Are development and international aid the same thing? At a recent seminar I attended almost all the speakers and audience were part of the international aid business. The discussions were about the successes and weakness of international aid, especially the disproportionate power of international donors, and the ever-increasing pressure from yet more complex systems of design, assessment, monitoring and evaluation, with complex and expensive value-for-money assessments, results frameworks, and theories of change processes hindering their work and the effectiveness of aid programmes.
As the editor of Development in Practice, I see perhaps 250 potential articles a year. In listening to the presentations on aid, I realised that for many people in the “business of aid”, aid is indeed development and the two can be treated as synonymous. However, many of the articles the journal receives are written by local people describing and analysing trends in the development of their own communities and countries. In these cases, aid may or may not be a part of their frame of reference. The shift from aid-driven to locally driven “development” is inevitable given the move to middle-income status of previously less developed countries, as their governments rely more on their own resources than international financial assistance. Similarly, in some countries there is a move by civil society to seek national rather than international resources, from their own governments, public donations, and corporate donors.
Assuming some level of democracy, governments should in theory be responsive to local demands and priorities; this doesn't always happen, hence the global focus on improved governance to ensure genuine responsive and responsible, transparent, and accountable allocation of local resources by governments. For civil society there are also local tensions about priorities, as well as pressure from government to fund certain areas and avoid too much lobbying of governments themselves. It is too early to be definitive as to whether those NGOs and other civil society groups who are successfully obtaining their resources locally are more or less free from donor pressures. We do know that international aid has driven the nature of much NGO development work and continues to do so in many parts of the world, and local governments have learnt this lesson by using contracts for specific services rather than open grants, thereby achieving government goals which may or may not coincide with local community priorities (always assuming that local NGOs themselves represent community wishes). However, in the articles we receive, we see many authors increasingly reviewing their own local development trajectories and initiatives, rather than just focusing on evaluating international aid programmes which often suffer from short-term perspectives and lifecycles, compared to longer-term investment in services by local governments. The excessive focus on the assessment of international aid and the results of short-term aid interventions is at the cost of longer-term research which shows what does and doesn't work in key areas such as health and education. More longer-term research on the practice of development would help countries progress in their own developmental efforts.
Vikash Yadav provides an interesting case study which set out to investigate the degree to which a market-based community system can deliver sanitation and water services to an unofficial slum in India. The author notes how, with a pragmatic rather than ideological or bureaucratic perspective, it was possible to improve these services with people meeting some of the costs along with tacit support from local authorities.
Eduardo Zeharra, Angie Higuchi, and Ricardo Vargas studied a peer-to-peer training programme for women in Peru. They use an interesting review methodology to show how some of the programme’s overall aims were achieved compared to a control group of non-participants. Trainees were more likely to engage in activities outside the home, to save more and engage in home improvements. However, the training did not achieve all of its goals, including a general improvement in their autonomy and self-esteem.
Rebecca Nalwanga and Ragnhild Lund provide insights into a relatively new grant programme to the elderly in Uganda. One clear finding is that such recipients are not or should not be treated in isolation, as many are still heads of households, particularly many older women directly responsible for grandchildren (orphaned or left behind by migrated parents). Thus, the impacts of the grants have been very different, depending on the recipient’s social responsibilities and position.
Jackline Kabahinda takes a rights perspective when considering research of the controversial issue of women’s land ownership in Uganda. The tension between legal rights as recognised by central government and customary rights as practised in villages is outlined, as are the women’s own views.
Sushant, Sunpreet Kaur, and Sushil Saigal describe the problems they encountered using large-scale surveys to assess demand for tree saplings in India. They note the changes between the initial survey findings and a follow-up confirmation survey, and then the actual demand for and planting of the saplings. The surveys took time, so much so that planting was delayed by a whole year and bore little relationship to the reality of demand once farmers had realised the work involved.
John Kuwornu, Evelyn Osei, Yaw Osei-Asare, and Mohamed Porgo, in an analysis of rural incomes in Ghana, show that those families with significant off-farm income tend to have a stronger level of food security than those merely labouring on farms. Studies of nutritional status, access to food, and other forms of income show the importance of off-farm income to farmers across the board, with implications for planning off-farm income opportunities to complement on-farm production, consumption, and sales.
Abdelhalim Khaled, in a study of market construction in Cairo, explains how what appeared to be a sensible proposal from local authorities failed to understand the market dynamics. Therefore, the new market built was not really used by the market stallholders, who returned to blocking the street. The conclusions highlight understanding the different motives of local authorities and market sellers, and the economics of the local market place.
The article by Blake Ratner, Clementine Burnley, Samuel Mugisha, Elias Madzudzo, Il Oeur, Kosal Mam, Lukas Rüttinger, Loziwe Chilufya, and Paola Adriázola summarises action research in the lakeland areas of Uganda, Zambia, and Cambodia, focusing on the role of multi-stakeholder dialogue to avoid or resolve conflicts over natural resource uses. It contributes a set of useful findings from the research which will be valuable at a policy level and for those engaged in conflict-related programmes, given the high percentage of intra-state conflicts which are based on the use of natural resources.
Javier Schunk’s viewpoint shares a proposed framework for the all-important political strategies for development. The author provides some examples to set out the alternative strategies currently underlying much development and then describes stages to go through to achieve a successful political process.
Michelle Mey, Amanda Werner, and Bridget de Villiers review the experiences of university students in South Africa who have engaged in community outreach programmes. It became clear that students were often confronted by unexpected social challenges which they were previously unaware of, and the value of such programmes to students who were studying human resource management was also highlighted. As inequality increases in countries such as South Africa, programmes which try and bridge the increasing gaps in society have a value in themselves.
Anuja Jayaraman, Vanessa D’souza and Trisha Ghoshal look at the development of the mandatory corporate social responsibility programme in India and how this has worked since its inception. The review focuses on the problems of lack of trust between businesses and NGOs and uses the experience of an NGO in Mumbai to describe some ways this can be overcome.
Eli Knapp and Tanner Hoffman’s thoughtful contribution discusses the tension in Africa, specifically Tanzania, between traditional culture and development. They note how development has been increasingly defined in financial terms of GDP and per capita incomes attained through “modernisation”. The authors reviewed the perceptions of people in two villages on external development programmes, concluding that while most people wished for more development, especial the better-educated younger people, they were also concerned with the loss of their cultural roots.