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China's 2021 White Paper, China's International Development Cooperation in the New Era, offers a new vision for a more people-centred approach to its development cooperation. While the White Paper extensively discusses partnerships, it only briefly mentions encouraging cooperation with non-governmental organisations (NGOs). This article argues that NGO engagement in international development activities would improve their effectiveness, a view shared by many Chinese scholars and practitioners. However, challenges exist that constrain optimal engagement, especially access to funding, and a weak enabling environment and policy framework. This article addresses these challenges, drawing from the literature on 'going out' among Chinese NGOs and social organisations, along with interviews with key players in the Chinese NGO ecosystem. The article recommends, among other things, that the government clarify and improve its policy framework for NGOs/social organisations in support of China's international development collaboration, especially regarding funding flows, personnel regulations, and material and capital outflows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An excerpt from the book "Making and Unmaking the Young "Shotta" (Shooter): Boundaries and (Counter)-Actions in the Garrisons," by Joy Moncrieffe is presented.

Robert Chambers is one of the most influential and prolific scholars to write about participation, poverty, and knowledge in development studies. His books, chapters, and papers have revolutionised the discipline, inspiring both participatory processes and more inclusive practice. Perhaps not as well known are the articles he authored for the IDS Bulletin. This Archive Collection explores Robert's contributions to the journal across five decades with a view to resurfacing buried gems of development studies theory and reinvigorating debates about how the sector can improve: it collates his most important articles and presents a new introduction reflecting on key ideas and offering a critical analysis of the common themes throughout Robert's work. New perspectives discuss how theories have changed over time, and the continued relevance of key ideas. The articles reproduced here show not only how Robert's thinking evolved but also hint at broader changes in strategic focus for the Institute of Development Studies itself, as well as development theory in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cash transfers have expanded rapidly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) around the world in the past decade. The contexts in which they are implemented have also diversified; while cash transfers were mostly adopted initially as central elements of social protection systems, they have become increasingly popular as a core component of humanitarian response. They also play a crucial role in emerging systems of 'shockresponsive social protection' (SRSP), which denotes systems that have the ability to scale assistance up and down following a shock -- either by increasing the level of assistance for existing beneficiaries or by expanding coverage temporarily to non-beneficiaries affected by the shock. This paper provides an overview of the use of cash transfers in three different settings, namely: (1) cash transfers as long-term support within social protection systems; (2) cash transfers as immediate and short-term support as part of humanitarian assistance; and (3) cash transfers as a key component in scaling up social protection provision and coverage in the event of large-scale emergencies, or smaller-scale, household- and community-level shocks -- also referred to as SRSP. Within each of these settings, the paper provides an overview of objectives, modality options, targeting mechanisms, delivery options and main international players promoting or supporting cash transfers. The paper also offers reflection on the efforts to harmonise cash transfers across the social protection and humanitarian spheres within the remit of SRSP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the rise in humanitarian emergencies triggered by climate-related risks and conflict, often in contexts of chronic poverty and vulnerability, the international community is calling for the better integration of short-term humanitarian assistance and longer-term development interventions. In this context, social protection is increasingly portrayed as a policy tool that can address chronic, as well as acute needs by delivering assistance in response to shocks through established, scalable systems. This paper lays out the key arguments for more integration between the humanitarian and social protection sectors, while discussing the potential tensions emerging from conflicting mandates and institutional structures. Whether or not more integration will provide more efficient and effective responses to crises depends on the type of shocks and the crisis context, as well as the capacity and coverage of the social protection programme to deliver to additional caseloads. Based on a review of the existing evidence, the paper concludes that important gaps need to be filled with regard to the technicalities of linking short- and longer-term interventions in humanitarian contexts, particularly in relation to mobile populations and refugees, and understanding better the political economy factors that facilitate bridging the humanitarian-development divide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do popular protests about the basics of everyday life, specifically about energy, come about in settings where political authority is fragmented and conflict and repression common? How do state and political actors respond to protests which disrupt social and economic life, and undermine public authority? To what extent do such mass protests, often justified as inherently moral struggles over the basics of everyday life, empower the powerless or hold the powerful to account in such political settings? And how do external actors shape these events? These are the questions addressed in this paper, part of a research project under the UK Aid-funded Action for Empowerment and Accountability (A4EA) programme