id21 Capacity Building

id21 viewpoint: Livelihoods approaches are a powerful tool for practice

id21 — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 16:54:32 +0000

Despite demonstrable benefits, the rapid ascendancy of Sustainable Livelihoods Approaches (SLA) in the mid to late 1990s was followed by their quick demise among some donors, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and development agencies, as a result of internal politics and other factors

Grouper aquaculture and livelihood security in Thailand

id21 — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 00:18:26 +0000

Many fishing practices occur on a large scale, causing environmental destruction. The small-scale farming of high-value fish has been suggested as an alternative, but does aquaculture (fish farming) play the same role in livelihoods as conventional fishing? And do poorer households really benefit from aquaculture

Sharing science with remote forest communities in Amazonia

id21 — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 19:15:37 +0000

People in remote Amazonian villages regularly sell 30-metre fruit trees to loggers. These trees can produce up to 2,000 nutritious fruits a year; villagers, who rarely know the market price for timber or fruit, earn the equivalent of just US$2 per tree. They are losing valuable timber trees as well as the fruit and medicinal trees that sustain their families

Designing child-sensitive policies

id21 — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 16:41:49 +0000

Children constitute up to 50 percent of developing country populations. Analysis of children’s roles in pro-poor policy processes, however, is relatively new.There is increasing attention on the role of different types of evidence used in policy decisions and in promoting pro-poor policy change. What type of evidence can help promote child-sensitive policies?

Local ownership underpins success of security sector reforms

id21 — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 11:53:32 +0000

2008/03 - id21 [Security sector reforms in any country must be designed, managed and implemented by local people if they are to succeed. But while it is fashionable for policy statements to declare the importance of ‘local ownership’, the concept has proven difficult to apply, with donor governments guilty of frequent breaches]

A sustainable livelihoods approach to watershed management in India

id21 — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 11:48:48 +0000

2008/04 - id21 [Over half the cultivated area in Andhra Pradesh depends on rainfall, although the State is prone to drought. A sustainable livelihoods approach to watershed development could prove a useful strategy for the development of this and other dryland areas]

Developing an evaluation tool for health research in Ghana

id21 — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 11:38:38 +0000

2008/05 - id21 [Governments and external agencies in developing countries are increasingly identifying ‘capacity building’ as a goal of health research. Management at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) in Ghana identified capacity building in health research as essential if the school was to develop into a regional centre of excellence. How was an evidence-based evaluation tool developed for KATH?]

Mozambique as a model for national disaster response strategies

id21 — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 11:35:08 +0000

2008/06 - id21 [In early 2007, Mozambique suffered severe flooding in its central region and a cyclone that devastated southern coastal districts. Although up to 500,000 people were affected, the emergency response was largely successful because the Government was well prepared. The mixed results achieved by international agencies, however, highlighted issues related to coordination, communication and the assumptions they operated under]

Making sure women’s empowerment helps children in India

id21 — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 11:21:59 +0000

2008/07 - id21 [Development practitioners increasingly see women’s empowerment as central to reducing poverty. Microfinance programmes are being enthusiastically adopted worldwide to promote such empowerment. In the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh over five million women have formed self-help groups, but little is known about what impact this has on child welfare]