Resources

This author reflects on the rising popularity of mobile telephony for development purposes. Across the world, the mobile phone is becoming a more accessible, affordable and convenient means of communication than the Internet and computers. Particularly in Africa, as the cost of services and handsets continue to reduce, mobile phones are increasingly becoming the preferred tool for accessing and sharing information. As the impacts of this new ôrevolutionö are starting to be assessed, the author argues that mobile phones have the potential to become the first universally accessible information communications technology.

In 2006 oil was discovered in Uganda. With the country’s economy highly dependent on fuel imports, national oil production could make a long-term contribution to poverty alleviation. But for sustainable development to occur, participatory governance must ensure that people are involved in the decision-making processes affecting their lives. This paper, therefore, first analyses the adequacy of the existing legal framework on access to information and participation. Its findings show that although law and policy in Uganda indicate certain efforts to open up environmental decision-making processes to public influence, this is not the case in the oil production sector. On the basis of interviews and focus group studies it further examines the main practical barriers to better public participation. The author finds that in practice, public participation is subject to several financial, technical and political constraints. The culture of secrecy within government bodies, weak civil society structures as well as the politics of patronage remain substantive challenges for the fair and equitable management of natural resources in Uganda.

This book is a collection of writings about gender in Africa. The collection aims to serve both as a general introduction to the field and to highlight some of the main themes in the literature. The collection brings together early feminist scholarship with new and unpublished work, spanning the continent and representing the diversity of scholarship on gender in sub-Saharan Africa. The book is grouped into five key areas: contested representations: ægenderÆ in Africa; reconfiguring identities: femininities and masculinities; livelihoods and lifeways; transforming traditions: gender, religion and culture; and gender and governance.

The Gamba Protected Areas Complex (GPAC) in Gabon is an Integrated Conservation and Development Project designed to conserve ecosystems in the Guinea-Congo Basin and promote sustainable natural resource development. This article presents a socioeconomic survey undertaken by members of the local community using PRA techniques. The objectives of this survey were to determine the boundaries of terroirs villageois (buffer zones within which sustainable use of natural resources would be permitted), gather qualitative and quantitative information on the life of rural communities living in this area and develop the rapport needed for participatory management. The article outlines some of the PRA tools used aswell as emphasising the need to allow time to build rapport and trust within communities. It highlights the importance of using both qualitative and quantitative approaches in the Gamaba Complex through two examples, firstly, geographic positioning and delimiting of terroirs villageois and secondly, measuring damage caused by elephants to food crops.

Amidst the rhetoric of participation, evidence from some contexts suggests that the very projects and processes that appear inclusive and transformative may support a status quo that is highly inequitable for women. This paper attempts to address some of the questions and challenges surrounding participatory development, in terms of who participates, in what and on what basis, who benefits and who loses out. Highlighting some of the tensions that run through 'gender-aware' participatory development, it draws on empirical material from Africa and Asia to explore the gender dimensions of participation in projects, planning and policy processes. In doing so, it reflects on strategies and tactics that have been used in efforts to make participatory development more gender sensitive. Much depends, the paper suggests, on how 'gender' is interpreted and deployed in development settings. The pervasive slippage between 'involving women' and 'addressing gender' may be tactically expedient, but it provokes a series of questions about the extent to which current understandings of 'gender' in development mask other inequalities and forms of exclusion. Making a difference, the paper suggests, requires rethinking 'gender' and addressing more directly the issues of power and powerlessness that lie at the heart of both Gender and Development (GAD) and participatory development.