DevISSues volume 12, number 1, March 2010

ISS alumni write

DevISSues DevelopmentISSues

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Volume12/Number1/April 2010

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From the Editorial Board ISS alumni speak Early September 1993. After carefully chaining my bike to the green fencing surrounding the rather grand building, I walk hesitatingly but excitedly through the glass doors and approach the reception: ‘I’m here to register for an MA in PADS’. With those words starts a journey of discovery, friendship and debate - a journey that has influenced many of the life decisions I have made since.

How many others have taken this journey? How many others have walked into this now familiar building (and earlier ISS buildings) and found within new, exciting, often revolutionary people and ideas with which to enrich their own thoughts and actions? Ideas which can, literally, change the world.

ISS alumni number in the thousands. We live and work in many countries and on every continent. And having read the many articles that we received in answer to our call for papers, it is evident that ISS alumni are working in many fields – as activists, researchers, teachers, lecturers, in NGOs, in business and in government. What is also clear is that our alumni are successful in translating the insights and skills they gain at ISS, both during the courses and during interaction with their fellow students, into action and policies to improve their communities.

All the articles by ISS alumni in this issue show this in one way or another. The authors use and expand the knowledge and experience they gained at ISS in a myriad of different ways. The articles included here cover a wide spectrum of disciplines and approaches: from theoretical pieces asking fundamental questions about the meaning of development, to more concrete discussions on the relevance of a particular type of development in a specific context. Taken as a whole, the overarching message is that there is no single meaning, let alone answer, to the question of ‘development’: it is a goal for some, a contested term for others and aspiration for many.

Today, we are very proud to present this special DevISSues, the first one to be written almost entirely by ISS alumni. In this issue we also say farewell to many long term staff members, not least of whom is the Rector, Louk de la Rive Box. Among the many other achievements attained under his leadership, strengthening the ISS alumni network was a vital one. Alumni are now recognized as an important channel for information to and about ISS. In her article Sandra Nijhof, ISS alumni officer, sets out this important role and in their joint interview Louk Box and our new Rector, Leo de Haan, outline their vision of what ISS can do for its alumni and what the alumni can do for ISS. We have included as many articles possible in order to illustrate the rich alumni heritage at ISS. Inevitably, however, we received many more articles than we were able to publish this time. This experience has shown us yet again that ISS alumni have a lot to offer and we hope to be able to publish many more alumni pieces in the future.

Special thanks to Chantelle de Nobrega for her assistance with this issue.

Jane Pocock (PADS 1993-1994) - editor DevISSues

ISS Services for Alumni ISS recognizes the importance of providing access to scholarly information to our alumni. During your study we offered you access to so many resources and now that you’re no longer a student it does not mean that you do not need that access anymore. However: copyright legislation and publishers’ interests prevent us from just opening the gates and letting you in. But.... at the ISS website we have developed a special page with up-to-date information about freely accessible scholarly information. You can find it at www.iss.nl/library/alumni . It provides you with the latest information as well as with a search interface to many of the resources.

Please visit the page, enjoy finding freely available scholarly resources and share your experiences with us.

About the cover Remember the lectures, the discussions, the study trips and, finally, the graduation? The cover shows just some of these that have taken place over the years at ISS. The alumni map in the centre is from the alumni page of the ISS website and indicates the many countries our alumni originate from.

Special thanks to Hani Shehada, Cyrille Brooks and Peter van Helden for the design of map and cover.

ISS is the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam

Contents

Page 4 / What is International Development

Heather Huhtanen

Page 6 / Intersectionality and human rights

Chantelle de Nobrega

Page 7 / Re-imagining development

Elizabeth Ngutuku

Page 9 / We’re all good Christians, sir!

Dawood Mamoon

Page 10 / Diving into Context

Melanie Newell

Page 12 / ISS - from strength to strength

Interview Louk Box and Leo de Haan

Page 15 / Strengthening HIV/AIDS Prevention in South Africa

Lara Cousins

Page 16 / Selective Social Programmes

Carla Valverde

Page 18 / Nepal and Asian Drivers

Shyamal K. Shrestha

Page 19 / Beyond Natural Resource Management Patterns

Daniella Sanchez Lopez

Page 21 / Border Communities

Cecilia Giusti

Page 22 / The Global ISS alumni network

Sandra Nijhof

The views expressed in DevISSues are those of the original authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Institute.

The online versions of all articles with full bibliography can be found at www.iss.nl/devissues

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What is International Development: Reflections from a [US] American Heather J Huhtanen In September 2008 I moved from Eugene, Oregon to The Hague, the Netherlands to study International Development at the Institute of Social Studies (ISS). Many people have asked me ‘why the Netherlands, why the ISS’? The answer is related to both the purpose of the funding I received from the Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship Program – to promote cultural understanding and world peace – and my own interest in attending an international school in a socially liberal country in the middle of Western Europe. Indeed, the ISS is attended by students from over 50 countries, most of which are located on the African and Asian continent and in Latin America and the Netherlands itself is often described as one of the most socially liberal countries in the world. I believed that this intersection of culture, language and history presented an invaluable opportunity for learning and reflection. Moreover, after working in the end violence against women field for the better part of my 14-year post-undergraduate career I was eager for the opportunity to expand my notion of development from a strictly domestic perspective to the international realm.

I learned from the ISS that conventional development thinking largely assumes that development involves specific activities, for example economic development, governmental development in a specific location, namely less developed countries or the ‘third world’ if you will. I consequently felt a certain tension in my attempt to situate my work experience and knowledge base – was I a western social activist, someone with experience doing social development work, a feminist in the end violence against women movement…all of the above, none of the above? Was my perspective and experience relevant to development studies or valuable to the work of addressing violence against women outside of North America?

What I learned during the course of my 16 months at the ISS encompasses so many considerations; intellectual, theoretical and socio-cultural, that I find it difficult to narrow it down to something concise. I will therefore address my top three ‘ah-ha’ moments and reflect on the consequent meaning

I have ascribed to international development after my time at ISS. My first ‘ah-ha’ moment, while not necessarily a moment in the concrete sense but rather more abstract, relates to my own national identity. That is, I have come to believe that North Americans are pretty darn parochial in their perspective, understanding and politics about the world around them.

We tend to live in relative geographic and political isolation and arguably this is supported or even underpinned by the institutional interests of the US (for example, maintaining an identity as the world superpower means caring little about the world outside of the US). A parochial perspective is likely to translate into assumptions about sociocultural habits, customs and values and a belief that these assumptions are objective. No doubt this is an issue with which we all, as in all human beings from across the globe, might struggle.

Nonetheless, I would contend that the cultural, political and geographic isolation that many North Americans experience in combination with socio-

culturally embedded assumptions about what is ‘normal’ or ‘acceptable’ or ‘polite’, or any other value laden adjective, positions them to be particularly at risk of parochial thinking.

There is a saying about how awareness is half the battle - hopefully I am halfway to being a more thoughtful, self-aware and culturally competent person. I suspect, however, that this journey will be a life-long process.

My second ‘ah-ha’ moment relates to the issue of development itself. This ‘ah-ha’ moment involves a certain amount of irony. Irony inasmuch as a parochial thinking North American concluded that ‘Europe’s leading school on development’ was approaching the issue of development from a largely myopic perspective. I found myself consistently making the argument that development is something that can, does and should occur everywhere – even in ‘developed’ countries. And that developed countries are actually not developed – by some standards they may be more developed in terms of infrastructure, stability and standard

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of living – but this does not mean that they have reached the pinnacle of development; indeed, there is much work to be done. This is illustrated by the concept of the ‘global south’ – a concept that originated from the recognition that ‘developed’ countries also struggle to address poverty, illiteracy, violence against women, corruption and economic stability.

