102 research outputs found
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Goodbye to Projects? - A livelihoods-grounded audit of the Sustainable Management of the Usangu Wetland and its Catchment (SMUWC) project in Tanzania
NoApproaches to projects and development have undergone considerable change in the last decade with significant policy shifts on governance, gender, poverty eradication, and environmental issues. Most recently this has led to the adoption and promotion of the sustainable livelihood (SL) approach. The adoption of the SL approach presents challenges to development interventions including: the future of projects and programmes, and sector wide approaches (SWAPs) and direct budgetary support.This paper `A livelihoods-grounded audit of the Sustainable Management of the Usangu Wetland Catchment (SMUWC) project in Tanzania¿ is the eighth in the series of project working papers.Department for International Developmen
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Water governance and poverty: a framework for analysis
YesIn this paper we present a framework for understanding water governance, through which we
critique some of the assumptions underlying the current consensus on good governance.
Specifically, we suggest that current approaches are based on incomplete or partial
understandings of the concepts of governance. We question the idea that governance can be
identified as an abstract set of principles, without the need for contextualisation and localisation.
In particular, we suggest that there is a general lack of understanding of the way local
interactions shape and influence governance processes. Finally, and with specific reference to
the MDGs and the water sector, we question the implicit assumption that `good¿ governance is
necessarily pro-poor governance.
The paper addresses these issues through a critical discussion of governance, from which we
develop a framework for conceptualising water governance. The framework draws on theories of
governance, institutions and structuration, but is also informed by recent empirical research and
experiences from the field. We apply the framework to a specific case in Southwestern Tanzania
and raise a number of issues and challenges for further research
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How institutions elude design: river basin management and sustainable livelihoods.
YesThis paper challenges ideas that it is possible to `get the institutions right¿ in the management of natural resources. It engages with the literature and policy specifying `design principles¿ for robust institutions and uses data from a river basin management project in Usangu, Tanzania, to illustrate the complexity of institutional evolution. The paper draws on emerging `post-institutionalist¿ perspectives to reject over-formalised managerial approaches in favour of those that accept the dynamic nature of institutional formation, and accommodate a variety of partial and contingent solutions. Data from Usangu suggests that external `crafting¿ is inevitably problematic because, to a certain extent, institutions elude design
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Managing regeneration projects: what can we learn from international development.
YesThis seminar paper analyses the links between regeneration and international development, and describes project approaches in international development. In the light of these two perspectives it then goes on to discuss the main issue facing management of development or regeneration projects to-day
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Water governance: a solution to all problems
YesWater governance is a widely-used but ill-defined term. Our objective throughout this seminar series has been to analyse what it does mean and to question the consensus that seems to attach to it. In this paper for the final seminar I discuss what governance is not, I suggest what it is and I consider some propositions and issues that seem to have emerged from our meetings. In doing this, I appreciate that governance can mean different things to different people, but I suggest that, used in a specific way, it is a concept with particular value and significance for water development.ESR
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Modernizing Irrigated Agriculture: Capacity-building and Institutional Development.
yesThe context for irrigation modernization in Syria reflects global drivers for change in irrigated agriculture. Two drivers are identified as being of particular importance, increasing stress on water resources, and the trend towards irrigation management transfer to the farmer level. Within these broad categories a number of specific challenges are likely to be of importance in the modernization process in Syria.
Capacity-building to meet these challenges is required at three levels, policy, institutions and the individual. This paper focuses on institutional development, as being the most difficult level at which to undertake effective capacity-building. It discusses the institutional framework for irrigation management and goes on to describe current approaches, based round the concept of design principles. Constraints and limitations of the design principles approach are discussed.
The paper concludes by proposing an agenda for preliminary action on capacity-building for irrigation modernization. This agenda comprises an institutional mapping exercise, an assessment of the roles and responsibilities of water sector entities, and the development of a strategy for supporting farmer-level institutions. Integration with other capacity-building initiatives (policy reform, human resource development) is necessary if it is to make an effective contribution to the overall modernization programme
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Water governance ¿ what is the consensus?
YesThe concept of water governance is a firmly established part of the consensus on international water development, and has become a constant theme in the policy processes we are discussing in this seminar. Originating in its present format at about the time of the second World Water Forum in 2002, it was specifically restated at the International Conference on Freshwater in Bonn, 2001 (¿the essential key is stronger, better performing governance arrangements¿), and it featured prominently in the outputs from the Third World Water Forum in Kyoto, 2003. In the Alternative Water Forum, held here in Bradford just after the Kyoto event, we encouraged participants to analyse and critically debate the underlying ideas, In this paper I want to encourage this continuing analysis and debate. Like many of the issues we shall be discussing over the next couple of days, I believe it repays closer consideration, and that it encompasses a set of important ideas which must not be lost in constant re-iteration of a general theme.ESR
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Putting livelihoods thinking into practice: implications for development management.
YesThe failure of `blueprint¿ development interventions to deliver substantive improvements in poverty reduction has been well recognised over the last twenty years. Process approaches seek to overcome the rigidity and top-down operation of much aid-funded intervention. Sustainable livelihoods approaches (SLA) are one of the latest additions to this family of approaches. As a theoretical framework and as a set of principles for guiding intervention, sustainable livelihoods thinking has implications for development management. Drawing on research exploring the application of sustainable livelihoods principles in ten development interventions, this paper considers how these principles have evolved from continuing debates surrounding process and people-centred (bottom-up) approaches to development management. This research suggests that whilst these principles can improve the impact made by interventions, the effective application of sustainable livelihoods and other process approaches are fundamentally restricted by unbalanced power relationships between development partners
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Projects for regeneration: Making them work
YesThe study analyses approaches to the management of two projects within the regeneration portfolio of a large UK metropolitan council. Developing a theoretical framework drawing both from mainstream project methodologies and international development, the study highlights a number of key issues which need to be addressed, including entrepreneurship, participation, stakeholder buy-in, project lifecycles and benefit management. Key lessons emerging from the study include the need to foster entrepreneurship within the controlled environment of the project and the importance of setting programme targets which are appropriately orientated to harness the interdependent nature of benefits of regeneration projects in the public sector.Non
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Goodbye to Projects? - Briefing Paper 3: The changing format of development interventions.
yesThis briefing paper reports on research exploring ten detailed case studies of livelihoods-oriented interventions operating in Tanzania, South Africa, Uganda and Lesotho. As a proxy for best practice, these interventions were analysed through an audit of sustainable livelihood `principles¿. This revealed general lessons about both the practical opportunities and challenges for employing sustainable livelihoods approaches to the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of development interventions and also about the changing format of development interventions.Department for International Development
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