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Following the revocation of Article 370 and re-organisation of the erstwhile state of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) into a Union Territory of India in August 2019, many questions arose about how democratic processes would work under the new dispensation. Within the context of the 2020 District Development Council elections, this article critically examines the surprisingly successful performance of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the CPI(M), in the district of Kulgam, a constituency well-known for its historical ties with leftist politics. Investigating the factors contributing to the party's success, the article identifies the strategic approach by the CPI(M) to emphasise developmental issues, thereby challenging the traditional role of religion as a tool for mobilisation. Despite the strong local presence of the Jamaat-e-Islami, the left-leaning party, as part of a multi-party alliance, succeeded in gaining substantial electoral support in the seats that they contested. This study relies on primary data collected through extensive field surveys to highlight the unique electoral dynamics witnessed within this specific region, which gain added relevance in view of future electoral contests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conceptual review aims to examine the international difficulties and the strategic application of the local economic development agenda. The study argued that for South Africa to implement its local development strategy at the grassroots level effectively, it can learn from global initiatives. The study contextualized local economic development (LED) from the global perspective and discussed the challenges it encounters in practice. According to researchers, local economic development (LED) is something that everyone—citizens, business owners, and the general government—should be concerned about. LED is frequently viewed as the solution to problems like increased quality of life, unemployment, poverty, and inequality. Several opposing theories and techniques constantly influence the development of policies, planning processes, and implementation methods because of the relative infancy of the area of LED research. The article discusses LED uncertainties domestically and internationally in South Africa. While concentrating on the South African context, it also examines the steps taken by the chosen countries worldwide to address the issues with LED. The study used the qualitative method by gathering information via secondary sources. The information obtained from various databases was analyzed thematically. The study identified challenges faced by LED in South Africa, such as poor leadership, lack of alignment of policies between the spheres and lack of skilled workers. The paper recommended a nine-stage strategic programme that could aid the full actualization of LEDs in South Africa.

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is highly development-oriented and appeals to developing countries whose wish is to catch up with developed economies. China has called for co-construction of the BRI with all and sundry, particularly with African countries, which it has considered important and strategic in actualizing the BRI project. The call for co-construction echoes well with the African partners, who are keen on leveraging the BRI for their own development. Tied to China's status as a rising economic power, both partners have agreed to align the BRI with the African Union's development agenda for complementary and beneficial development. Our paper revealed that although the call for co-construction of the BRI is a welcomed initiative, there are potential setbacks that abound, and therefore offered strategies for responding to China's call for co-construction of the BRI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prevailing assumption was that the phenomenon of globalisation would yield equitable benefits for all nations. Nevertheless, it has become evident that the benefits of globalisation norms are predominantly enjoyed by affluent nations. Although the concept of globalisation was initially intended to enhance the agency of developing nations, it has instead resulted in the erosion of their autonomy to independently determine their course of action. The democratic process has been impacted by the loss of decision-making power experienced by emerging countries as a consequence of globalisation. The rules governing globalisation were inequitably formulated to provide preferential treatment to developed nations. Contrary to prevailing popular opinion, the impact of globalisation on both developing and affluent nations has exhibited disparities. The questioning of norms governing globalisation has emerged as a consequence of the phenomenon of globalisation. This process further exacerbated the existing division between the global north and global south, leading to a heightened level of separation between these two regions. International financial institutions based in Washington disregarded the objections raised by developing nations and formulated a strategy aimed at mitigating the disparity in wealth. The ideology of privatisation and the free market is commonly referred to as the Washington consensus. The concept of state non-intervention proved to be disappointing as it primarily served the interests of the international organisations involved, thereby failing to benefit other stakeholders. Hence, it is imperative to formulate a development strategy that encompasses principles of equity, justice, and long-term sustainability. The existing understanding of sustainable development and the approach to attaining justice through sustainability necessitate a reevaluation in order to accomplish similar objectives. The authors of this research endeavor to investigate the extent to which the current development agenda is sufficiently comprehensive to address the shortcomings of past attempts to reconcile globalisation with development. This study aims to examine the response of the global community to the phenomenon of globalisation through the implementation of the Development Agenda. This paper examines the influence of globalisation on the policy-making processes of developing nations. Finally, the authors proceed to analyse the concepts of justice, growth, and sustainability.