Nonetheless, it remains difficult to find research, writing or lecturing on subjects related to ‘development’ in the West from a development perspective.

While you can find plenty of research on racism, violence against women, poverty in the US or other social development problems, this work is largely if not entirely left out of any analysis about development. Rather, research and writing on the US and other developed countries tends to focus on their role, or lack thereof, providing aid and creating aid related requirements for less developed countries. A second irony attached to my observation is the extent to which this practice further entrenches the arguably arbitrary and highly political division between ‘developed’ and ‘less developed’. It is interesting to consider the ramifications of this practice as well as the degree to which this practice has already deeply informed development practice, theory and research both historically and in the contemporary context.

My final ‘ah-ha’ moment, I am pleased to share, was significantly informed and

shaped by the research paper reading and writing process. It is actually quite exciting for me to reflect on just how much I learned from the entire process of completing a research paper; reading, reading and more reading, identifying a theoretical framework, working with specific analytical tools, conducting qualitative interviews and finally, writing the actual paper. What I learned from this process was further informed by my other coursework and more importantly, the direction, support and insights of my professors and fellow students at the ISS. And what I learned brings me full-circle in my top three ‘ah-ha’ moments. I learned or perhaps rather, I have come to believe, that the greatest development work I can ever hope to do will occur on a one-to-one or personal level – not structural, not institutional, not political and certainly not broad and expansive. That is, development is not just aid from wealthy ‘developed’ countries to poor ‘less developed’ countries; it is not just programming to address social, governmental or economic problems; and it is not just structural change, the creation of laws or institutions – development is actually how we live day to day, how we interact with those around us, our willingness to exchange ideas and information and our potential for learning, reflection and growth.

Indeed, development is us to the extent we wish to participate!

Heather graduated from ISS in 2009 with an MA in Women, Gender, Development. Her MA research paper was on US law enforcement decision-making on the subject of sexual assault. She is currently looking for a PhD or research opportunity that will allow her to study the contemporary emergence of rape and sexual violence as a war crime (human rights violation). In the meantime she is working at UN International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.

Heather can be contacted at halisan@msn.com

Doing Development--co-hosting a multicultural food party Left to Right: Ramzy Qumsieh (Palestine), Sophie Conin (France), Fabiola Arce Geraldo (Peru) & Heather Huhtanen (USA)

ISS News Agreement between ISS and KDI On 13 February this year, ISS signed an agreement with the Korean Development Institute (KDI), the largest Korean school in development studies. The KDI carried out all the studies on Korean development in the past and is currently doing scenario studies on how to deal with the dramatic underdevelopment in the North.

New ISS rector Leo de Haan On 1 May Professor Leo de Haan will take up his post as Rector of ISS. Professor de Haan joins ISS after an impressive academic career, most recently as Director of the Africa Study Centre (ASC) at Leiden University where he also taught as professor of development in Sub-Sahara Africa. Prior to his

directorship at the ASC, Professor de Haan worked at the universities of Nijmegen and Amsterdam.

His main research interests are the conceptualization of rural and urban African livelihoods; international and national migration patterns resulting in the multi-locality of livelihoods; and the multi-dimensionality of poverty. Previous research focused on the commercialization of agriculture, environmental management and resource conflicts among peasants and pastoralists, and pastoral livelihoods and geography, including man-land relations.

Six new ISS professors On 1 February ISS added six new Professors to its ranks. This brings the total number of ISS professors to 18. Our new professors are Karin Arts, Irene van Staveren, Max Spoor, Wil Hout, Peter Knorringa and Des Gasper.

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Intersectionality and human rights: law, th eor y and praxis Chantelle de Nobrega Intersectionality refers to the interaction between and intersections of multiple identities, which are produced and reproduced in individuals, institutions and communities. These intersections result in complex and multi-dimensional experiences of power, privilege, oppression, violence and discrimination. The term was first coined in 1989 by Crenshaw (Davis 2008: 68), who differentiated between structural and political intersectionality.

Structural intersectionality is when individuals are situated at the intersection of multiple systems of oppression, so that the reality of multiple identities (race, gender, ethnicity, class etc) results in complex and compounded effects. These multiple systems of oppression (such as racism, sexism, homophobia etc) interact with one another and affect the particular experience of an individual (Crenshaw, 1993: 114). For example, a Native American woman who is the victim of intimate partner violence not only experiences this violence as a woman, but also as a member of a racial minority where there are particular and specific cultural expectations and gendered norms.

Political intersectionality refers to the way that political and legal discourses and rhetoric ‘erase’ particular individuals and communities by highlighting or ‘favouring’ specific forms of violence or discrimination, or specific kinds of victims, at the expense of others (Crenshaw, 1993: 115-116). In other words, the narratives we choose to explain and examine a specific instance of discrimination can erase a particular individual’s experience if they fall outside of this narrative. The voices of these individuals and communities are silenced and their differing experiences of exclusion are relegated to a place of irrelevance or even complete

denial, displacing the experiences and voices ‘to a location that resists telling’ (Crenshaw, 1991: 1241), thereby disguising the need for discourses and services which appropriately address diversity.

Thus, following on from our earlier example, a Native American woman may find that programmes or campaigns aimed at victims of intimate partner violence unintentionally marginalize or exclude her by failing to take into account the relative geographic and social isolation of Native American communities, which could result in difficulty of access to health and support services. She therefore experiences additional discrimination based on race and ethnicity which compounds and changes the reality of how genderbased violence impacts her.

Intersectionality and human rights theory and praxis Both human rights law and practice have tended to treat human beings as though we have linear identities, by focusing on one ‘problem’ at a time, whether it be racial discrimination, gender injustice or child labour. The current fragmentation of conventions and human rights instruments, such as treaties and treaty bodies, is due to these attempts to address one issue at a time and to make human rights frameworks workable.

People are not one-dimensional, however. A woman is not only a woman – she is positioned (and she positions herself) in multiple identities of race, ethnicity, class and sexual orientation, for example. Women’s experiences of racial or ethnic discrimination often differ radically from those of men.

We need instruments and theories which deal appropriately with the complexities of being a human being.

Intersectionality helps us understand how this structural complexity works its way through people’s daily lives, influencing their relationships and moulding their decisions.

Human rights instruments, such as international treaties, as well as interventions in conflict situations, can be strengthened, improved and made more effective through the application of an intersectional framework. For example, improving labour rights on paper, while important, does little to address women’s rights if it does not take into account the way women experience institutional gendered discrimination and how this intersects with class or ethnicity.

Institutions and processes which address racism, sexism and other forms of oppression as separate and mutually exclusive, can create exclusionary practices as they embrace what Crenshaw calls ‘monocausal frameworks’ (1993: 112). Political, legal and social practices create and recreate frameworks through which we understand oppression and victimhood and often ‘erase’ marginal voices. The prioritization of particular human rights issues, and how these are addressed, is strongly influenced by the dominant voices within the global human rights community. Thus, how a problem is framed, and hence the solution, are often the result of how those with access have understood a particular issue.

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In addition, it is worth noting that oppression (its nuances and how one experiences it) not only varies across multiple identities and locations but also across time. At both the macro and micro levels, systems of oppression and domination have historical significance.

Dominant and subversive discourses on identities such as gender, race, sexual orientation and class (among others) change over time, as they interact with one another and with other factors such as economics, law and mass media. Because intersectionality emphasizes the importance of context, it can be used to reshape and reframe how human rights theory and praxis approach identities, human nature and international law in line with the realities of the 21st century.

Human rights and feminist theories: universalism and relativism Human rights theory has been subject to the claim that human rights are Western constructs that have no universal applicability or validity, and they cannot therefore be used to justify state intervention or external criticism of the way that non-Western

governments run their countries and their governments (Marks and Clapham, 2004: 387). In addition, human rights are seen by some as a new form of colonialism and imperialism as they represent the West’s desire to impose their values and institutions on poorer nations, by ‘recycl[ing] the colonialist project of remaking the world in [their] image’ (Ibid 2004: 387).

