Development studies
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Navigating Complexity in International Development
International development interventions often fail because development experts assume that our world is linear and straightforward when in reality it is complex, highly dynamic and unpredictable. Things rarely happen in the way that they were planned. The dominance of logical planning models in inte...
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Scaling up Agroecology
Chris Henderson, Jonathan Casey
To eradicate extreme poverty means focusing on the 500 million smallholders so they can reliably generate more food and income from their agricultural activities. This paper uses the three pillars of Technology Justice (access, local innovation, and sustainable use of technologies) to assess the ran...
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Financial and Market Integration of Vulnerable People
Smallholder farmers, women earners, young job-seekers, people with disability and the entrenched poor often struggle to sustain themselves or contribute to the wellbeing of their households. Despite years of attempting to address this situation, microfinance and enterprise development programmes hav...
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Brazil Under the Workers’ Party
In 2002, after a long political struggle, Lula was elected Brazil’s first working class President amid huge expectations that he and the Workers’ Party (PT) would bring much-needed reform. A great deal was achieved, including a dramatic reduction in poverty. But, just months before the staging of th...
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The Politics of Evidence and Results in International Development
Rosalind Eyben, Irene Guijt, Chris Roche, Cathy Shutt
Understanding and demonstrating the effectiveness of efforts to improve the lives of those living in poverty is an essential part of international development practice. But who decides what counts as good or credible evidence? Can the drive to measure results do justice to and promote transformation...
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The Politics of Evidence and Results in International Development
Rosalind Eyben, Irene Guijt, Chris Roche, Cathy Shutt
Understanding and demonstrating the effectiveness of efforts to improve the lives of those living in poverty is an essential part of international development practice. But who decides what counts as good or credible evidence? Can the drive to measure results do justice to and promote transformation...
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Introducing Technology Justice
As national governments, development actors, and businesses negotiate, commit to, and begin to implement Sustainable Development Goals for the next 15 years, Practical Action makes the case for Technology Justice to inform their actions and ambitions. This briefing paper introduces the arguments and...
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Participation Pays
The processes of international development often mean that beneficiaries have pre-designed programmes imposed upon them. Even the most well-intentioned development projects are often constrained by funding requirements from fulfilling their vision of social justice, with the result that poor, margin...
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The Energy–Water–Food Nexus at Decentralized Scales
The Energy–Water–Food Nexus at Decentralized Scales uses Practical Action’s experiences with micro-hydro schemes to connect global nexus debates to the experiences of and solutions for remote off-grid communities and smallholder farmers. Through examples in Peru, Nepal, and Zimbabwe it exemplifies t...
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Le nexus énergie-eau-alimentation à des échelles décentralisées
Ce document s’appuie sur l’expérience de Practical Action en matière de programmes de microcentrales hydroélectriques et vise à établir un lien entre les débats mondiaux sur le nexus (liens) et les solutions et expériences des communautés isolées hors réseau et des petits exploitants agricoles. Par...