Research and Publications

This article provides an overview of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) in the context of Africa's current economic and governance crises, the attempt to establish an Africa Union, and the interest in Africa displayed by the G8 leadership and in particular by the UK's prime minister Tony Blair. NEPAD has to be seen simultaneously as a 'big idea', a new way of doing business, and a comprehensive development framework. The 'big idea' is to put Africa's concerns on the table of the G8 and seek a much better deal for Africa in terms of international aid, debt relief and access to markets. The new way of doing business is a new form of 'enhanced' development partnership that makes both donor and recipient mutually accountable for development outcomes. The development framework is a long-and expanding-list of programmes and projects, akin to those that have been tried before. The heart of NEPAD is a commitment to good governance, operationalized through a radical plan for 'peer review' of governance performance. This promises a radical new approach to development partnership, but it also faces political hazards. The governance component is also analysed in the context of the pan-Africa institutions envisaged by the African Union. There is a need for coordinating and rationalizing peace and security initiatives. NEPAD may unlock additional financing for development, but it should not be seen as a cash cow. The challenges for NEPAD include opening up the process to make it more participatory, including greater focus on HIV/AIDS. NEPAD faces the real danger of being over-sold and of raising unrealistic expectations among Africans. It is, nevertheless, an outstanding opportunity for Africa's development.

This article examines struggles over information between two nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in India and their key international funders. The author outlines both the strategies used by international funders to increase their control over information generation within NGOs and the strategies used by the case NGOs to resist these interventions. Three main arguments are advanced: (a) The information requirements of funders affect NGOs not only by placing demands on their attention but also by promoting positivist and easily quantifiable valuations of success and failure; this is not an intended effect but a systemic one; (b) NGOs resist funder attempts to structure their behavior through a series of strategies that include the symbolic generation of information, selective sharing of information, and the strategic use of professionals to enhance legitimacy; and, (c) this combination of funder demands for information and NGO resistance to external interference serves to entrench existing information systems, thereby reproducing tensions between NGOs and funders.

The confrontation and intersection of these two sub-systems are evident in Part III, which examines specific cases given the current period of transition facing the United Nations. From the three Parts, readers can draw lessons from the ...

This title provides definitions for every noun, phrase, and concept use by the DEA and FDA regulations listed in alphabetical order.

Planners work with various kinds of organizations, sometimes to provide technical expertise and other times to facilitate communication between different organizations and interest groups. Planners are also important players in "organizational learning." In this article, the authors describe how organizational practices change through learning. Drawing from the sociological literature on organizational behavior, the authors develop a conceptual model of organizational learning. This model is then applied to the case of a nongovernmental organization (NGO) engaged in development planning in western India. We show not only how learning processes have led to behavioral change in this NGO but also ways in which learning has been constrained. © 2001 Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning.

This paper examines the effects of shifts in "development discourse" on the behavior of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Drawing upon detailed case histories of two well-established NGOs in western India, it is demonstrated that (1) the case NGOs have been profoundly influenced by discourses prevailing during their initial, formative stages; (2) NGO behavior is subject to changes in global development discourses that are transmitted to them via a range of mechanisms including consultants, conditions of funding, and reporting requirements; and (3) these NGOs have been able to challenge and adapt certain discourses to suit their own needs and circumstances, sometimes even sparking wider structural change.

In the last decade of the bloodiest century in recorded history, the United Nations devised a new instrument - preventive deployment - to deal with the age-old problem of war. This first-hand study provides the definitive account of the UN Preventive Deployment Force (UNPREDEP), which was deployed in Macedonia from 1992 to 1999. It explains why UNPREDEP was established, how it implemented its mandate, and its pathbreaking accomplishments. Preventing War makes a strong argument for the wisdom and efficacy of preventive action and offers important guidance about its use in other potential conflicts.