The criticism has spilled over into feminist theory, with critics questioning the ability of feminism and other social movements which use a human rights approach, to develop a universallyapplicable theory that is not imperialistic and ethnocentric (Davis, 2008: 9).

Davis correctly argues that feminist theory needs to be inclusive of all women by taking into account how different women experience oppression depending on where they are located on the intersectional nexus of relations – but this needs to be achieved without losing its ‘theoretical and normative platform’ (2008: 9). Through its emphasis on social context and the multiplicity of identity, intersectionality offers rights-based feminist theorists a way to interpret and use context without

altogether abandoning the claim that social relations of power and gender identities lay at the heart of gender discrimination universally.

As can be seen from above, human rights theory and praxis can be significantly improved through the application of an intersectional framework: conventions and treaties, as well as human rights organizations, can become more nuanced, flexible and responsive to the realities of individuals and communities. While intersectionality is a relatively new concept and is likely to face challenges in theory and in practical application, it is an important addition to the theory and praxis and its value should not be overlooked.

It cannot solve all the problems that are faced by theorists or human rights activists and lawyers but it can force them to ask the right questions about power, privilege and access, as well as uncover the inadequacies and contradictions in current human rights theory and praxis.

Chantelle de Nobrega graduated from ISS in 2009 with an MA in Human Rights, Development and Social Justice

Re-imagining development: Working within and against the Metanarrative Elizabeth Ngutuku Mulongo The mainstream concept of development is a product of western Euro-American culture and storyline.

This dominant perspective in development discourse and practice (what I call metanarrative) to a larger extend does not recognize multiculturality and the diversity of local perspectives (knowledge systems and practice). Local knowledge has therefore been seen as backward and devalued and has remained a relatively untapped resource for a development strategy with respect to western forms of knowledge and practice. The privileging of the global/

Blending the local with global: A grandmother telling stories in an early childhood Centre in Uganda, supported by our partner Health Child.

Nascent Research and Development Organization

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western perspectives however, has been inadequate in addressing the multiple challenges of development in Africa.

My engagement with the metanarrative of development started when I realized that my ‘past truths’ on development were not availing much in terms of development. I had worked for several years in Kenya with an organization working with young single mothers, usually labelled as ‘teenage mothers’ in the development discourse. Our experiences in the field revealed that labelling these young women as ‘teenage mothers’ by interventions was out of touch with local reality in that the local community termed them as ‘young single mothers’ and did not see early motherhood as a problem per se but the fact that they were giving birth when single. ‘Teenage mothers’ had also been perceived in development as a social problem without due regard to structural issues like poverty and social stigma that affect and influence their identity, selfhood and motherhood.

Contrary to the approach by many interventions which tend to treat the issue as an individual problem, it was therefore these structural issues that needed to be problematized in addressing the specific needs of young single mothers.

In my quest for a better perspective in development issues therefore, I pursued a masters degree course in Women, Gender, Development at ISS in 2004.

My resolve to challenge labelling of vulnerable groups and seek multiple perspectives in development was further strengthened by my award winning masters thesis which looked at the discursive construction of the needs of young single mothers in development discourse and how this labelling, according to the experience of one specific project, was stigmatizing.

After graduation and pushed by my desire for a ‘renaissance’ in reimagining development, I had a stint in international development working with an organization in Mongolia where I was a champion for inclusive education for one and a half years. I was able to hone my knowledge on engaging with the politics of needs recognition in development, especially in the way that children with special needs had been conceptualized within

the education system and challenge that. Even though I was able to work within the framework of inclusiveness, I felt some sort of ambivalence: working with an international mainstream organization meant that I was not free from its orthodoxies and I felt the risk of becoming mainstream again.

Back in Kenya some colleagues and I founded Nascent Research and Development, an organization of which I am the Executive Director. Nascent implies new solutions and new way of doing things. Our logo is the Pumpkin, a trope for a people’s history, culture and social embededness.

For too long also many of the local interventions and policies….have failed to question the status quo

Okot P’ Bitek, an African literary artist argues that the pumpkin that grows in the old homestead should not be uprooted. For too long, Development in Africa has been the story of the west and our indigenous knowledge has been uprooted in favour of western/ global models. For too long also many of the local interventions and policies, particularly in the third world, have failed to question the status quo; perhaps for fear of losing the largesse of development funds from the west.

Through research, face to face and on-line workshops, learning, discussions and mentoring, our organization is working with other local and international organizations and facilitating a process of how to meaningfully engage with communities by privileging local knowledge and resources for our development efforts to be sustainable.

other in seeking indigenous solutions to problems facing Africa. Towards this end also, some of our core researchers are networking and collaborating with other pioneer researchers in contextual/ culturally specific perspectives in development within the continent.

Through these networks, we share the optimism that an African philosophy of development is possible.

With support from Bernard van Leer foundation Netherlands and collaboration with the international centre for child and youth studies (iCCYS), we have carried out a year long study in Kenya and Uganda on how to leverage indigenous knowledge for early childhood development. This research is enabling the communities to reflect on how their knowledge on childcare has been ‘dismembered’ in the past through globalizing development interventions and they are ‘re-membering’ it.

Important to note is that we are not arguing that the global discourses on development are essentially bad and that the relationship between the global and local knowledge is not inimical.

We are calling for ‘social culturally embedded development’ which recognizes that local communities have resources that can be leveraged with interventions and one that privileges the local ways of defining people’s needs.

Such a perspective would push the locus of control away from the interventionists and back to the community and is key for sustainability.

Recently I attended an international conference on Early Childhood Development in Dakar and witnessed several civil society organizations with which we had worked and which had initiated projects within the framework of indigenous knowledge, scoop prizes in their various presentations. I reflected that we may now have lighted this fire in some way but how far it will burn we cannot control. Yet, at the end of the day, a real ‘stutter’ (Pence and Nsamenang, 2008:43) in international western discourse and the practice of development is becoming a reality.

Elizabeth Ngutuku Mulongo (WGD 2004) is

We are also networking with other civil organizations in East Africa and Africa in general and engaging with each

Executive Director of Nascent Research and Development organization in Nairobi Kenya. She can be contacted at ngutuku@gmail.com

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We are all Good Christians, sir!

Dawood Mamoon It was 20 February 2009 and I was out and about on the streets of New York for a while. Able to wander around whilst waiting for my flight back home, I felt relaxed after five busy days attending the huge International Studies Association (ISA) annual meeting at the Hotel Marriott Marques on Broadway.

It felt like a post-PhD gift from the Institute of Social Studies, this chance to participate in the Congress and give two detailed presentations drawn from my thesis (I just finished my PhD studies in December 2008). I considered the hotel logo on the notebook I held in my hand; was it appropriate? Perhaps. It said ‘Leave the trail of the Genius’! This was finally Obama’s America and I was definitely interested.

Everyone from outside the US is fascinated by Barack Obama, perhaps even more so than those inside the US. We have all claimed he is the sign of hope and perhaps of a new era.

Could this be expecting too much? As I wandered about doing some casual window shopping, I met a lot of African Americans. As in Hollywood movies, it seemed to me that most of those I met were smiling, but this was for real. We had something in common, as I found out. I always asked them: ‘So, did you vote for Barack Obama?’ ‘Yes, we did’, they always replied. Always. And they added: ‘He is going to change the world for the better’. Then they asked me: ‘And who are you, man, and where do you come from?’ My Pakistani identity brought a kind of glow to their faces and they seemed to identify with me, as if electing Obama has made them brothers and sisters with those affected from wherever the ‘War on Terror’ had led.

