2011: Volume 42
Volume 42 Number 1 January 2011
Edited by: Mariz Tadros
This IDS Bulletin questions what the intersection of global, local and national politics means for policy and practice in the realm of religion and gender. It brings together scholars, scholar-activists and development practitioners to share their analyses of the critical challenges and opportunities that are transforming their realities today. A workshop at IDS in September 2010 took the debates further, leading to a series of interventions, shared in this issue.
One of the clear messages that emerged from both the workshop and these articles is that the current scholarly approach to the study of gender and religion is wanting - because it is locked in a binary framework of secularism vs religion, modernity vs tradition and moderates vs extremists. We need new lenses to engage with the complexities of the politics of gender, which means the deconstruction of the old, and greater conceptual clarity over what is meant by the religious and the secular.
This issue responds to the themes of religion, politics and women's equality in relation to the so-called ‘Muslim world'. Post-9/11 the international community has adopted a dual approach of fighting terrorism while also promoting a ‘religious' approach in its dealings with ‘the Muslim community'. Religion has also become an entry point in development policy and practice in the light of the entrenchment of neoliberal policies and the rise of identity politics as faith-based actors have been brought to centre stage. Some Western donors have also espoused an agenda of engaging with Muslim leaders while adopting a religious framework for advancing human rights in ‘Muslim communities'.
2010: Volume 41
Volume 41 Number 6 November 2010
Edited by: Lawrence Haddad, David Bonbright, Johanna Lindstrom, Yvonne Pinto and Efe Atugba
After more than two decades of hiatus agriculture is back on the agenda of donors and governments. Issues of harmonisation, results orientation, mutual accountability and payments for performance have become mantras in development assistance. Placing intended beneficiaries at the centre stage is the new motto. But the articles in this seminal IDS Bulletin provide systematic evidence to lay open the widely shared secret among development practitioners that the cupboard of agricultural monitoring and evaluation (M&E) is bare. Agricultural M&E has been weak at best. Where it exists it has concentrated on tools and methods, a narrow focus on project performance ratings and 'rates of return' with accountability upwards to donors rather than downwards to the intended beneficiaries of programmes.
Volume 41 Number 5 September 2010
Edited by: Mariz Tadros and Ana Alice Alcântara Costa
At the Millennium Summit world leaders committed to reducing extreme poverty through a series of targets encompassed within the MDGs, with a deadline of 2015. One of these was to promote gender equality and empower women, and the ‘proportion of seats held by women in national parliament' was set as a key indicator. With the MDG Review Summit meeting in September 2010, this is an opportunity to consider whether the proportion of women in parliament continues to be the most adequate proxy for women's political empowerment. This IDS Bulletin explores what the quota has meant as a motorway to women's accession to political power by drawing on research findings from the Pathways of Women's Empowerment Research Programme Consortium (‘Pathways'), as well as a series of articles from a special seminar in the Brazilian National Congress as part of this programme, and contributions from other country case studies. The aim of the issue is to bring new insights from the programme and beyond to an audience of development academics and policy actors who have become familiar with the proliferation of different forms of affirmative action, but who are interested in interrogating the politics behind the quotas in all their complexity and nuances. It questions motivations behind adopting quotas, discusses different political pathways of breaking through the ceiling for women to reach political office (with or without quotas); and raises questions such as who benefits from the quota as a fast track option, and what kind of gender agendas do the women who have come to power via the quota espouse and advocate?
Volume 41 Number 4 June 2010
Edited by: Naila Kabeer and Sarah Cook
Social protection is once again high on the international policy agenda as the multiple crises of the past three years have devastated the livelihoods of millions already living in or close to poverty, and increased vulnerability and uncertainty for millions more.
The Social Protection in Asia (SPA) programme, under which the contributions to this IDS Bulletin have been produced, arose in similar circumstances, following the Asia financial crisis of the late 1990s. This issue feeds into current debates about the design of appropriate social protection schemes that effectively meet identified needs. It builds on earlier research that focused on the dynamics of poverty and social exclusion within the region, identifying the major problems facing groups most likely to rely on informal safety nets. The articles offer lessons for making social protection strategies more systematic and inclusive; collectively they provide insights into a number of general themes that are important for the wider social protection agenda. Some point to the ways in which social protection programmes can have wider developmental impacts that offset some of the resources used to finance them (such as investments in human capital leading to a more healthy, skilled and productive workforce). What various findings from a range of studies suggest is that far from promoting the dependency of the poor on welfare handouts, well-designed social protection interventions can provide the opportunity ladders that they need to climb their way out of poverty, to participate in social and political life, and to contribute to wider processes of development and inclusive economic growth.
Volume 41 Number 3 April 2010
Edited by: Peter Clarke and Katy Oswald
'Capacity development' implies a promise of growing self-reliance, national ownership and sustainability, yet practice seems consistently to fall short of this emancipatory promise.
This introduction argues for a reframing of capacity development for emancipatory social change. Articles in this bulletin show how understanding and practice must engage with complexity, appreciate the importance of specific culture and context, and continually address the role of power in shaping relationships, understandings and practices. Values and leadership are fundamental drivers of capacity development processes. This bulletin argues against a deficit approach based on linear causal logic and replicable 'best practice'. Instead practitioners are encouraged to develop a detailed understanding of the culture and dynamics of specific contexts, to detect energies for positive change and work to connect and facilitate them. Learning is at the centre of the approach. Capacity development is understood as a collective process of learning in action for social change. Support for capacity development processes demands a critical development practice that implies mutual learning, with an emphasis on reflective and experiential approaches. However, this reframing implies enormous challenges for development practice, and therefore considerable personal and organisational commitment.