Background: The Kenyan government has successfully been implementing sector specific and multisectoral projects aligned to the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA). For operational readiness and to enhance the effective planning and implementation of Global Health Security Programs (GHSP) at national and subnational level, there is an urgent need for stakeholders' engagement process to seek input in identifying challenges, prioritise activities for field implementation, and identify applied research and development questions, that should be addressed in the next five years. Methods: The modified Child Health and Nutrition Research Initiative (CHNRI) method was used to identify global health security related priorities for multisectoral implementation in Kenya. Subject matter experts from human, animal and environmental health sectors at national and subnational level contributed to predefined research questions from a number of sources and activities for consideration for implementation using a One Health approach. Sixty-two experts scored the 193 questions based on five pre-defined criteria: 1) feasibility and answerability; 2) potential for burden reduction; 3) potential for a paradigm shift; 4) potential for translation and implementation; and 5) impact on equity. Data resulting from this process was then analysed in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to determine the research priorities and experts' agreements. Results: Among the priority activities identified for implementation research were; strengthening One Health governance and legal frameworks; integration of ecosystem health into One Health programming; strengthening disease reporting, integrated data collection, information sharing and joint outbreak response; socio-anthropological and gender-based approaches in improving risk and behavioural change communication and community engagement; and one health workforce development. In addition, the potentials to invest in collaborative predictive risk modelling to enhance epidemic intelligence systems, while strengthening the One Health approach in the food safety incident and emergency response plans are feasible. Interpretation: Successful multisectoral implementation of global health security program in Kenya calls for a whole of society approach that will harness community and private sector knowledge to build preparedness and response capacities while targeting neglected and marginalised populations. This research provides a framework that is worth emulating for cost-effective planning and implementation of overarching One Health programs.

Leaving no one behind in education: A focus on children with disabilities (p.48) Toyin Janet Aderemi Barriers to education exist at multiple levels for children with disabilities, especially in developing or middle-income countries: stigma and discrimination in families, communities and in schools; households living in poverty; lack of assistive devices; lack of teachers' training and preparation; and inaccessible transportation. Inclusive education is a system that includes all learners, welcomes and supports them, irrespective of their identities and abilities. Inclusive education entails not only accessibility of the school but also teachers' preparation, adapted curricula, and participation of the learner to achieve his or her potentials. Furthermore, inclusive education fosters inclusive societies and equity. Children with disabilities have the right to education. This article addresses inclusive education in school, communities, and policy contexts, contending that there is huge need for a multi-sectoral approach. Inclusive and community education for children with disabilities: Tools to combat discrimination and social inequality (p.55) Patricia Rea Ángeles This scientific article addresses the issue of children with disabilities and their inclusion in formal and community education. For many years, children with disabilities have been excluded from educational systems on the grounds of their fragility, creating a spiral of discrimination and social inequality. This article is an attentive call to governments, public policy makers, social leaders, civil society organizations, and other strategic actors to generate models of inclusive education inside and outside the classroom, attached to international law, with a multisectoral and intercultural perspective of gender, community engagement, and generation of an education for life that promotes social cohesion, community participation, and successful and meaningful educational experiences for all children. Leadership, education, and global social impact (p.64) Esther Benjamin Traditional development often focuses on the economic and social development of nations and their peoples, the implementation of international aid, and development assistance. Conversely, global engagement is focused on equity and rights, as we strive to uphold fairness and justice in our work and actions. Global engagement is about creating opportunities for one another. It is about inclusion. This article, proposes global social impact as "development 2.0." It identifies global engagement and holistic thinking as the basis for establishing new approaches to development that start with the individual, before addressing the interconnectedness of people, organizations, sectors, and programmatic areas. Pensamiento de diseño para la complejidad socioecosistémica (p.71) Citlalli A. González H. El enfoque de pensamiento de diseño, con una perspectiva centrada en las personas, puede ser una herramienta útil para contribuir a soluciones innovadoras en el marco del compromiso global para el desarrollo y la sustentabilidad. A partir de una lectura reflexiva y critica del enfoque, se identifican algunos retos y oportunidades que permitan un abordaje comprehensivo de las problemáticas sociecológicas. Se sugiere la necesidad de aportar a un cuerpo de conocimientos más robusto, con sustentos teórico-metodológicos y filosófi cos que eviten aplicaciones reduccionistas del pensamiento de diseño. Asimismo, se requiere fortalecer las capacidades en sectores, como la sociedad civil, para adaptar los modelos y herramientas de innovación en contextos diversos y múltiples escalas. La innovación para la sustentabilidad y la equidad requiere de colaboraciones, alianzas y sinergias mejoradas y más amplias, entre actores y campos de conocimiento. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the connections between business activity and development aid that can help achieve the sustainable development goals placed by the United Nations (UN) in its development agenda. The article relies on an exhaustive review of the recent literature on development aid in the context of the European Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Connections exist between private firms' activity and both private and official aid, as firms can engage in business philanthropy, impact migrants' remittances, act as suppliers for bilateral or multilateral financially supported projects and participate in cross sector partnerships that involve agents from different societal sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food has always been an urban issue. The role of cities in building more sustainable food systems is already recognized and related to other urban domains, such as transport, health, land use planning for agriculture and multifunctional areas, community development, employment generation and waste management. The implications of these on urban planning and practice are however less evident. A proper spatialization of the food system and of its metabolic flows is missing, inhibiting their necessary readings for urban design. This paper addresses this gap. After introducing the concept of food system and discussing its spatial components – production, transformation, distribution, commercialization/consumption and waste management – we expose how a set of food-related activities and initiatives are shaping the Lisbon Metropolitan Area. The socio-ecological metabolic flows established by these operations on the ground and their sustainability impacts are established, based on the analysis of five municipalities: Lisbon, Oeiras, Alcochete, Palmela and Montijo. The results reveal how food is already an opportunity for the creation of jobs, healthy food markets and the promotion of land productivity, in particular on a micro scale. The paper recognizes the importance of localized food systems and their particular metabolic flows, capable of boosting opportunities to overcome physical and social obstacles and to increase the possibilities for urban planning to target the urban food system on a wider scale. Finally, it concludes that the overall food system of a metropolitan area is more than the sum of the several food systems operating in that same region.