As we who have studied the world, including at ISS, already know, poverty in the US has a face and that face predominantly comes from Africa, if it is not indigenous American ‘Indian’. The African-American face of America may not seem that impoverished on a global scale, but even there, comparisons are surprising. Some years ago Amartya Sen pointed out that the average life

expectancy for African American men in Washington is the same - 44 years or so - as the average life expectancy for Bangladeshis. And within the US, it is clear that African Americans are at the very bottom of the income pyramid. That holds for New Yorkers also, as far as I could see. During my stay I could see how many African Americans do menial, low wage work in the city, if indeed they have work at all. Democracy seemed to have brought those I spoke with that day some respite and some hope; as they spoke it seemed to me that they saw themselves growing stronger through their newly elected leader and they were starting to see the world as if they were looking through the President’s eyes. I was struck how this made my newly made acquaintances express their generosity towards me, to console others. The election of the first ever African American president had shifted paradigms of what seemed possible; perhaps the world had changed for them, and also for all of us. Of course, with his speech in Cairo in July and the Nobel Peace Prize in October, Barack Obama was showing that his impact was felt as widely as those I spoke to hoped it would. Representing the power of the poor as much as the authority of the mighty United States of America, perhaps makes his impact unique.

These reflections continued and, later in the plane, took me back to reflect on the activities of the previous few days at the ISA conference at the Marriott. The whole event had been flavoured by the fact that Obama was newly elected president. In one session on religion and development, the discussion was interesting, as a Jesusbearded blonde fellow from Norway shared an anecdote with the audience.

He had been travelling in Norway, on a train, and was talking to his friend about his professional life and about the job that had taken him all over the globe. He explained to his friend that in all the development work he had been involved in, there were some very basic values that had remained central: ‘Notions of development, which

promote peace, prosperity, democracy and hope. These are the positive values that have been central for me in my work and what I hold onto from the development discourse’. This was roughly how he summed his feelings up. A stranger in the same carriage, who was himself a migrant from Africa, interrupted their conversation, apparently unable to stop himself, as he had become interested in their conversation: ‘Sir’, he said to the Jesuslooking man: ‘I understand what you are saying! Since we are all good Christians here, I understand you!’

This interjection, more like an abrupt confession, suggested the man maybe did not know that ‘development’ is not just a belief system, but also a professional and academic field, a set of discourses and a set of business practices. Yet as the Norwegian man reflected, this ‘naive’ comment resonated with the feelings he had just expressed. Although he did not express himself in religious terms when speaking to his friend, the importance of core moral values was echoed in the stranger’s intervention. From African Americans who see the world finally opening up to their hopes, to the migrant whose simple interjection provoked so much self-reflection from the Norwegian Jesus, these stories are what we can really learn from. Learning, conferences and scholarship can be great to produce, develop, share and present. But the really lasting stories come from all of us - good men and good women of a single faith, really, the faith that derives from being human and having hope. This is what this little story of mine is really about. The different words and ideas we use to express ourselves make the stories we tell more interesting, but really the stories we tell are about a single, increasingly pressing reality of surviving together on this planet.

Dawood Mamoon is Director (Monitoring and Evaluation), Pakistan Institute of Trade and Development (PITAD), Ministry of Commerce, Islamabad, Pakistan. He received his PhD from ISS in December 2008.

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Diving into Context:

Usi n g m e t a p h o r a s an analytical lens for rese a rch i n g J a m a i c an Dancehall Culture Melanie Newell Introduction Dancehall culture and its music have caused controversy in Jamaica, being blamed for the country’s increased violence and believed to encourage vulgar behaviour and misogynistic attitudes among youth. My research approach, however, seeks to understand dancehall aside from moral judgment, in order that the ghetto youth who participate in it can be understood in their own right.

Dancehall emerged in the late 1970s not only as a style of music and venue for musical expression, but as a space with alternative norms, values and attitudes. It became a refuge, a means of articulating and coping with the hardships of poverty. Black lower-class youth were excluded from Jamaica’s formal economy and political sphere, left with little means to achieve power and cultivate an identity. As an alternative sphere of

cultural production, dancehall allowed these youths to articulate and embody different identities through the informal avenue of overt sexual expression, empowering themselves through their bodies. Through dancehall, ghetto youth attempted to deal with the widespread problems of poverty, racism and violence through protest.

In this sense, dancehall acted as ‘…a communication centre, a relay station, a site where black lower-class culture attains its deepest expression’ (Stolzoff, 2000: 7). It is from inside this sphere that the discourse articulating the narrative of dancehall resides.

There are two dominant outside discourses about dancehall: one that criticizes and condemns and one that defends. Both discourses acknowledge that sex and violence are two basic instincts that are persistent themes in dancehall. However, interpretations of these themes go in two different

Harry with the golden egg reallycorking-http://comunity.livejournal.com/corkart

directions. The condemning discourse criticizes dancehall as a misogynistic, homophobic and violent culture that dehumanizes both men and women as mere sexual bodies. Defenders such as Jamaican cultural critic Carolyn Cooper point out that within dancehall sex and violence many times function as political metaphors or, at the very least, as means of self-empowerment where other avenues of empowerment have been denied. Cooper writes’ ‘Powerful currents of explicitly political lyrics urgently articulate the struggle to reclaim humanity in circumstances of grave economic hardship that force the animal out of its lair’ (2004: 16). She continues by discussing extensively how dancehall culture is both a voice of oppressed people and an arena necessary for their survival.

As of February 2009, the Jamaican government broadcasting commission has begun to ban songs from the radio and television that have sexually explicit and/or violent content. To those who oppose dancehall culture, this is a shift in the right direction towards ridding society of the vulgar and grotesque face that has tarnished the world’s view of Jamaica. However, to those inside dancehall and its defenders, banning explicit songs compromises survival and silences voices attempting to transcend a marginalized reality.

Amid Jamaica’s recent decision to limit aspects of dancehall expression from the public sphere, it becomes increasingly important to be able to navigate the competing discourses over the legitimacy of dancehall culture.

It is important to understand why the Jamaican government has been employing a ‘moral’ discourse when dealing with dancehall. The government and Jamaicans living outside the context of poverty that have produced dancehall culture are influenced

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by frameworks of understanding with behavioural norms and gender regulation more similar to those located in Western culture. If imported frameworks are applied to dancehall and not challenged with understanding generated from within, then ‘moral’ discourse, like that used by the Jamaican government, will continue to dominate the interpretation. Dancehall will continue to be looked at through eyes that have passively absorbed ideas unlikely to produce theories that confront racism, class domination and inequality.

Analytical Approach to the Research Empirical research must begin with a lens that carries the researcher away from frameworks of analysis and understanding that speak for dancehall, into a framework that allows dancehall culture to speak for itself. I can liken my approach as the researcher and the difficulty of understanding a world or culture different than my own to an image from author JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series using the following metaphor. In The Goblet of Fire, Harry is given a golden egg that is supposed to give him a clue about his next task in a competition. When he opens the egg all he hears is a petrified scream, so loud that his ears ring afterwards.

After struggling for weeks, casting spells

on the egg and doing research in the library, he is unable to figure out how the golden egg is to assist him. It is not until he is told to take the egg into the bathtub with him that he discovers its meaning (see illustration). When he submerges himself in the water and opens the egg, there is no longer a scream: instead, he hears instructions in the audible and beautiful song of the Merpeople, but he has to be under the water, in the Merpeople’s world and context, to understand (Rowling, 2000: 375-405). Although a fictional example, I believe this helps to illustrate the futility of trying to understand the music and culture of dancehall away from its original context and historical background. Harry’s attempt at deciphering the egg’s petrified scream is analogous to the judgement that distracts from understanding what is happening in the production of dancehall culture. My research questions require going under the water in order to avoid judgement and move away from the Western framework that, when imported, all too often leads to misunderstanding and marginalization of dancehall culture.

be too far under the water to be able to develop a synthesized and critical understanding of dancehall. They may have blind spots that critics outside Jamaica are more likely to notice upon entering the water (Bakare-Yusuf, 2006: 164). This made me aware of the necessity to synthesize discourse exchanged between critics located above water and underwater in order to achieve my objective of a synthesis.