at the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex. It is a preliminary effort to make sense of a specific category of popular protests, mass protests about the affordability or availability of fuel or energy, seen as among the contentious 'politics of provisions', or elite-mass struggles over policies governing the necessities of everyday life. The paper aims to: (a) contribute to theoretical debates about the kinds of social and political action that strengthen accountability and empower the marginalised in fragile and conflict-affected settings; (b) make an empirical contribution to the contentious politics literature with new evidence about the nature of energy-related protests (or 'fuel riots') in developing countries, to strengthen the political economy analysis of energy subsidy reforms and austerity programmes, shedding new light specifically on the tendencies of non-democratic regimes to maintain high fuel subsidies; and (c) generate knowledge about how the behaviour and practices of external actors shape how energy protests play out in these fragile political settings, in order to inform policy and practice. The paper draws on: (a) an events catalogue built on a review of international media that was; (b) triangulated and refined further through a research workshop and discussions with participants, direct observers, and other scholars. These research activities were designed to investigate the phenomenon of energy-related protests (definitions and forms of which are discussed) in settings marked by fragile or fragmented political authority or where conflict is common or recurrent, what is known in development thinking as fragile, conflict, and violence-affected (FCVAS) settings. The focus is on the period 2007-17, a time of unusual turbulence in global commodity and financial markets, and of correspondingly intense national and transnational struggles over austerity regimes, financial shocks, and commodity price spikes in countries around the globe. The paper draws on the events catalogue and workshop contributions to develop preliminary analysis of how grievances about energy connected to other material and political grievances in the society. It sets out initial findings about the social and political alliances that emerged between the informal sector workers, youth, and urban working class groups that were on the frontline of most protests, and other actors such as business, political parties, trades unions, civil society organisations and broader social movements. It explores the repertoires, or the styles and forms taken by the protests, reflecting on how those were transformed over the episodes of contention, and specifically in counter-response to the state response. The paper presents the synthesis of these inquiries, which it situates within the limited relevant literature on energy protests and the political economy of development in fragile settings. It concludes with a discussion of knowledge gaps and potential research agendas on the contentious politics of energy provisioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent literature has shown that the study of armed conflict can be highly informative to understand processes of state-building. One of the fundamental choices that states or other military actors face when occupying new territories and populations is whether to administer them by developing novel administrations (direct rule), or by devolving rule to pre-existing local authorities (indirect rule). The literature on the political and economic legacies of colonial rule has shown that this choice can have far-reaching consequences in terms of state capacity and legitimacy, affecting long-term development trajectories. Yet the conditions under which indirect rule emerged in the colonial period are very difficult to observe and analyse. Building on the analogy between armed factions in contemporary conflict settings and states in the making, this paper explores the conditions under which indirect rule emerges in contexts of armed conflict, and the consequences that this governance arrangement has on local governance institutions and legitimacy. The paper adopts a historical and qualitative perspective, building on fieldwork and interviews carried out in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). It provides a theoretical discussion of the strengths and limitations of the comparison between armed factions and proto-states, and develops novel analytical tools to understand 'indirect rule' governance arrangements by armed factions. The paper is a theoretical and qualitative companion to a separate paper based on a quantitative analysis of indirect rule (Sanchez de la Sierra, Henn and Marchais 2017). Importantly, this is an early draft of this paper, as its empirical section will be completed with additional qualitative fieldwork to be carried out in 2018, and the paper adjusted following the results of the quantitative study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses how disparities and in particular perceptions of inequality may have influenced political participation in Western Balkans over the last years. The arrival of the international crisis in the last quarter of 2008 has had not only economic but also significant political consequences on the region. While citizens' participation through conventional channels has continued decreasing, there has been a rising opposition to political and economic institutions channelled by the emergence of new social movements. This paper shows that these political changes were largely motivated not by observed changes in income distribution but by people's perceptions of rising disparities between rich and poor. This analysis is further supported by the empirical testing of a number of mechanisms that may shape the relationship between inequality and political participation such as expectations, changes in living conditions and corruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an evidence review of how intersecting forms of inequalities influence women's political participation and representation at the local level in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. The review shows that while the quota system has