Resources

In the fast-moving world of development policy, buzzwords play an important part in framing solutions. Today's development orthodoxies are captured in a seductive mix of such words, among which ‘participation’, ‘empowerment’ and ‘poverty reduction’ take a prominent place. This paper takes a critical look at how these three terms have come to be used in international development policy, exploring how different configurations of words frame and justify particular kinds of development interventions.

It analyses their use in the context of two contemporary development policy instruments, the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (prsps) and the Millennium Development Goals (mdgs). We show how words that once spoke of politics and power have come to be reconfigured in the service of today's one-size-fits-all development recipes, spun into an apoliticised form that everyone can agree with. As such, we contend, their use in development policy may offer little hope of the world free of poverty that they are used to evoke.

This book presents the findings from a research project carried out by a team of researchers based in the UK, Uganda and Nigeria. Using examples from Uganda and Nigeria, it sets out to examine the processes by which policies for poverty reduction are made and implemented and assesses the scope policies provide for positive change in the lives of poor people. The writers based their approach on three interconnected themes. Knowledge: the information on which policies are based û who provides it? How is it used? Actors: the people involved in policy-making and implementation and the recipients of these policies û where does power lie? How can the poor be empowered? Spaces: the opportunities available to actors at all levels and the constraints imposed on them by politics, culture and history û who occupies the spaces and why? How can the poor gain access to them? The authors investigate these three aspects of policy-making at all levels, from central and local government, to independent civil society organisations, NGOs and the communities of the poor themselves.

This article, as part of the special 50th edition of PLA Notes, looks at specific tools and methods used by an alliance of three organisations in India that are engaged in initiatives to reduce urban poverty. The organisations are the National Slum Dwellers Federation (NSDF), Mahila Milan (savings cooperatives formed by women slum and pavement dwellers) and the Indian NGO SPARC. The article provides a background of the development of the tools and methods used by these organisations over the last 20 years, which are then linked to empowerment, learning and transformation: Poor people know what their problems are and generally have good ideas regarding what solutions they want. But they lack the resources or capacities to demonstrate that they can produce a solution. So the federations support their members to try out solutions in what can be termed a learning cycle. Some of the tools and methods covered in the article include savings and credit, mapping, surveys, community exchanges and house modelling. The author also describes how the Alliance (the grouping of the 3 organisations) works differently from other NGOs whose strategies tend to be about lobbying and advocating directly for change. Instead, the Alliance focuses on setting precedents and using these precedents to negotiate for changes in policies and practices. As a case study of this approach, the article describes the use of community toilet initiatives. Some of the outcomes include bringing communities together, expanding livelihood options for the participants (who gain useful skills and experiences from building the toilets), strengthening relations with municipal authorities, changing national policies, and enabling spaces for communities to learn. The article concludes with three overarching implication for change processes initiated in the community by the toilet projects, arguing that the poor make ideal partners in the projects and that the projects themselves need to be community managed and controlled. These are: organisation for empowerment; community-based problem solving; and learning to negotiate with city and state governments and other groups.

This article provides a general overview of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) approach, listing the main international institutions that were involved in the initiation of the approach in 1999 and the main principles underpinning the approach. The article analyses the PRSP experience by looking at some of the main principles to assess the formulation, monitoring and implementation of the PRS processes and contents on the part of civil society. The analysis is based on a review of secondary sources and existing literature. The article concludes by suggesting that PRSPs can be credited for marginal improvements in poverty orientation and opening up policy debate. However PRSPs can also be criticised for not being based on processes that promote country ownership and accountability. The article mentions the links between power dynamics and policy choices, and in turn explores the link with conditionality used by International Financial Institutions. To improve PRSPs, the author argues that PRSPs need to be anchored in national budgetary and parliamentary processes for greater accountability.

This paper explores the dynamics of the making and shaping of poverty policy. It takes as its starting point a critique of linear versions of policy-making, highlighting the complex interplay of power, knowledge and agency in poverty policy processes. We argue in Section One that the policy process involves a complex configuration of interests between a range of differently positioned actors, whose agency matters, but whose interactions are shaped by power relations. Making sense of contemporary poverty policy requires a closer exploration of the dynamics within and beyond the arenas in which policies are made and shaped. It also requires an understanding of how particular ways of thinking about poverty have gained ascendancy, coming to determine the frame through which poverty is defined, measured and tackled. To do so calls for an historical perspective, one that situates contemporary poverty policy with regard to antecedent visions and versions. Section Two of this paper thus provides an overview of differing narratives on the causes of and solutions to poverty, especially as they have emerged in dominant development discourses. Making sense of participation in the policy process requires that we identify and explore policy spaces in which alternative versions of poverty may be expressed by a variety of voices, and the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion that surround them. In Section Three of this paper, we examine two broad kinds of policy spaces - those that are found in invited forums of participation created from above by powerful institutions and actors, and those more autonomous spaces created from below through more independent forms of social action on poverty related issues. By examining how different narratives of poverty and different actors interact in such spaces - as well as how they may be excluded from them - we can better understand the ways in which power and knowledge frame the policy process.