The golden egg metaphor made me conscious of the possibility that Jamaican cultural critics Carolyn Cooper and Donna Hope, cultural ambassadors and defenders of dancehall, could

Melanie graduated from ISS in 2009 specializing in

If research is not approached by diving underwater into the context of the ‘other’ with an imaginative lens like that of the golden egg, then the risk is run of hearing a petrified scream instead of the voice of dancehall. Without diving into context and allowing dancehall to speak for itself, the researcher risks interpreting transformative stories, for example, of women empowered through dancehall as women complicit in misogyny (Obiagele Lake quoted in Cooper, 2004: 101). Similarly, symbolic narratives of survival in the ghetto are simplified to mere prescriptions of violence and pleas for radical social change are deemed inappropriate and disruptive.

Children and Youth Studies. She is currently living in Oregon, United States and is looking for work in the Development field. She can be reached by email: melanienewell@gmail.com.

ISS News 100th ISS Doctoral defence On 22 December 2009, Sailaja Nandigama from India was awarded the 100th Doctoral thesis for her defence entitled ‘Transformations in the Making: Actornetworks, Elite-control and Gender Dynamics in Community Forest Management Intervention in Adavipalli, Andrha Pradesh, India’.

To celebrate the 100th Doctoral defence, the ISS produced a booklet entitled ‘100 Doctoral Theses at ISS’ which includes list of all 100 PhDs awarded at ISS. The booklet can be downloaded from the ISS website at http://www.iss.nl/News/ Past-Events/22-December-2009-100th-Doctoral-Thesis-awardedat-ISS Max Spoor guest professor at Nanjing Agricultural University Professor Max Spoor has received an Honorary Appointment as Guest Professor at the Nanjing Agricultural University,

Nanjing, China. The appointment was confirmed by decision of the President of the NAU, Professor Xiaobo Zheng on March 4, 2010.

New and departing staff Bea Tabink (personnel officer) will be leaving ISS after 36 years at the end of April. She has been replaced by Leonie de Wilde who took up her post at the beginning of February.

At the end of May, ISS says farewell to Inge van Verschuer, Executive Secretary and Head of the Executive Office. Inge’s successor is Linda Johnson, who has a background in the field of higher education and international cooperation and a broad experience in administration. Before joining ISS, Linda Johnson was Head of International Relations and Quality Assessment at the Royal Dutch Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW).

And of course Louk de la Rive Box is retiring after five years as Rector of our institute. His role as Rector is being taken over by Professor Leo de Haan, who previously worked as director of the Africa Study Centre in Leiden, the Netherlands.

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ISS – From stren ISS Rector, Louk de la Rive Box, is leaving ISS after five years ‘on the job’ at the end of April. He is being replaced by Professor Leo de Haan. DevISSues posed them both a series of questions on the future of development, on ISS’ role and the role of our alumni.

What do you think are the strengths of an education facility such as ISS? Does ISS offer something extra that ‘traditional’ educational institutions do not?

Louk Box (LB) ISS is unique. Of course there are other Schools which are - or have been – like it but the scope and the link between theory and practice makes ISS unique.

The main strength of ISS? Its platform function. Ask alumni what they thought unique at ISS and they will say: that uncanny mix of students and staff, which makes it the lab for new ideas. Our participants are so diverse that they intellectually excite each other. The key strength is therefore: generating conditions for higher learning in social studies.

Leo de Haan (LdeH) I think the strength of ISS is its impressive experience in combining its assets ‘international’, ‘policy-oriented’ and ‘critical social science’ in the field of international development studies for over 50 years.

No doubt the most distinctive feature over ‘traditional’ institutions is its international flavour, first of all because of its student population that consists of an ideal blend from the Global South

Leo de Haan and Louk de la Rive Box

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ngth to strength and the North. This is completed by an equally international research and teaching staff and of course its location in a historical city in an internationally oriented country.

What role can/does the ISS play in shaping and improving development theory and praxis?

LB On the whole, ISS is reticent in promoting grand theories or ‘best practices’. My sense is that ISS is good at developing a praxeology for understanding social change and for guiding cautious policy interventions.

The world has suffered through 65 years of simple-minded development theories which inspired single-minded practitioners. Our students know this and are not in need of other grand development theories or simplistic intervention practices. They come to ISS to know more about what ideas are relevant to adequately define social problems. As intellectuals they wish to play with ideas, and not be played off by ideas. As practitioners they wish to test new approaches and intervention practices and not be tested by practices imposed through donor agencies, international organizations or NGOs. ISS provides brokerage between theory and practice. If we strive towards a responsible praxeology for global change, it is on the basis of critical empirical research – just like other responsible academics do. But we go one step further – we also contextualize our research and test recommendations against the practice we (or our participants) obtain in interventions.

Take our remarkable Civic Driven Change programme which engages participants theoretically by challenging many of the assumptions operative about the role of NGOs while at the same time challenging the practices of both donors and recipients. This is praxeology in practice.

LdeH One could easily say that ‘theory and praxis’ should go hand in hand

and that development theory and praxis have a good track record in that respect. But on second thoughts I think some modesty is a virtue in this respect.

Too much policy advice in the field of development was seemingly based on scientific analysis and still did not work out properly, to say the least. Theories or models often become blueprints, which are implemented without taking into account the historical and geographical contexts the original theory or model was based on. All too easily their universal pretensions remained unquestioned, resulting in failures once applied in a different context. Not too long ago the Dutch Minister of Development Cooperation called for evidence-based development interventions. That call should be welcomed, but we should keep in mind these changing historical and geographical contexts. Policy makers like to be advised in clear cut formats for interventions, but I think scientists should cooperate with policy makers in such a way that policy makers become sensible to ‘broader pictures’ while at the same time having an eye for the policy makers needs.

a time of crisis, than about dealing with increasing global inequalities.

Recently the Dutch Scientific Council for Government Policy (Wetenschappelijke Raad voor het Regeringsbeleid - WRR) presented its report on the future of Dutch development aid to the minister of development cooperation. What do you think of the findings in the report and what role do you think ISS research and training can play?

LB The WRR Report is strong in its analysis, but weak in the elaboration of its proposals. Its main strengths are that it contains an intelligent and nuanced analysis of global change processes. It is eclectic in its theoretical approach and does not give lip service to particular schools of thought. This is refreshing and makes for exciting reading at a time that many politicians around the North Atlantic are more concerned about maintaining economic growth in

LdeH The WRR report deserves praise for its insightful analysis and especially for highlighting historical and geographical differentiation in processes of modernization. Grand theories or as the report called them ‘large general schemes’ alone only result in very general statements and such schemes have to become more country-specific before they become more meaningful. There is no blueprint for development across the board.

Country-specific approaches are the most realistic option. However, if Dutch development cooperation is to be concentrated on a limited number of partner countries – which is very doubtful because of the enormous diversity in ‘country-interest’ in the Netherlands – then I believe that Dutch research centres and centres of expertise will not just blindly follow the trend. It should be remembered

ISS took an active role in generating public debate on the Washington consensus in the 1980s, on End of History gospels in the 90s and on easy-going imposition of Millennium Development Goals in the present decade. Look at our publications and the critical contributions to the academic and public debates are evident. True, our influence in the Netherlands has been limited, because our message has often been a critical one. But in the end, it is more important that it be heard in Dar or in Delhi. The previous President of Tanzania once came to visit the Institute and I had the opportunity to ask him: ‘Mr President, with all due respect, you are known to be a fierce critic of development aid.

