Local Heroes: Patterns of Field Worker Discretion in Implementing GAD Policy in Bangladesh

Concerns with institutional capacity building in development tend to focus upon changes to the structures and incentive systems of development organisations, at the expense of considering the role of the individual in interpreting policy goals. This paper examines how field workers use their discretion to interpret and implement policy in rural credit programmes in Bangladesh. It focuses in particular on differences in the attitudes and practices of women and men field staff. The paper argues that these lower-level bureaucrats are de-facto policy makers, because of the recursive effect of an accretion of local everyday decisions upon programme outcomes and upon the knowledge which informs policy making. In the case of programmes promoting women's rights of access to non-traditional productive development resources such as credit, field workers are involved in delivering policies which challenge local systems of organising gender difference and disprivilege. Their own attitudes and practices have a powerful effect upon the success of these programmes in challenging the terms of gender relations. Most often, field workers' own biases undermine the more progressive aspects of these policies and reinforce dominant and conservative interpretations of women's needs in development. In other words, they use their discretion in negative ways, to avoid raising issues of gender justice and the redistribution of resources and social value between women and men. On the other hand, field workers may use their discretion more positively, to promote gender-redistributive policy -- they may show a species of local heroism in women's interests. This paper finds a gendered pattern in policy enactment attitudes and routines, with women field workers showing a greater receptivity to gender equity concerns. There is certainly no black and white distinction, however, between women and men field workers in this respect, which warns against making easy assumptions as to gender-based solidarities and affinities between women

Voice, Accountability and Human Development: The Emergence of a New Agenda

human development, democracy

Constraints on Civil Society's Capacity to Curb Corruption

Summaries This article suggests reasons why it is particularly difficult for civil society to organise effectively to curb forms of corruption which disproportionately afflict the poor. We take issue with currently fashionable views on the state's ability to ‘foster’ the emergence of civil?society organisations which effectively articulate the interests of socially excluded people. The Indian case demonstrates the potential for state?fostering to produce precisely the kinds of ‘compromised’ civil?society organisations which inhibit the emergence of the most effective form of anti?corruption movement: one based upon the premise that citizens have a right to audit government finances in minute detail. Indeed, the organisation in India that has pioneered this radical means for increasing accountability to the poor consciously distances itself from state?sponsored efforts to influence the development of civil society. In Latin America — whence most of the evidence for the optimistic view of state?fostered civil society has been drawn — efforts to promote popular auditing (as opposed to participatory planning) are conspicuous by their absence. This raises suspicions that state?fostering of civil society, whatever its merits, comes at a heavy price: the proliferation of associations unwilling to migrate from ‘safe’ forms of participation to those which involve confronting powerful elites and challenging the state's prerogative of auditing its own financial conduct. Such groups appear disinclined to demand and obtain sensitive government records, let alone organise ordinary people to analyse such information to determine where funds allocated for their benefit have actually gone

Institutionalizing Women's Interests and Accountability to Women in Development

Summary The Editorial introduces the Bulletin by outlining current approaches to analysing institutions and organizations as gendered terrains and processes. These approaches can help explain persistent difficulties in institutionalizing incentive and accountability systems responsive to women's needs and interests in development organizations. The article outlines an approach to analysing development organizations according to gendered structures and practices as they are expressed through gendered incentive and accountability systems, gendered expressions of power, and gendered patterns of organizing space and time. The article also stresses the importance of situating any organizational study and strategies for organizational change within the broad institutional context embracing the organization in question. RESUME L'institutionalisation des intérêts des femmes et de la responsabilité sensible au genre dans le développement Cet article sert d'introduction à cette édition du Bulletin, car il ébauche les approches qui servent actuellement dans l'analyse des institutions et des organisations en tant que terrains et processus genrés. Ces approches peuvent servir à expliquer les difficultés persistantes qui ralentissent le processus d'institutionalisation des systèmes d'encouragement et de responsabilisation destinés à répondre aux besoins et aux intérêts des femmes dans les organisations vouées au développement. L'article esquisse une approche qui permettrait d'analyser les organisations de développement en fonction des structures et pratiques genrées telles qu'elles s'expriment à travers les systèmes d'encouragement et de responsabilité, les manifestations genrées du pouvoir, et les modéles genrès d'organisation des espaces et du temps. L'auteur souligne aussi l'importance de situer les études organisationnelles et les stratégies de changement organisationnel dans le plus grand contexte institutionnel qui entoure l'organisation concernée. RESUMEN La institucionalización de los intereses de la mujer, y la responsabilidad hacia los temas de género en el desarrollo Este artículo da comienzo al Boletín delineando los enfoques actuales para el análisis de instituciones y organizaciones como procesos y campos relativos al género. El estudio de estos enfoques puede explicar las persistentes dificultades para la institucionalización de sistemas de incentivación y responsabilidad que respondan a las necesidades e intereses de la mujer en las organizaciones para el desarrollo. Específicamente, el artículo analiza un enfoque para este análisis de estructuras y prácticas de género de acuerdo a los sistemas ya mencionados, y a los modelos de organización de tiempo y espacio acordes con el género. Asimismo se destaca la importancia de situar todo estudio organizativo y estategia de cambio dentro del contexto institucional más amplio de la organización en cuestión

