Gender Aware Approaches in Agricultural Programmes: International Literature Review

This document presents gender aware approaches in agricultural programmes. In response to the persistent inequalities of women in farming despite decades of development assistance, Team Agriculture, Forestry and Food Security at Sida headquarters has initiated a thematic evaluation of how gender issues are tackled in Sida-supported agricultural programmes. The purpose is to increase understanding of how Sida's development assistance in agriculture should be designed, implemented and funded to ensure that female farmers are reached, that their needs as producers are met, and that they are able to benefit from the support to achieve a positive impact on their livelihoods. As part of this, the study also aims to understand the ways in which particular aid modalities impact upon the ability of programmes to reach women farmers effectively. The ILR aims to address the following questions: * Which methodologies and instruments have been used by donors to widen the scope of women's agency in agricultural development programmes? * To what extent has the work of programmes on involving female farmers impacted upon overall agricultural outcomes? * What are the most important lessons? What is working well and what is working not so well (effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability)? Below are recommendations to increase understanding of how Sida's development assistance in agriculture should be designed, implemented and funded to ensure that female farmers are reached, that their needs as producers are met, and that they are able to benefit from the support to achieve a positive impact on their livelihoods

The successful implementation of e-government transformation: A case study in Oman

The aim of this paper is to investigate, and to discuss the key critical factors that facilitate the successful implementation of E-government projects. The nature of this research is mainly qualitative. This investigation uses a single case study and data was mainly collected by means of semi-structured interviews and organisational documents from the Ministry of Higher Education in Oman. The research findings suggest that there are three paradigms which each include a set of factors that impacts the success of E-government success namely, organisational paradigm, technology paradigm and end-users paradigm. The authors believe that, this paper demonstrates an added value to the current literature on transformation of E-government and to E-government projects success, within the wider context of E-government implementation projects. Also the research will benefit organisations in the public sector, as it has identified main key success factors in E-government transformations and implementations

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

Engaging Universities in the Regional Integration Project in Southern Africa

The aim of this paper is to explore the potential for engaging universities in promoting greater regional integration in the southern African region, with the intention of prompting further conversation and debate around the role of universities in supporting regional initiatives

The complexities of electronic services implementation and institutionalisation in the public sector

This is the post-print version of the final paper published in Information & Management. The published article is available from the link below. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. Copyright @ 2013 Elsevier B.V.Electronic service implementation (ESI) in the public sector attempts to improve efficiency, effectiveness, and transparency of governmental departments. Despite having provided the necessary infrastructure and investment, many governments have struggled to realise such aims due to the various forces that challenge implementation and institutionalisation. Using institutional theory as a lens, we explored the forces influencing the implementation and institutionalisation of ESI in the public sector. While our results reinforced previous research in IT implementation and organisational transformation, they showed that the dynamic nature of technology poses unanticipated pressures, and that these can impede the implementation and institutionalisation process

Constructing insecurity: Australian security discourse and policy post-2001

This article explores the construction of security in the contemporary Australian context, arguing that the Australian government has represented, and attempted to construct support for, a statist, exclusionary and militaristic conception or discourse of security. This understanding of security is evident in the government’s representation and response to a range of issues since 2001, including asylum-seekers, terrorism and the war in Iraq. In exploring the processes through which the Australian government has elaborated this discourse and sought to create resonance for it in a domestic context, I argue that there remain important bases not simply for contesting this conception of security, but for acknowledging immanent possibilities for the understanding of security in the Australian context to change in normatively progressive ways. Acknowledging these possibilities is important in identifying the potential for progressive change in Australian security policy, while also shedding light on the role of security in the modern political project

Emerging spheres of engagement: the role of trust and care in community-university research

Community-engaged research takes place at a complex social site that has both a history and a future as well as encompassing the project activities of the researchers and community members. We argue that a crucial methodological aspect of undertaking such research is the development of trust relationships between researchers and community. We propose that for each research project, this relationship can best be understood as a ‘sphere of engagement’, after Ingold’s ‘sphere of nurture’, and that trust and care are emergent and binding qualities of this sphere. Tracing the development of trust relationships in a case study, using the idea of security-based trust and harmony-based trust, we conclude that trust, and the related concept of care, bind together people, events, histories and futures beyond the dichotomous and time-delimited relationship of a research contract, and carry the sphere of engagement of researchers and community beyond the life of any one project