Why do you come and visit an institute that is paid for 75 per cent through Dutch aid?’ He replied: ‘My main negotiator dealing with World Bank and IMF studied at ISS. He said: “if I was able to make a difference, it was because I learned something in The Hague.”’

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that knowledge of the specific is only useful when there is an understanding of the broader picture: specialization is significant only when it is put in a broad comparative perspective.

The WRR report also pleas for closer ties between development cooperation and centres of knowledge and expertise in the Netherlands. The ISS already took up that challenge a long time ago but it also means that in developing new research directions the interaction with development cooperation, internationally but also in the the Netherlands, should be taken into account.

This DevISSues is written almost entirely by ISS alumni. What do you think this suggests about the role of alumni at ISS and how, if at all, can and should this be expanded?

LB All schools try to stay in contact with their alumni and ISS is no different in this respect. Yet their role is different from alumni at all other schools I know.

ISS alumni invite us to give refresher courses and set the themes and they organize meetings; last year there were 40 such events. Last but not least they are our best ambassadors. A few years ago we did a survey among that year’s applicants and found that over half of them first heard about the Institute through another graduate. We have a very low budget for marketing yet each year we have 10 to 15 times more applicants than we can admit. Alumni are the main reason for this popularity of the Institute.

ambassadors everywhere in the world, but they also constitute an important resource when it comes to providing feedback on the ISS’ ideas and plans for the future, for example when it comes to updating and adapting the training programme to contemporary challenges. DevISSues bears witness to that. Moreover, on my future travels as Rector I will try whenever possible to meet as many alumni as possible at specially organized ISS alumni meetings in order to get feedback first-hand. In the global knowledge and learning community in international development studies the ISS aims to be, alumni have to play their role too.

Question for Louk Box You are now leaving ISS, what do you feel you have achieved in your five years as Rector and are there any plans that you have not been able to complete?

Results? I have not achieved anything by myself. If anything, the various teams I was part of have made some significant contributions. Let me mention just a few.

First, we have continued the work of predecessors in stimulating topnotch research. This year some of our professors saw their research proposals accepted by the European Union, World Bank, Netherlands Science Foundation and other respectable funders. ISS research quality is among the best in Europe and we have taken steps to facilitate our successful researchers with more research time and so strengthen their position in the global competition.

How can the role of alumni be expanded? In various ways, but let me just mention one. The major change of the past five years is the emergence of social networks like Facebook – the ISS alumni group already has 1500 members. This year we wish to double that number and create a web-based community of our ambassadors. Not just for a chat, but also for real information exchange. ISS is coming of age, and we wish to be part of Web 2.0 today- or 3.1 tomorrow.

Second we are revamping our training programme to make it more competitive internationally, especially in the link between the Masters and the Doctoral Programmes. We wish to have a linked programme in which one can do one’s Masters plus one’s Doctorate in four years. Our training is increasingly research based and research oriented.

Our valued Government Accreditation is up for renewal in 2011 and we are preparing ourselves for it.

LdeH I think ISS’ strong alumni network is one of the most valuable assets of the institute. After all, for decades students have been our core business and many of ISS’ graduates now play a key role in development. Not only are they ISS’

Thirdly our Capacity Development programmes have been a source of inspiration for Erasmus University.

Capacity Development is transforming itself rapidly from a transfer of knowledge approach into partnerships

and ISS will be developing such partnerships with its traditional friends, but also with new partners in Brazil, China, India, Korea and South Africa.

I haven’t even mentioned our successes in expanding our Masters programme, in celebrating our 100th doctorate, in promoting six staff to full professorstatus, in organizing public debates with Oxfam International and so much more. ISS is not just unique, not just 59 springs young, it is the only Institute I know whose students annually produce a book with the very best papers, before they graduate. That is the thing I am proudest of, even though I have not done the work for it. Read An Exercise in World Making 2008-’09 and you understand why I leave the Institute a happy man.

Question for Leo de Haan You are just starting out in your rectorship of ISS. Do you already have plans and ideas for ISS? And, why take on the challenge of such heavy job as Rector of ISS? The scene of higher education in general and in development studies in particular is rapidly changing both in the Netherlands and in the world at large. Even to simply maintain ISS’ current position as a nationally and internationally renowned institute would constitute a great achievement that will take the efforts of every single member of staff more than it ever did before. It means keeping the MA and Diploma programmes up-to-date in meeting the challenges of the rapidly changing scene in international development, reinforcing the coherence between the MA and Doctoral programmes in a research-led graduate school and last but not least reinforcing the research base of the institute through pioneering innovative and policy-relevant research programmes. This also means further exploring and intensifying synergies with EUR. And as to why I take on this challenge - why not? The ISS is one of the world’s prestigious institutes in development studies. Who would not want to be Rector of such an institute?

Louk de la Rive Box was Rector of ISS from 2005 to 2010. Before joining ISS Leo de Haan was Director of the Africa Study Centre at Leiden University.

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Strengthening HIV/AIDS Prevention in South Africa:

Th e I mp o r t a n c e o f Accounting for Young Wo m e n a n d G i r l s ’ Sexuality Lara Cousins HIV/AIDS among youth in South Africa is a significant problem. The 15-24 age group experiences the highest rates of new HIV infections, with young women and girls particularly at risk: approximately 15.5 per cent of women aged 15–24 are HIV positive, compared to 4.8 per cent of young men (Harrison et al., 2008: 176; Visser, 2007: 679).

Even when educated about HIV/AIDS, however, many youth may engage in HIV/AIDS risk behaviour. Relations between boys and girls (or cross-gender relations), informed by constructs surrounding masculinity/femininity and sexuality, are increasingly seen as at the heart of the issue. Growing attention has thus been given to developing HIV/AIDS prevention initiatives geared towards children and very young adolescents (VYAs), aimed at addressing attitudes and behaviours surrounding gender and sexuality before they are fully developed (Chong, 2006; Laub et al., 1999: 193; le Grange, 2004: 107). In order to further strengthen such initiatives, however, increased acknowledgement needs to be given to the sexuality of young women and girls.

While at ISS, I explored the representations of cross-gender relations and associated constructs in ‘Soul Buddyz,’ a multimedia ‘edutainment’ (entertainment with an educational aspect) series launched by the Soul City Institute for Health and Development Communication (SCIHDC) in the late 1990s. Primarily geared towards 8-12 year-olds, one of the intended purposes of Soul Buddyz is to role model ‘positive’ attitudes and behaviours for boys and girls (Goldstein et al., 2001, 2002). Among the topics dealt with in the first season is HIV/AIDS and sexuality, the objective being to reach children with ‘important

messages about AIDS, youth sexuality, and gender’ (Goldstein et al., 2002: 2).

Through exploring a selection of Soul Buddyz episodes and print material, I raised questions concerning HIV/ AIDS prevention initiatives dealing with cross-gender relations and associated constructs. I did so from a position informed by social constructionism and theoretical tenets of Michel Foucault, where I considered there not to be an ‘essential’ but social basis for the majority of knowledge claims, seeing them as marked by their social context (Sayer, 1997: 466; Wooffitt, 2005: 147).

This position also entailed questioning taken-for-granted assumptions regarding gender and sexuality, and not taking ‘self-evidences’ lightly (Mills, 2003: 66; 112-113). In doing so, I was able to consider how young women and girls’ sexuality is often marginalized on two counts: because they are female and because they are young.

