IDS Practice Papers最新文献

This report argues for an expansion of the understanding of quality basic education, to be education that empowers students and addresses the inter-generational transmission of inequality and poverty. It argues that what is needed is an understanding of quality education that combines behaviourist and humanist approaches, infused with transformative education (TE) approaches. This report provides a framework for this broader understanding of quality education. It highlights evidence that shows transformative education approaches can help stimulate economic development, increase learning retention, lead to better cognitive performance and retention rates; increase civic engagement, raise human rights awareness to address discrimination; and promote reconciliation and reintegration. Most importantly, transformative education approaches are aimed at empowering students and can contribute to addressing inter-generational transmissions of inequality and poverty. It concludes with three recommendations for policymakers: (1) to expand the assessment of ‘effective’ education to include broader education outcomes, including individual and social transformation, empowerment and learner's retention rates, rather than simple test scores; (2) to include transformative education approaches in pre- and in-service training and as part of the mainstream teacher training curriculum, and; (3) that donors need to increase long-term and predictable funding to meet the existing annual $7.2 billion gap in education financing globally.

This Practice Paper aims to contribute to ongoing reflections and debates taking place among aid practitioners about if, and how, big international NGOs (BINGOs) can be more effective agents of ‘progressive social change’. It summarises a series of conversations that took place among seven members of the Institute of Development Studies Participation Power and Social Change team and staff from eight BINGOs between July 2008 and March 2009.

During the conversations, participants considered how internal and external factors influence the potential of BINGOs to contribute to shifts in power relations; greater realisation of rights; and enhanced economic, political and social justice for poor and vulnerable people. All of this was encapsulated in the term ‘progressive social change’. At the end of the process, participants agreed that there is considerable scope for many BINGOs to pursue a more progressive agenda. They recommended that similar conversations need to continue and branch out, both in topical range and in participants in order to stimulate the kind of reflection and organisational learning required to do so.

This paper includes accounts of discussions, case studies shared by participants, inputs from academic critiques of BINGOs and practical tools to feed into such deliberations. It explores the types of changes that BINGOs are trying to achieve, the approaches they use – their models of change, and challenges and tensions commonly perceived to prevent BINGOs pursuing more radical social change agendas. Provocative questions are raised as a means to help practitioners identify changes that their organisations need to make in order to more actively pursue social, economic and political justice. In some instances inspiring examples from BINGO participants suggest means to do so. References to organisational theory, meeting discussions and BINGO case studies are used to interrogate assumptions about how large complex organisations behave and to identify lessons that may be used to inform efforts to transform BINGOs into more effective agents of progressive social change.

This practice paper is one of a series, in which development practitioners reflect on their own experiences. Its aim is to contribute to efforts to understand China's successful management of very rapid change and development. It explores the relationship between central and local governments in the implementation of change and the role of partnerships between the Chinese government and international and bilateral organisations. It focuses on the health sector, which has experienced major challenges in adapting to the many changes associated with the transition to a market economy. By the mid-1990s, policymakers had recognised the need to address these challenges, but they did not have a clear understanding of a practical way forward. One government strategy to build this understanding was to collaborate with the World Bank and the Department of International Development of the UK in the design and implementation of a project which encouraged a large number of poor rural counties to test strategies for strengthening their health service. The end-of-project evaluations documented the many changes they had put into place and the contribution this project made to national policy processes.

The authors played different roles in the project. This enabled them to gain first-hand knowledge of the relationship between levels of government and between officials of the government and the international agencies. When the project came to an end they decided to reflect on what they had learned. This practice paper presents the results of this reflection. It provides unique insights into the way China is managing health system change and into the working of partnerships between the Government of China, the World Bank and bilateral donor agencies.

Perhaps as many as 2 billion people living in rural areas are adversely affected by open defecation (OD). Those who suffer most from lack of toilets, privacy and hygiene are women, adolescent girls, children and infants. Sanitation and hygiene in rural areas have major potential for enhancing human wellbeing and contributing to the MDGs. Approaches through hardware subsidies to individual households have been ineffective. Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) is a revolutionary approach in which communities are facilitated to conduct their own appraisal and analysis of open defecation (OD) and take their own action to become ODF (open defecation-free).

In six of the countries where CLTS has been spread – Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Ethiopia and Kenya – approaches differ organisationally with contrasting combinations of NGOs, projects and governments.

Practical elements in strategies for going to scale have included: training and facilitating; starting in favourable conditions; conducting campaigns and encouraging competition; recruiting and committing teams and full-time facilitators and trainers; organising workshops and cross-visits; supporting and sponsoring Natural Leaders and community consultants; inspiring and empowering children, youth and schools; making use of the market and promoting access to hardware; verifying and certifying ODF status; and finding and supporting champions at all levels.

To spread CLTS well requires continuous learning, adaptation and innovation. It faces challenges. Paradigmatically, it requires major institutional, professional and personal shifts. Opposition at senior levels, pressures to disburse large budgets, demands to go to scale rapidly, and programmes to subsidise hardware for individual rural households, have been and remain threats and obstacles. Issues for review, reflection and research include: diversity, definition and principles; synergies with complementary approaches; scale, speed and quality; creative diversity; and physical, social and policy sustainability. In seeking constructive ways forward, four key themes or thrusts are: methodological development and action learning; creative innovation and critical awareness; learning and action alliances and networks, with fast learning across communities, districts and countries; and seeking to seed self-spreading or light touch movements. A key to good spread is finding, supporting and multiplying champions, at all levels, and then their vision, commitment and courage.