increased women's presence in local government, intersections of gender and caste or gender and class affect minority women's ability to contest elections, participate in local government meetings, contest opinions, and represent the interests of their community and that of gender equality in different ways. These intersections also make women vulnerable to discriminatory practices within the government and also to violence. How effectively minority women are able to tackle discriminatory practices is influenced by the nature of patriarchy, the history of women's engagement in local level institutions, women's involvement in political mobilisations and engagement of women's organisations on these issues. The paper also identifies research, policy and programme gaps on intersectional identities and women' political participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the drivers of inequality and social exclusion, especially discrimination, with a focus on how they intersect at the levels of family, community and local government institutions. The paper reviews current literature and emerging research, drawing on empirical work being carried out by the authors in Central and Eastern Europe, the UK and Africa. Theories of intersectionality and power relations are grounded in an analysis of Roma inclusion policies and Roma people's own experiences of these policies at the local level in Central and Eastern Europe, focusing on Hungary, Romania and, to a lesser degree, Serbia. Examples are also drawn from participatory research with marginalised communities in Ghana. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the role and experience of external actors, particularly donors, in supporting social and political action in fragile, conflict and violence affected settings. Evidence is distilled from a wide range of synthesised sources to generate relevant findings and questions in relation to what we know and what we don't. Included among the source material is a 2016 macro-evaluation of DFID's empowerment and accountability (E&A) programmes which examined over 50 DFID funded projects. Themes which emerge relate to: how external actors need to think about the context and work politically; who are the most appropriate social and political actors to support in E&A; whether a direct or indirect approach to support for E&A achieves more tangible outcomes; whether external actors should move beyond short-term tools and tactics focused on onesided engagement; and whether programmes should be designed around more strategic, multi-faceted interventions. The paper concludes with identifying a number of gaps in the evidence which are translated into a range of questions which could potentially inform the Action for Empowerment and Accountability (A4EA) research programme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This working paper seeks to examine the relationship between unpaid care work and paid work that women in low-income households in Nepal perform, and whether, and if so how, they are able to maintain a balance between the two. It also examines the causes and consequences of the double burden on the physical and emotional wellbeing of women and their children. Further, the paper aims to create knowledge about how different stakeholders such as family, community, employers and state can contribute to women's economic empowerment such that their economic empowerment is optimised (women's entry into paid work is enabled without deepening their time poverty or worrying about the quality of care received by their family), shared (across generations, so that other women/girls in the family are not left to bear the burden of care) and sustained (such that the quality of care provided to children improves as a result of their mother's paid work). By examining women's participation in two economic empowerment programmes -- the Enterprise Development Programme (EDP) in Surkhet district and Karnali Employment Programme (KEP) in Jumla district -- it also provides policy inputs on how women's economic empowerment (WEE) policy and programming can generate a 'double boon': paid work that empowers women and provides more support for their unpaid care work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the progress of the Empowerment, Voice and Accountability for Better Health and Nutrition (EVA) project implemented by Palladium in partnership with the Centre for Communications Programmes Pakistan. EVA aims to empower, organise and facilitate Pakistan's citizens to hold the provincial governments of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) to account for the delivery of quality reproductive, maternal, new-born, child health and nutrition services (RMNCH-N). The paper situates the project within contemporary understandings of social accountability programming, and examines its approach to operationalising an adaptive, politically savvy and locally led way of working in a challenging context. It also comments upon the foundations of EVA's early successes and its potential future directions as a way of offering guidance for similar projects. EVA is a five-year project (2014-19) with a budget of £18.85m funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) in Pakistan. The project is a component of DFID Pakistan's flagship maternal and child health project 'The Provincial Health & Nutrition Programme'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary This paper examines the roles, responsibilities and interactions between the various formal and informal institutions and stakeholders involved in the management of police services in the DRC. It identifies informal networks that influence decision-making processes and policy implementation, and provides an analysis of interactions between the Congolese population and national and international actors. It also aims to highlight both horizontal and vertical accountability mechanisms within the existing legal framework, setting out to identify any legal gaps and contradictions, which could explain overlapping mandates. The study provides interesting geographical and administrative data on national security systems, and uses a multidimensional governance approach to understand the complexity