A common construct associated with cross-gender relationships is that while boys are perceived as active subjects with sexual desire, girls are perceived as passive objects of sexual desire, with little interest of their own in sex (Pattman, 2005: 512-513). Through exploring Soul Buddyz, however, I came to wonder about the risks involved in not considering girls as sexual subjects.

In Reddy and Dunne’s (2007: 164-165) study of South African youth, girls tended to frame their sexual satisfaction in terms of whether their partner was sexually satisfied and meeting their partners’ needs and desires rather than their own. Such a prioritization could increase the likelihood of young women engaging in unsafe sexual behaviour, such as not using a condom because their partner prefers not to.

Moreover, if constructed as having little

interest of their own in sex, girls may be reluctant to voice sexual preferences, demonstrate any knowledge about safer sex behaviour, or carry condoms on them, for fear of compromising their femininity. In light of this, serious thought has to be given to how HIV/ AIDS initiatives could focus on female sexual desire ‘and the costs to girls of being constructed as lacking sexual agency and desire’ (Pattman, 2005: 512).

Young women and girls’ sexuality is further marginalized by the fact that they are young. It has often been difficult, however, both in South Africa and elsewhere, to associate the construct of sexuality with youth, VYAs, and particularly children. The innocence commonly associated with childhood is often conflated with asexuality and sexual ignorance, whereas sexuality is often associated with adulthood (Corteen and Scraton, 1997; Kehily and Montgomery, 2004; Pattman, 2005).

Treating youth, VYAs and particularly children as sexual may thus be viewed as ‘wrong’, in that it might a) deny them their childhood, and/or b) expose them to something ‘adult’ which they are not yet ready for, and require protection from (Corteen and Scraton, 1997). This understanding of childhood innocence, however, denies young people the knowledge and power to protect themselves (Kitzinger, 1997: 169) and make safer choices regarding sexual activity. Moreover, as noted in Bhana’s study (2007) of 7-8 year-old South Africans, children and VYAs may exhibit interest in sex, sexuality and the opposite sex early on in life.

Bhana (2007: 322) thus concludes that ‘the image of children as innocent and asexual is not one which stands up to scrutiny when children are given the opportunity and space to talk about

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HIV and AIDS, their sexual desires, concerns, and pleasures’. Furthermore, ignoring young people’s sexuality may result in the associated ‘dangers’ of having sex being overstressed, thereby compounding the depiction of sexual desire as ‘wrong’ and potentially driving sexual activity further underground, hindering safer sex behaviour (Harrison, 2008; Pattman and Chege, 2003).

Developing a more capacious view of young people as sexual individuals (Bhana, 2007) may be fundamental for HIV/AIDS prevention initiatives, and is something worth reflecting upon.

sensations, its ability to reproduce, and sexual acts; second, the social and political aspects, which include sexual identity and sexual relationships; third, the psychological aspects which include fantasies and desire, both conscious and unconscious.

The conflation of childhood innocence with asexuality is a view that I have held myself, making it difficult to think of children and VYAs as ‘sexual’. It is often arguably easier to think of youth as such, as they are closer to adulthood.

Sexuality, however, is broader than sexual behaviour and activity. Gittins (1998: 175) rightly considers sexuality to consist of different aspects:

Thus, when I argue for an understanding of young people as sexual, I am not arguing for an understanding of all children, VYAs and youth as fully developed, sexually active beings. Such an understanding of all young people could potentially be harmful, not least because of the risks of biologically immature bodies engaging in sexual activity, such as early childbearing (UNFPA 2005). Rather, I am arguing for a broader conceptualization of what is ‘sexual’, and a more flexible understanding of what is ‘innocent’, where, rather than considered as the preserve of adults, sexuality could be understood as a lifelong part of individuals’ identities.

First, the biological, physical aspects, which include the body and its

In effect, given the gravity of the HIV/ AIDS epidemic, a more complex

understanding of sexuality is needed, both in terms of accounting for female sexual desire and acknowledging young people as sexual. This perspective continues to inform my work today, when developing content for HIV/ AIDS prevention workshops and delivering training sessions to young women and girls. I also continue to assign importance to asking questions and scrutinizing upheld assumptions about sexuality, viewing it as an approach capable of enriching HIV/ AIDS prevention efforts. Considering what assumptions might lie underneath prevention initiatives, and what could potentially be promoted (or marginalized) as a result, is integral for strengthening HIV/AIDS prevention and realizing the wellbeing of young women and girls.

Lara Cousins completed a Masters Degree at ISS in December 2008, specializing in Children and Youth Studies. She is currently working as the Youth and Gender Support Worker at ‘Help Lesotho’, a non-governmental organization based in Leribe, Lesotho. She can be reached at cousins.lara@ gmail.com.

Selective Social Programmes:

Fro m a d e m a n d s ch eme t o a supply scheme Carla Valverde Poverty eradication is not just a question of economics; poverty has roots in education, health and housing problems. Every country creates programmes to try to solve poverty; for example though bursaries and scholarships, primary health care and low-cost housing. These kinds of policies have only limited impacts on poverty reduction, however.

In most developing countries, household surveys remain the best way to get statistical data about how many people live in poverty, in which neighbourhoods and regions.

According to these statistics, in some countries poverty has been stuck for years at around the same level. If the government has been developing programmes to fight poverty, why is it not possible to reduce it? It is feasible

that the programmes are not reaching the people who need them the most or that these people have access to one particular programme but not to others that are necessary complements to break the poverty cycle. With the traditional information gathered by the surveys, governments will not know exactly which families are in greatest need. This issue has brought up the need for governments to formally shift poverty policy from a demand-led to a supply-led strategy.

Traditionally, the only way to get access to anti-poverty programmes is for poor people to fill in application forms, typically by going into a government institution. Demand-led anti-poverty schemes means families have to apply for their children’s scholarships at the Ministry of Education, for example,

for low-cost housing at the Ministry of Housing, or for teenage health care services at a social security institution.

However, a new approach has been emerging in the past few years in the fight against poverty. Instead of poor people having to apply to each government ministry or other public institutions, the idea has developed that government should be responsible for contacting families in poverty and vulnerable to social exclusion. Those families most in need may not be sufficiently mobile, confident, or wellinformed to pass from institution to institution, filling in application forms.

Furthermore, they are not likely to be part of grassroots movements or any other organized group that might help them with the procedures.

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When a country works towards this kind of pro-poor public governance of basic services, there are two fundamental stages to go through. First, information about beneficiaries of different ‘social selective’ programmes needs to be gathered into a single database, so the government can get an overview of which families receive which kinds of benefits. This is a huge challenge, especially for many developing countries, but it is in many ways the most important step. To be eligible for further assistance, a family would need to have made at least one previous application to receive support from the government. Yet this may prove very complicated - or intimidating - for some families, especially if they live in remote areas of the country and do not have transport or have difficulties with literacy.

A second stage therefore is for government to actively seek out families living in poverty and most vulnerable to social exclusion, so these families no longer have to go to a government office in town. To achieve this second objective, some countries, like Chile, have decentralized the job of contacting poor and vulnerable families within socially diverse areas, making this the responsibility of local government. Of course the problem is that some countries lack the required local government capacity to handle this job in a decentralized way. The challenge therefore, is to find a public (or publicly accountable) institution that can reach families throughout the country and that - with only minor changes to its way of operating - can handle the task of identifying families in need of support. Another challenge that should be overcome is of a financial nature. The implementation of this kind of system usually requires the development of new software and the acquisition of necessary hardware by the participating institutions. At this stage, the cooperation of international donors might be necessary.

Costa Rica has faced these challenges.

At the moment, an integrated register of beneficiary population (Registro Único de Población Beneficiaria - RUPB) is being established, financed, in part, by international donors. All public institutions with poverty-targeted social programmes are supposed to register their beneficiaries into this database.

