Resources

As development NGOs and official aid agencies embrace the idea of becoming a learning organisation, they are increasingly concerned with some form of knowledge generation and organisational learning. To date, the literature on these issues has tended to come out of the private sector and reflect a Western world view. Development and the Learning Organisation presents contributions from development scholars and practitioners from a range of institutional backgrounds around the world. These contributions are organised under five themes: Power, culture and gender: challenges to organisational learning; Learning together: multi-institutional initiatives; Levels of learning: organisational case studies; Learning from humanitarian action, and Ways and means: tools and methods for learning and change. Some introduce new approaches and models, others offer critical case studies of individual and group learning practice across cultures as well as organisational efforts to put theory into practice. The book ends with a review of resources including books, journals, organisations, websites and publishers.

This literature review is intended to complement the English and Spanish literature reviews carried out as part of the Global Study. Many of the issues and points of discussion raised in the English review were also noted or confirmed in the French literature. There are inevitable influences and overlaps between the various literatures, such that to make a clear distinction between the French, Spanish and English literature is, to a certain extent, artificial. However, it cannot be denied that there are some differences in approaches and emphasis, due to the predominance of certain schools of thought or institutional cultures. This paper emphasizes the differences by focusing on elements that were not yet necessarily covered by the other views, or that are addressed from a different angle. The objectives of the review are to clarify the concepts and definitions of terms related to participation and consultation in the French literature on development and humanitarian aid; present and analyse key debates around the concept and practice of participation; review lessons learned, recommendations, and manuals that can be useful for the elaboration of the Global Study Practitioner's Handbook and overview book; and illustrate the issues raised through case studies that are relevant to humanitarian action.

The National Association for NGOs (NANGO) in Zimbabwe has developed, with an external consultant, a method for participatory capacity assessment and planning. In this paper, the authors describe the process, emphasizing that capacity building is a much wider-ranging process than simply training or staff development. Following on from individual organisational processes, network members came together to see whether and how they could support and integrate their capacity building strategies. The article is thorough in its discussion with diagrams to illustrate key points. It concludes with reflections on the participatory capacity building methodology and future developments.

This report gives account of the discussions and findings of the 2003 Gray Rocks Conference on Social Change through Assessment and Organisational Learning in Canada. Over three days, a group of community activists, organisers, evaluators and other ôlearning partnersö from eleven countries, discussed how, as organisers and outsiders, they were helping activist groups meet their internal need to keep assessing, reflecting on and strengthening their work so that they could increase their impact; while also meting their external need to help their partners, funders and others outside their organisation understand, evaluate and learn from their work. The report presents four areas of broad agreement: work in the social change arena requires innovative approaches to monitoring; the paramount goal should be strengthening the organisations which are leading effort to bring about fundamental reforms; few funder currently give priority to meeting their granteesÆ needs when they require evaluations; and all parties committed to these causes can benefit from working together over the long run. The report goes on to look at assessments designed to meet the organisationsÆ learning needs; assessments to meet external assessment and learning needs; current areas of exploration in assessing social change; desire for gatherings and exchanges with peers; possible future areas of exploration and/or collaboration; and visions for the future.

This issue of Compas magazine focuses on the main controversies that individuals, communities and agencies involved in endogenous development are experiencing, and to show examples of methodologies to handle these controversies. Many of the articles presented show that the experiences of development agencies in consciously and systematically dealing with controversies are still few. The issue focuses on four controversial issues dealt with in separate sections: traditional leadership and governance, gender roles, agriculture and health care. Some of the main questions dealt with are how controversies between traditional leadership and formal government can be bridged; how to build on the strengths of both traditional and modern health care systems; how to understand culture-based gender concepts and support women in traditional cultures who face suppressive gender-related taboos; and how understanding between scientists and traditional farmers can be increased to help agriculture adapt to changing conditions. The issue includes articles on traditional ways of dealing with controversies; challenges between African, Asian and western philosophy; contexts, concepts and controversies between Andean and western cosmovisions; potentials and questions regarding indigenous institutions in Ghana; blending governance systems in Ghana; revitalising traditional leadership in Andhra Pradesh, India; conflict transformation between pastoralists and settled farmers in Sudan; dealing with land conflicts in Zimbabwe; livestock controversies in Europe; traditional leadership and gender in Kenya; rituals, taboos and gender in Sri Lanka; lessons from Buddhism on equality and diversity in Sri Lanka; ancient farming and modern science in Sri Lanka; changes and controversies in Uganda; controversies between farmers and scientists regarding grain storage n Nepal; and integrating different healing practices in Cameroon. The magazine also contains book reviews relating to the subjects discussed and descriptions of future issues. Sri Lanka, Kenya, Ghana, Cameroon, Europe, the Andes, Uganda, Nepal

This paper is about the creative use of legislative advocacy to protect the rights of civil society organisations. Threatened with a proposed law that would limit their freedoms of association, expression and assembly, a core group of NGOs formed a national coalition to campaign against the law and to draft alternative legislation. The Pakistani NGO Forum (PNF) at present represents over 3500 organisations and plays a role in defining the code of conduct and standards of accountability for NGOs.

This newsletter is a special issue on trying to bridge the gap between donors' resources and their effective use in targeting the poor, through the use of community development funds. Community development funds function like banks, but can work more flexibly and at different levels. Several case studies are presented from countries in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and southern Africa, and a number of tips and advantages in setting up a community development fund are outlined. Some of these are that they: " Set new standards of transparency and accountability; " Make multiple, small-scale investments in many community-initiated urban development projects; " Support tangible outputs of value to the urban poor, in different sectors and areas; " Help establish and strengthen long-term partnerships between community organisations, municipal authorities and the private sector, while stimulating new working practices; " Provide poor communities and their organisations with opportunities to learn by doing.