Institute of Development Studies

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1996: Volume 27

Evaluating Programme Aid

Volume 27 Number 4 October 1996 Edited by: Howard White and John Toye

Programme aid (import support, budgetary support and debt relief) has become an important form of aid in recent years. Unlike conventional project aid, there is no agreed evaluation methodology for these funds. At a time when aid budgets are under scrutiny in many countries it is important to know if these funds are well spent. Are they a good use of aid funds as compared to, for example, primary education? What impact, if any, do they have on the poor?

1997: Volume 28

Health in Transition: Reforming China's Rural Health Services

Volume 28 Number 1 January 1997 Edited by: Gerald Bloom and Andreas Wilkes

This issue of the IDS Bulletin asks whether China will be able to maintain cost-effective rural health services as it is transformed into a market economy. The papers were prepared as contributions to an intense debate underway in China. They explore how the re-organisation of the health sector and changes in the economic and institutional context within which it operates have affected the performance of rural health services. They also identify options for reform. Policy-makers in low and middle income countries can learn a great deal from the experience of the decade's most radical experiment in health sector reform.

Urban Poverty: A New Research Agenda

Volume 28 Number 2 May 1997 Edited by: Arjan de Haan

The developing world is urbanising fast, and urban poverty is on the increase. By 2025, it is estimated that 57% of the population in less developed countries will be living in urban areas. This Bulletin focuses on trends in urban poverty, and the challenges these present. It discusses concepts, the scale, and nature of urban poverty. It looks at the role of migration: do the migrants increase or decrease poverty in urban areas? Finally, it analyses the experience of poverty alleviation programmes in the fields of urban social development, infrastructure and employment creation. The focus is not just on developing countries. Poverty exists in Europe, too, and some of the articles draw attention to the problems nearer to home, comparing lessons on how to alleviate poverty.

Tactics and Trade-offs: Revisiting the Links Between Gender and Poverty

Volume 28 Number 3 July 1997 Edited by: Naila Kabeer

This Bulletin brings together a range of contributions analysing the interaction between gender and poverty from different disciplinary perspectives. Given the relevance of cultural context in defining the meaning of both gender and poverty, empirical case studies from different parts of the world are used to explore local constructions of the inter-relationship in order to move beyond the global generalisations which continue to dominate policy discussions. Contributions also reflect on the 'gender sub-texts' of the various official and grassroots discourses on poverty and on the political sub-texts of their discourses on gender and poverty. Who is defining these different agendas and whose reality really does count?

Community Based Sustainable Development: Consensus or Conflict?

Volume 28 Number 4 October 1997 Edited by: Melissa Leach, Robin Mearns and Ian Scoones

'Community-based sustainable development' has become a central approach to rural development and natural resource management. But this emerging consensus tends to overlook both ecological variability, and the potential for conflict within local communities. These factors point to the importance of local institutions in managing environmental conditions and risk, influencing who has access to and control over resources, and arbitrating contested resource claims. With contributions based on new research in India, Ghana and South Africa, this Bulletin shows how an approach based on the notion of 'environmental entitlements' can assist in practical efforts to achieve community-based sustainable development.