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Participation and Compliance in Tension: Developing Women-led Yarn Spinning Businesses in Tajikistan
Abstract
This paper presents a case study on two consecutive 4-year projects funded by IFAD that used participatory action research (PAR) to develop women-led yarn spinning businesses in rural Tajikistan. The case study explains how the PAR approach contributed to the project success and how it was affected by different compliance environments. The first project, managed by ICARDA, operated in an enabling compliance environment that supported field-level action based on a PAR-driven learning. The second project, managed by AKF, faced a high-burden compliance environment that affected field-level decision-making and created unforeseen costs for the project. The paper argues that cooperative learning and decision-making by the field staff and the stakeholders, facilitated by low burden compliance, is a cornerstone of effective, sustainable development. High-burden compliance systems can jeopardise project effectiveness and sustainability by prioritising procedural conformity over participatory, knowledge-based action.
Serious questions remain about the ability of NGOs to meet long-term transformative goals in their work for development and social justice. We investigate how, given their weak roots in civil society and the rising tide of technocracy that has swept through the world of foreign aid, most NGOs remain poorly placed to influence the real drivers of social change. However we also argue that NGOs can take advantage of their traditional strengths to build bridges between grassroots organizations and local and national-level structures and processes, applying their knowledge of local contexts to strengthen their roles in empowerment and social transformation.
When should foreign aid organizations empower actors on the front lines of delivery to rely on their judgment to guide aid interventions, and when should distant headquarters lead? Understanding how best to manage the implementation of aid projects matters both for aid effectiveness and for what it tells us about the more general tension between central versus field worker control in organizations.
Tajikistan’s economy is not creating sufficient jobs for its rapidly growing workforce, in particular its burgeoning youth population. As a result, its most valuable asset – human capital – is largely underutilized. Although remittance-driven growth since the early 2000s has led to a steep decline in the poverty rate, poverty remains high. Strong economic growth in the last decade has not resulted from structural transformation that can lead to sustained improvements in the standard of living. Jobs have been created, but these are mainly in low-productivity activities, often in the informal sector. In addition, there are major inequalities in terms of labor market outcomes between population groups and across regions. The report, “Tajikistan Jobs Diagnostic: Strategic Framework for Jobs”, analyzes the main challenges the country faces in creating jobs at the macro, firm, and household levels. It also sets out policy recommendations to enable the country to create more and better jobs that are also more inclusive of women, youth, and other vulnerable population groups.
Contemporary movements for the reform of global institutions advocate greater
transparency, greater democracy, and greater accountability. Of these three, accountability is the
master value. Transparency is valuable as means to accountability: more transparent institutions
reveal whether officials have performed their duties. Democracy is valuable as a mechanism of
accountability: elections enable the people peacefully to remove officials who have not done
what it is their responsibility to do. “Accountability,” it has been said, “is the central issue of our
time.”
The focus of this paper is accountability in international development aid: that range of
efforts sponsored by the world’s rich aimed at permanently bettering the conditions of the
world’s poor. We begin by surveying some of the difficulties in international development work
that have raised concerns that development agencies are not accountable enough for producing
positive results in alleviating poverty. We then examine the concept of accountability, and
survey the general state of accountability in development agencies. A high-altitude map of the
main proposals for greater accountability in international development follows, and the paper
concludes by exploring one specific proposal for increasing accountability in development aid.