Food has always been an urban issue. The role of cities in building more sustainable food systems is already recognized and related to other urban domains, such as transport, health, land use planning for agriculture and multifunctional areas, community development, employment generation and waste management. The implications of these on urban planning and practice are however less evident. A proper spatialization of the food system and of its metabolic flows is missing, inhibiting their necessary readings for urban design. This paper addresses this gap. After introducing the concept of food system and discussing its spatial components - production, transformation, distribution, commercialization/consumption and waste management - we expose how a set of food-related activities and initiatives are shaping the Lisbon Metropolitan Area. The socio-ecological metabolic flows established by these operations on the ground and their sustainability impacts are established, based on the analysis of five municipalities: Lisbon, Oeiras, Alcochete, Palmela and Montijo. The results reveal how food is already an opportunity for the creation of jobs, healthy food markets and the promotion of land productivity, in particular on a micro scale. The paper recognizes the importance of localized food systems and their particular metabolic flows, capable of boosting opportunities to overcome physical and social obstacles and to increase the possibilities for urban planning to target the urban food system on a wider scale. Finally, it concludes that the overall food system of a metropolitan area is more than the sum of the several food systems operating in that same region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stakeholder engagement in the formulation process was a major condition of donors to make Bangladesh's poverty reduction strategy nationally owned. In response, this article focuses on the engagement of the parliament as the most representative political institution in the country. The analysis shows that there was no political posture to ensure parliamentary engagement in the development of the strategy, with the nature and extent of the parliament's involvement being significantly limited. The lack of real parliamentary engagement was the outcome of the country's historical dependence on donors and the parliament's historically weak contribution to development strategies. The experience highlights the need for a collaborative approach to policy-making aimed at ensuring the active and meaningful involvement of parliament as a core means of facilitating national ownership of the development agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Development Cooperation, in addition to clear social and political support, originated from a context which represented a coherent contribution within the framework of Development Theory. However, from the 1980s with the rise of neoliberal ideas, debates on development and the international cooperation system and its strategies took different directions. Currently, the definition and monitoring of the Agenda has become the centre of debate, with the consequent abandonment of the theoretical and historical perspectives as well as the traditional perception of development as a process of transformation of reality. This disconnection between ideas on development and cooperation has led to a long-standing confusion over cooperation, with its role becoming increasingly unclear. This paper highlights the need to return to the relationship between theoretical reflection on development and cooperation strategies, through a process of identifying problems, studying their causes and consequently designing strategies. The way in which these links are created will open up the possibility of proposing alternatives according to the risks and challenges to be faced.