of the security sector and the interconnectedness between the relevant actors. The study concludes that stakeholders of the security and police sectors of the DRC are linked together in a web of complex and dynamic systems, characterised by discrepancies between theory and practice. It is inaccurate to think of these systems and mechanisms as working either in opposition to one another or in parallel. In fact, these systems intertwine more than they conflict, and there are significant overlaps and confusion with regard to the mandates of the existing institutions, structures and actors involved. All security services in the DRC possess a legal framework within which they must operate. The legal contradictions and loopholes identified in this paper are often the result of dubious interpretations, or even deliberate misinterpretations of existing operational provisions underlying the functioning of security services. The research concludes that there is very poor coordination between the various actors and institutions involved in the management of security services in the DRC. This creates a dysfunctional structure characterised by a culture of impunity, with only a semblance of autonomy and independence among actors, but never with regard to senior civil servants in charge of coordination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Spanish aid policy is changing: official development assistance (ODA) doubled between 2004 and 2008 reaching almost €5 billion annually (ODA/GDP 0.45 per cent). At the same time ODA disbursements to United Nations organisations increased 23 times and the Spanish-UNDP Fund was set up to move Millennium Goals forward with €528 million. The Spanish Agency for International Cooperation (AECID) is now a state agency with more autonomy and a Managerial Contract with measurable objectives, some of them related to aid effectiveness. Moreover, despite the economic crisis, spending on ODA increased slightly in 2009-10, although the Spanish government has announced aid cuts for 2011. What factors explain these changes? Was it just a new foreign policy when the Socialist party won the election in 2004? Was there an agreement within the government to develop a new aid policy? Are factors of change still impacting on aid improvements or have they diminished or even vanished? This paper tries to answer these and other relevant questions, such as how Spanish aid policy is likely to evolve over the coming years, what changes must Spain carry out to approach or even draw level with the more advanced donors and which lessons might be relevant to other aid donors, especially to the bilateral newcomers and emerging donors. After a brief reflection on aid effectiveness, the paper analyses the politics of aid in Spain, the changes that have improved Spanish aid effectiveness in recent years and the main dilemmas and challenges which are still waiting to be resolved. It focuses on traditionally selected areas of assessment in development policy and goes beyond, taking into account the political economy of aid, analysing its actors and their different interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although important gains have been made in reducing global poverty, the pace of progress across the world is not on track to achieve the 2015 MDG targets. Is this due to lack of ownership on the part of national governments and the international community? This article examines whether the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) and donor policy statements are aligned with MDG priorities and targets. The analysis found a high degree of commitment to MDGs as a whole but both PRSPs and donor statements are selective, consistently emphasising income poverty and social investments for education, health and water but not other targets concerned with empowerment and inclusion of the most vulnerable such as gender violence or women's political representation. The article concludes that a new, ninth Goal needs to be added - to reduce inequality - to make the MDGs aligned to the original purpose of the Millennium Declaration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recognising that many indicators of vulnerability among children, such as malnutrition or poor educational performance, might reflect intergenerational problems has profound implications for the design and implementation of social protection programmes. Treating the symptoms of these problems is of course essential: a malnourished child needs immediate nutritional support and a child who is failing at school needs special attention. But the argument of this paper is that 'taking the long view' is imperative if the reasons why children are malnourished, or failing, are to be correctly identified and adequately addressed. Importantly, the analysis implies directing interventions not exclusively at the children who are at risk, but at others in society who are responsible for the care of children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes a substantial revision of the policy agenda, in order to pursue poverty reduction. It examines the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) process, the changing character of aid dependence, absorptive capacity, the governance of aid use, and incoherent donor policies -- in general, and in the specific case of Bangladesh. There is a need for greater emphasis on poor people's lack of access to productive assets and on their inability to participate in the market economy. Inequities in the provision of health and education to the poor, and in the impact of governance upon them, also need more attention. These changes can only occur as a result of a deeply indigenous process of policy debate and public action. In the absence of a willingness to address these issues, increased aid will merely alleviate symptoms and not strike at the basic problem. The expansion of aid should thus be seen as a transitional process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the politics surrounding water resources and policy change in southern Africa. Process of institution-building accompanying water policy reform; Role of water in household livelihoods; Major policy context to water reforms in southern Africa.