With the main objective of improving Tajik mohair quantity and quality, frozen semen from eight top performance tested Texan Angora bucks was imported and used on 459 selected local goats from 11 farmers in two insemination seasons. Conception rates in both seasons were very low. Sixty six Texan x Tajik crossbred progeny were compared with 308 contemporary Tajik controls. Early live body weights, mohair quantity and mohair quality data were collected and genotypes compared after correcting for season, farm and sex of progeny, fitting age as a co-variable. Body weights at birth were higher in crossbreds (2.39 vs. 2.19 kg, P < 0.001) but body weights at 6 weeks, 6 months and 12 months were similar. Fleece weights at first shearing were much higher in crossbreds (1.16 vs. 0.68 kg, P < 0.001) as well as staple length (19.6 vs. 16.3 cm, P < 0.001). Fibre diameter at first shearing tended to be lower in crossbreds (24.2 vs. 25.9 μm, P = 0.088) and was lower at second shearing (29.2 vs. 31.5 μm, P < 0.05). Med fibre percentage (proportion of fibres with a medulla less than 60% of its diameter) was lower in crossbreds at first (1.70 vs. 4.12%, P < 0.05) and second shearing (1.86 vs. 3.01%, P < 0.05). Kemp fibre percentages (proportion of fibres with a medulla equal or larger than 60% of its diameter) were very low and not significantly different between genotypes. There was no difference in visual assessment of fibre fineness but the proportion of progeny classed as superior for overall quality was much higher in crossbreds (39/52 vs. 99/290, P < 0001). It was suggested to monitor later life performance of crossbreds and it is concluded that the introduction of Texan Angora bucks improved Tajik goats. Further improvement may be based on cooperative breeding of Texan progeny and outstanding local goats on one site and distribution to multipliers in different communities.
Université catholique de Louvain Département des sciences de la population et du développement
The issue of the accountability on nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in global governance has received increased attention in recent years. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the issue, to consider whether any public problems exist, and to make recommendations on what should be done. The paper contains three parts. Part I examines the historical context of NGO accountability starting with the Papal Encylical Rerum Novarum of 1891 and considering episodes relating to the League of Nations and the founding of the United Nations. Part II provides an overview of the contemporary debate on NGO accountability and uses a recent article by Robert Keohane and Ruth Grant as a point of entry. Part III offers my own framework for how to think about the challenge of NGO accountability and suggests that more attention be given to the individual as the unit of analysis. The paper makes recommendations for what should be done to improve NGO accountability and more importantly what should not be done. This paper was prepared for a conference at New York University Law School in April 2005 on the emerging field of global administrative law (GAL).
Concerns over aid effectiveness have led to calls for greater accountability in international development aid. This article examines the state of accountability within and between international development agencies: aid NGOs, the international financial institutions, and government aid ministries. The investigation finds that there is very little accountability in these agencies, and that the accountability that there is often works against poverty relief. Increasing accountability, however, is not always the solution: increased accountability may just amplify the complexities of development efforts. Only those reforms with real promise to make aid more effective in reducing poverty should be encouraged. One such proposal is set out here.
Dealing with a number of current development crises will ultimately require facing up to the challenge of democratization. The types of reform indicated involve complex organizational changes that the large official donors have little capability to address. The central leadership role must be assumed by organizations with the potential to serve as catalysts of institutional and policy change. Some NGOs have demonstrated the potential to serve in such roles and many others have the potential—if they chose to develop the necessary technical and managerial capabilities.
Incl. bibl., bibliographical notes and references
This article suggests that the concepts underlying participatory approaches to development should be subject to greater critical analysis. Drawing on research on water resource management in sub-Saharan Africa, and on social theory concerning the recursive relationship between agency and structure, it illustrates the need for a more complex understanding of issues of efficiency and empowerment in participatory approaches. Particularly, two key concepts are examined: ideas about the nature and role of institutions ; and models of individual action . The article concludes by identifying the questions such an analysis raises about the relationships between community, social capital and the state. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
This paper sets out to explore the achievements of civil society in the area of poverty reduction. The focus is mainly on three domains (1) Advocacy; (2) Policy Change and (3) Service Delivery. Three case studies illustrate how poverty can be addressed at various levels and through different approaches: (1) Shack Dwellers International (SDI) operating internationally to advocate for the urban poor’s rights; (2) civil society organizations participating in the formulation of PRSPs to call for pro-poor policy reforms at the national level; and finally (3) the example of BRAC (formerly the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee) providing services to the poorest at the grassroots level. Drawing on these case studies, the paper explains the keys to success and reasons for failure of civil society organizations in tackling poverty reduction effectively. It concludes by pointing out the challenges faced by civil society in the area of poverty reduction and presents recommendations on ‘what is still missing’ for civil society to play a more effective role in poverty reduction.
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