Gender and Administration

Summary Public administration in development has been a poor instrument for implementing gender policies. Rural development administration in particular has tended to be indifferently accountable to female ‘publics’ in agrarian economies. Conventionally, this particular feature of institutional failure is explained by the suggestion that public administrations reflect gender relations in society. This paper, however, argues that the role of public administration in the organization of gender provokes questions about the gender of organization. It sketches out the conceptual premises for a theory of the gender of organization, looking at the way organizational structures, cultures, and purposes institutionalize male dominance. This perspective may help illuminate the processes and relationships through which other inequalities, such as those of class, race, and the North?South divide, are reproduced in public administration. Résumé Le Genre et l'insuccès des institutions dans le développement: l'organisation du Genre et le Genre dans l'organisation Au sein du développement, les administrations publiques ont constitué un outil peu utile pour la mise en oeuvre des politiques relatives au genre. Les administrations de développement rural notamment ont eu tendance à comptabiliser de manière indifférente les ‘publics’ féminins dans les économies agraires. Classiquement, et notoirement, cette caractéristique de l'insuccès des institutions est expliquée par la suggestion que les administrations publiques reflètent les rapports entre les genres dans la société. Le présent article, par contre, revendique que le rôle des administrations publiques dans l'organisation des genres soulève certaines questions le genre dans l'organisation même. L'auteur ébauche les prémisses d'une éventuelle théorie du genre dans l'organisation, et examine comment les structures, les cultures et les objectifs mêmes de ces organisations tendent à institutionnaliser la dominance masculine. Cette perspective veut aider à mettre en lumière des procédés et des rapports par l'influence desquels d'autres inégalités, par exemples celles des classes, des races et du partage nord?sud, viennent à se reproduire dans les administrations publiques. Resumen El Género y las fallas institucionales en el desarrollo: la organización del género y el género de la organización La administración pública en el desarrollo ha sido un instrumento muy pobre para la implementación de criterios relativos al género. En las economías agrarias en particular la administración del desarrollo rural tiende a ser poco responsable para con el ‘público’ femenino. Tradicionalmente, este rasgo característico del fracaso institucional se explica sugiriendo que la administración pública refleja las relaciones entre los sexos en la sociedad. Este artículo, sin embargo, argumenta que el papel de la administración pública en la organización del género suscita interrogantes sobre el género de la organización. Se bosquejan las premisas conceptuales para una teoría del género en la organización, analizando la forma en que las culturas, estructuras organizativas y objetivos institucionalizan la dominación masculina. Esta perspectiva puede arrojar luz sobre los procesos y relaciones a través de los cuales otras desigualdades — clase, raza, la división Norte?Sur — se reproducen en la administración pública

Bone Biomarkers Help Grading Severity of Coronary Calcifications in Non Dialysis Chronic Kidney Disease Patients

BACKGROUND: Osteoprotegerin (OPG) and fibroblast growth factor-23 (FGF23) are recognized as strong risk factors of vascular calcifications in non dialysis chronic kidney disease (ND-CKD) patients. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationships between FGF23, OPG, and coronary artery calcifications (CAC) in this population and to attempt identification of the most powerful biomarker of CAC: FGF23? OPG? METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: 195 ND-CKD patients (112 males/83 females, 70.8 [27.4-94.6] years) were enrolled in this cross-sectional study. All underwent chest multidetector computed tomography for CAC scoring. Vascular risk markers including FGF23 and OPG were measured. Logistic regression analyses were used to study the potential relationships between CAC and these markers. The fully adjusted-univariate analysis clearly showed high OPG (≥10.71 pmol/L) as the only variable significantly associated with moderate CAC ([100-400[) (OR = 2.73 [1.03;7.26]; p = 0.04). Such association failed to persist for CAC scoring higher than 400. Indeed, severe CAC was only associated with high phosphate fractional excretion (FEPO(4)) (≥38.71%) (OR = 5.47 [1.76;17.0]; p = 0.003) and high FGF23 (≥173.30 RU/mL) (OR = 5.40 [1.91;15.3]; p = 0.002). In addition, the risk to present severe CAC when FGF23 level was high was not significantly different when OPG was normal or high. Conversely, the risk to present moderate CAC when OPG level was high was not significantly different when FGF23 was normal or high. CONCLUSIONS: Our results strongly suggest that OPG is associated to moderate CAC while FGF23 rather represents a biomarker of severe CAC in ND-CKD patients