This paper seeks to lay bare the contours and consequences of the relationship between paid work and unpaid care work for women in low-income households, in order to better understand the relationship between women’s participation in paid work and ‘economic empowerment’. It is also interested in analysing whether, and if so how, women (may) achieve a positive balance between their unpaid care work and paid work responsibilities such that their economic empowerment is optimised (women’s entry into paid work is enabled without deepening their time poverty or worrying about the quality of care received by their family), shared (across generations, so that other women/girls in the family are not left to bear the burden of care), and sustained (such that the quality of care provided to children improves as a result of their mother’s paid work). The paper seeks to do this by mapping the social organisation of care in low-income households across four sites in India, and assessing how women cope with their dual burdens. By focusing our analysis on two ‘women’s economic empowerment programmes’: the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in Rajasthan and the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) in Madhya Pradesh, we also seek to analyse how women’s economic empowerment policy and programming can generate a ‘double boon’: paid work that empowers women and provides more support for their unpaid care work responsibilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electoral violence has become synonymous with Kenya's elections. This acquired deadly proportions during the 2007 elections. However, it was also during this time that social media and digital technology were first used for political reasons, including for campaigning and polling. Social media and digital technology had mixed uses where they were not only used to propagate hate speech and mobilise for violence, but also to identify and map out violence hotspots. Since then, they have increasingly become an indispensable tool in Kenya's politics and governance, used by political leaders to spread information, campaign and mobilise. However, the widespread reach of social media has also been a major challenge to security, peace and peacebuilding since it has been used to incite hatred and violence. This paper identifies the specific threats that social media and digital technology pose and opportunities they present for violence prevention. Ultimately, the paper seeks to present the opportunities that exist for partnerships between state and non-state actors to effectively prevent political and electoral violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite long-standing conceptual considerations of shame in understanding poverty and debates about its moral, social and emotional qualities, the role of shame in poverty reduction policies remains largely unexplored. Notions of shame or mechanisms leading to shame - such as stigma or lack of dignity or respect - feature in many studies and policy evaluations, yet few studies have considered the interaction between shame, poverty and policy as its core focus. This paper has two objectives: Firstly, it aims to provide a conceptual framework for understanding the interactions between shame, poverty and policy. Shame is considered to be both intrinsic and instrumental to poverty; shame undermines the human right to dignity and respect and subjective wellbeing and also represents a capability deprivation or a breakdown in conversion factors (impeding the conversion from capabilities into functionings). Secondly, the paper explores these interactions with a focus on social protection and welfare policy. Given the universal nature of the 'shame-poverty nexus' and the majority of research on shame originating from Europe and the US, the paper focuses its review on low and middle-income countries but will also draw from literature in high-income countries. The paper concludes with reflections on next steps for research and policy in reference to shame in relation to poverty and poverty reduction policies. These include the need for clarity of language, the need to move beyond the 'shamee' and 'shamer' dichotomy, and the need for exploration of policy options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through the lens of four case studies focused on women's political participation (Palestine and Sierra Leone), and the passage of domestic violence law (Brazil and South Africa), this paper looks at the role of social and political action in advancing women's rights. In so doing, the paper assesses how research in fragile and conflict-affected settings might be framed to examine the ways in which social and political action can effect change for women in these contexts. The paper explores change at multiple levels: within, below and beyond the state. It highlights the role of women's organisations within accountability: in both ensuring delivery on commitments, and tracking their subsequent effective implementation. In conclusion, the paper underlines the importance of understanding the political landscape in which social and political actors operate as a constantly shifting field of action, both contextually and temporally, in which critical junctures aligning particular strategies, tactics, and actors can occur to produce politically meaningful gains. It is in the learning from these junctures on what worked and how, that research can contribute to making positive change in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]