Human life cycles are something which we are all aware of but are often missing from development programming. There is a strong literature on child development, on the economic and social life of adults, and increasingly on the effects of gender on life cycles, by which most writers mean those who are likely to be married with children and based in an independent socio-economic unit. In developed countries we have invented the concept of adolescence to bridge the apparent gap between childhood and adulthood. This in-between stage has extended massively, from a puberty which starts at an earlier age than in previous generations, through to later completion of education and subsequent employment which also delays marriage and childbirth. This adolescent period in developed countries can easily exist from the early teens to late twenties. In developing countries education is also occupying a greater proportion of one’s life cycle, and hence delaying employment and reproduction. The large numbers of young people in this phase of life are poorly represented in our development thinking and practice. Childhood research finishes at best as children meet puberty, and other research tends to start with “households” and communities of “adults”, be they economic actors, electors, or assumed kinship groups.
In some countries even the better educated are finding it difficult to obtain jobs; they may have left a rural background for cities which do not always have the economic base to absorb the new population, as shown in some of our articles in this issue. There have been recent studies on over-qualified unemployed in areas such as South Asia, and also controversial literature which claims that the expanded numbers of unemployed disaffected youth are to blame for new forms of violence in the world. This is made on the basis of claims that frustration leads to aggression being channelled into civil war, terrorism, and so on. Whether there is any validity or not in this view, it does at least pose questions which one would expect to be reviewed in light of the need for social and economic policies which take into account the numbers of young people in this age group and what current trends mean for them as they traverse a difficult period in the human life cycle. Finally, there is now some recognition by donors and governments that they need to review policies, and commission research with adolescents that addresses their different needs and life trajectories to those already settled into adulthood.
Chloe Puett and Cécile Salpéteur have surveyed the expansion of financial and economic requirements from donors which are now being transferred to humanitarian agencies. They look at concepts such as value for money and cost benefits and note that many donors are themselves unclear what these mean, and recipient agencies are even less clear how to operationalise these concepts in their budgeting and programme design. The moral costs of humanitarian interventions are clear, but how to compare and contrast the financial costs are less well understood. This article raises an important set of hitherto neglected issues that are only really current in developmental rather than humanitarian agencies and programmes.
Michael Odei Erdiaw-Kwasie and Michael Yaw Acheampong are concerned that increasingly development planners and practitioners are trying to work with multiple stakeholders, but they question how relatively powerless groups can improve their voice and importance. Therefore, using a case study of communities in Australia, the authors have analysed the factors which contribute to the empowerment of more marginal groups.
Oluwasinaayomi Faith Kasim provides an insightful review of the rapid urbanisation of Lagos in Nigeria. The study suggests that some of the apparently low-cost public housing has failed to provide an answer to the housing deficit and indeed could be argued to contribute to the expansion of the city. The study also reveals many other issues of a mega city which the author claims grew well beyond its natural economic base and therefore fails to provide employment and income for its populace, as well as the services required to maintain such a large city.
Jean Claude N. Majuga, Bellancile Uzayisenga, Jean Pierre Kalisa, Conny Almekinders, and Solveig Danielsen review the use and functioning of plant clinics in rural Africa, focusing on those in Rwanda. Despite some success and the obvious utility of such clinics, they explore why they are apparently not as heavily used as one might expect.
Logan Cochrane and Georgina Cundill provide a review of an ongoing initiative to bring a range of research and other groups together in a multi-party initiative to share and develop research around climate change throughout Africa and Asia. They note the increasing tendency to develop such multi-agency consortia and the lessons learnt to date as to what works and what provides challenges.
Katherine Snyder, Andrea Corral, Gwendolyn Woods, Andrea Prichard, Melissa Montgomery, and Vasiliki Karanikola, in an evaluation of an unsuccessful water and sanitation programme in Bolivia, highlight the problems encountered while working in communities which are more accustomed to top-down initiatives, and where insufficient time was allowed for participatory processes. community support for proposed projects was also undermined where “participation” is seen as a cost rather than benefit by community members and where opinions and interests may differ widely. This honest review of a programme provides useful lessons for similar initiatives.
Cynthia Caron takes the important issue of land tenure and women’s access to land to explore what civil society groups have done to improve the position of women in Zambia. It becomes clear that customary chiefs have considerable potential to change customary law on land tenure and some civil society groups have been successful in achieving change through the traditional chiefs.
Brandon Lundy, Mark Patterson, and Alex O’Neill take an innovative look at the role of foreign investors in small and middle-sized enterprises in Guinea Bissau. They conclude that by far the majority of these investors are from other parts of west Africa. They are, the authors claim, more entrepreneurial and willing to work within the constraints in their adopted country and as such are major contributors to local growth.
Ernest Abraham, Adrienne Martin, and Olufunke Cofie also focus on issues of water and sanitation in urban Ghana, using focus groups and household surveys to paint a picture of the poor levels of sanitation and waste disposal. Respondents suggested that the way forward was to police the pollution by other community members, while the density of urban areas seems to make it difficult to achieve the ideal of a toilet per household and improved waste collection.
Frikkie Mare, Yonas Bahta, and Walter Van Niekerk surveyed the effect of the 2015 drought in South Africa on commercial livestock farms and production. They note the shortage of mitigation measures on the part of both farmers and government, the drastic reduction in livestock numbers due, and the impact on both commercial farm incomes and the nation’s food production. This study is of contemporary relevance given recent continued drought in South Africa.
Jon Hellin and Eleanor Fisher describe the tension between an approach to agricultural development which tries to be adaptive and smart in the use of technology, but they realise that the reality is that these are unlikely to help the poorest lift themselves out of poverty. The authors feel that the smart approaches are still useful but that scientists and other development workers need to be more aware of differentiations between farmers. They also recognise that other measures, such as social protection programmes, are likely to be necessary to enable the poorest to step out of poverty.