages of conceptualising, planning and implementing adaption processes and interventions.