Since Bangladesh’s independence in 1971, the international donor community has largely shaped the nature and direction of the country’s development plans. In most cases, successive governments have introduced development policies and programmes within the broad framework of international development co-operation that has frequently overlooked the local context. A significant part of the reason why donors have been able to play a dominant role in setting the country’s development agenda is the inability of the civil service to serve as a challenge to externally-driven models of development. As is explored in this article, civil servants have lacked the capacity and political will to assume proactively a vital role in the policy-making process. This has resulted in a “fast food approach” which has allowed donors to have considerable control over the country’s development. In response, civil service reform needs urgent and high priority attention in line with successful reform initiatives in other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article attempts to address the problem of generating a common understanding of the multidimensional aspects of a community across its diverse social groups required for setting a development agenda, by carrying out a Participatory Action Research exercise in the tribal village Gawandwadi--population 293. The proposed process ensures involvement and empowerment of the local people and reduces the influence of the existing social stratification in the community--mainly gender based stratification is discussed in the article. It emphasizes four key components: (a) understanding the contextual community level decision making process, (b) participatory study of the multifarious quantitative aspects of a community, (c) identification of the differential qualitative aspects--such as needs, desires, and feelings--borne by multiple groups--based on gender, class, and caste--across the community, and (d) arriving at a shared appreciation of rationales for these differences. The process reduces possible conflicts incurred due to the lack of ownership of the development goal within the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tropics are expanding poleward at an alarming rate-with massive implications for societies, economies, and natural environments. This expansion appears to be determined largely by anthropogenic drivers-notably rises in greenhouse gases. Of greatest concern is the poleward shift of the dry sub-tropical zone into highly populated regions that have generally enjoyed a more temperate climate. While the effects of latitudinal shifts of climate zones will be most severe in temperate regions outside the tropics, there will also be significant changes in climate within the tropics-notably unprecedented thermal conditions for hundreds of millions of people, along with projections for more extreme weather events. Australia's geographical location makes it particularly vulnerable to an expanding tropics. As the tropics expand poleward, more of southern Australia will be influenced by the dry sub-tropical zone and associated reductions in winter rainfall. These drying trends are projected to continue over most southern parts of Australia this century, accompanied by rising temperatures and more hot days. Future rainfall trends for northern Australia remain uncertain, but there is an expected significant increase in the number of hot days, together with more extreme weather events. Future climate change in northern Australia has been ignored by the White Paper for the Development of Northern Australia (2015), bringing into serious question the feasibility and affordability of many of the development policies, plans, and projects promulgated in the White Paper. Even without climate change, the north faces many significant environmental and economic challenges for its future development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Will the BJP pursue its Hindutva ideology while in power or will it now gradually become a ‘centrist’ party? Responding to this question, the present paper argues that the possibility that it would transform into a centrist party is rather dim for four reasons: 1) the mixing of Hindutva identity with the development agenda during the national election campaign in 2014; 2) the mild and covert pursuit of Hindutva by both party and government; 3) the dynamic, but deep-rooted relationship between Hindutva and the BJP; and 4) most importantly, the slow and imperceptible shifting of the middle ground of public opinion in India in favour of majoritarian (and therefore pro-Hindutva) sentiment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 2015, the Millennium Development Goals are due to end. Academics, practitioners and the general public are eager to see which development agenda will take their place and a variety of different organizations are currently elaborating proposals for the next “round” of goals and targets. Instead of investigating possible topics of the upcoming agenda, we focus on methodological questions that – according to our view – will play a major role in the definition and implementation of future development goals. We focus on the elaboration of some key questions that should be addressed in the realm of poverty and inequality measurement, the definition of targets, the ability to consider complexity and evidence-based policy making.

In 2015, the Millennium Development Goals are due to end. Academics, practitioners and the general public are eager to see which development agenda will take their place and a variety of different organizations are currently elaborating proposals for the next “round” of goals and targets. Instead of investigating possible topics of the upcoming agenda, we focus on methodological questions that – according to our view – will play a major role in the definition and implementation of future development goals. We focus on the elaboration of some key questions that should be addressed in the realm of poverty and inequality measurement, the definition of targets, the ability to consider complexity and evidence-based policy making.

Nigeria is perhaps the most blessed country in Africa, in terms of its abundant mineral resources, agricultural and forest resources, distinctively more favourable climatic conditions and highly diverse human resources. These factors, alongside its overwhelmingly increasing population for foreign investment potentially and strategically put the responsibility of economic development on Nigeria, with its citizens expected to live not below the average standard of living. It is paradoxical however, that most Nigerians are poor. This study reviewed trends in poverty level in Nigeria from 1980-2014, examined the causes of poverty and inequality in Nigeria, evaluated Nigeria's potentials for a post-2015 development agenda, evaluated the level of satisfaction with the implementation of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), as well as the desirability level for the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The study found corruption, weak institution and poor governance; unemployment and underemployment; and high population growth as the major causes of poverty and inequality in Nigeria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Poverty is marketed in an undignified manner by the tour operators , big organisations and to some extent also by the state development agendas. Women in particular become the face of this poverty. The homes and everyday lives of the poor women do get dissected in the process of 'understanding the local lives'. The struggles and hardships faced by the poor become a source of consumption item for the visitors. "We also did the slums" becomes a necessary catch phrase for the tourists visiting the slums. The effects both positive and negative of slum tourism is necessary to understand. While poverty tourism is not only relevant to urban slum but is experienced in rural areas too. It however gets camouflaged under the name of development. Poor women who are part of the SHG movement are invariably the targets of development tourism. Regular visitors to tribal belts wherein women have made an attempt to change their lives through SHGs have become a common sight. While undoubtedly the SHG movement brings in positive changes from an economic and social empowerment perspective what gets overlooked is that in order to showcase the success of the programme the poor women and the families become fascination object of policy makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]