Indigenous community in Costa Rica Mario Camacho

One distinctive feature in Costa Rica is that the second stage of the process described above will be handled by the national social security institution, the CCSS (Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social), through its staff of ‘Primary Cases Technical Assistants’ (Asistente Técnico de Atención Primaria – ATAP).

In Costa Rica, ATAPs have the widest set of contacts and the most direct access to the population of any Ministry.

The ATAPs work for the smallest, local units of the Costa Rican Social Security system, which share protocols and programmes across the country, with similar procedures in all offices. ATAPs can therefore find out information about families in poverty and vulnerable to social exclusion. In the first place, ATAPs can make contact when family members visit health centres.

A second way that contact can be established is when ATAPs make home visits in the community. ATAPs can also be trained to slightly extend their role, from just collecting health information, to also collecting information on educational, housing and other needs, and on the household’s economic situation. In this way, it should become clear whether the family is receiving government benefits or not.

Information gathered by ATAPs can then be integrated with that already available under the RUPB, to produce a more general system of householdlevel poverty data, known as SIGIPSS (Sistema de Información para la Gestión Integral de los Programas Sociales Selectivos). In this way, through relatively minor modifications to an existing system, the government

can find out important information about who are the most impoverished and vulnerable families.

As a conclusion, government can offer these families selective social benefits and forms of assistance, to enable them to overcome their socioeconomic disadvantages in a more integrated, holistic manner, since one tool allows capturing in the same place information on a family’s multi-sectoral needs that would otherwise be found spread out across different institutions. This is an improvement on sectoral programmes aimed at ‘the poor’, with the additional advantage that these families spend less time searching and queuing in public institutions before getting the support they need, while others (the most vulnerable and excluded) gain access for the very first time. The beauty of this proposal is that there might be no need to radically change how local government works, as the case of Costa Rica shows. Instead, an alternative institution has been found that can do the job and start to bring about the desired changes, aimed at reducing poverty and with only minimal need for staff training.

Carla Valverde (ECD 2006-2007) worked at the Vice-Ministry of Social Development as Coordinator of the Technical Secretariat of AVANCEMOS, the Costa Rican Conditional Cash Transfer Programme.

She has also worked at the University of Costa Rica. Nowadays, she works for the Ministry of Environment, Energy and Telecommunications of Costa Rica. The author can be reached through carla.valverde@gmail.com

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Nepal and Asian Drivers Shyamal K. Shrestha China and India (collectively referred to as ‘Asian Drivers’) have maintained stable yet fast economic growth in recent years and effectively boosted economic development in Asia. The average annual percentage growth of GDP in 2000-08 in China and India were 10.4 per cent and 7.9 per cent respectively. Around 10 per cent of world exports originate from the Asian Drivers, with competitiveness mostly embedded across low-skilled/medium-skilled manufactures and increasingly in high-technology products.

Merchandise exports (US$ millions) grew by 24 per cent in China and 20 per cent in India during 2000-08. In 2008, around 44 per cent of the world’s population lived in China (with GNP per capita of US$ 2,940) while 16 per cent lived in India (with GNP per capita of US$ 1,070). Their growing competitiveness arises from enhanced manufacturing capability, sustained by economic reforms, which in turn, stimulated investment, productivity and business in general. The levels of gross capital formation reached 43 per cent in China and 39 per cent of GDP in India in 2008.

As the Asian Drivers expand, considerable scope exists for growing economies in the developed world and less developed countries (LDCs) to benefit from the continued process of trade expansion in these two countries.

Given the ongoing slowdown in the global economy, China and India have an interest in sustained growth in the developing world in general and in Asia in particular. Opportunities exist for LDCs that produce a few industrial intermediate inputs, commonly used by the Asian Drivers. Addressing supply barriers and lack of quality in export items, which often constrain export prospects in various potential markets, enhances the scope for exports to both China and India. Tapping into technology, foreign direct investment (FDI) and technical assistance from the Asian Drivers may be useful in improving the structural impediments being faced

by LDCs such as Nepal in various areas related to agricultural and industrial production.

Landlocked between China and India, Nepal could use its unique location to latch on to their economic dynamism if it aspires to graduate from its least

developed country (LDC) status within a decade. Nepal’s performance on the economic development front since the turn of the century has lagged behind that of other South Asian economies.

The average annual percentage growth in GDP in 2000-08 was 3.5per cent; GNP per capita reached US$ 400 in 2008. The country is highly trade dependent on both China and India but is less successful as far as attracting investment is concerned. Around three-fourths of Nepal’s total exports were directed to the Asian Drivers in 2008 while the same magnitude of imports arose from them. In 2007, Nepal’s share in the total imports and exports of China were 0.0018 per cent and 0.03 per cent; Nepal’s share in India’s exports and imports were 0.25 per cent and 0.21 per cent the same year. Given its traditional comparative advantage, Nepal is a net exporter of primary products and a net importer of manufactures. The bulk of India-bound exports consist of semi-manufactured and agro-based products while petroleum products, high-technology and agricultural commodities (including food grains) are imported from India.

Nepal exports mostly raw agricultural and industrial materials while it imports manufactured goods from China. In

2008, FDI accounted for 1.4 per cent of Nepal’s GDP; of this, 40 per cent of total FDI-approved projects originated from the Asian Drivers. However, China and India directed just 1.0 per cent of their total FDI outflows (US$ 36 billion) to Nepal up to 2008. A preferential trade and transit treaty with India – its largest trading partner – notwithstanding, Nepal has achieved limited success in terms of market access due to critical development constraints, both economic and political. India’s own trade liberalization also erodes trade preference provided to Nepal.

Responding to the growth dynamism of China and India requires Nepal to adopt strategies that promotes its own industrialization process, deepens regional integration and enhances its competitiveness. Existing energy and transport constraints as well as marketunfriendly regulations discourage entrepreneurship and private sector growth. Nepal remains an agricultural economy wherein industrial stagnation (manufacturing share in GDP remains around 8.0 per cent) has put a brake on rapid job creation, productivity and structural change. As economies that have failed to industrialize have been unable to sustain fast growth,

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it cannot be stressed enough that industry is where opportunities for productivity growth and formal job creation are located. The competitive global economy rewards countries that develop an environment that promotes entrepreneurship and profitability rather than stifling production through ineffective policies, poorly-structured laws, inefficient bureaucracies, high taxes, poor labour relations, corruption and infrastructure constraints. Ranked at 123 among 183 economies in Doing Business 2010, Nepal must remove investment climate barriers in the form of labour regulations, trade facilitation, tax policy and administration, licensing and inspections, and barriers to exit in order to attract investment and enable entrepreneurship to thrive. Moreover,

political instability remains a major ‘risk’ for economic growth. The political transition towards a restructured state remains tenuous, disrupting economic activities and adversely affecting livelihoods.

Addressing Nepal’s unequal trade relationship with the Asian Drivers, including overcoming the huge trade deficit (around 16 per cent of Nepal’s 2008 GDP), lies in achieving export success in particular commodities whose demand in China and India is rising at a faster rate than world demand. The caveat, however, is that specialization in particular products must build on Nepal’s comparative advantage and not lead to an inappropriate industrial structure. International experience

strongly suggests that functional incentives are more appropriate than sub-sector or product-specific incentives and more efficient in achievement of government objectives. Trade facilitation measures to expand rail and surface transport links between Nepal and its neighbours could also enhance bilateral and regional trade, including boosting tourism. Nepal’s growth process can then be fully attuned to the unfolding ‘growth miracle’ in its vicinity.

The author graduated with an MA (with Local and Regional Development as major) in 2003. He served as investment climate coordinator at International Finance Corporation, World Bank Group in Kathmandu, Nepal from October 2008 to March 2010.

Beyond Natural Resource Management Patterns:

An A l t er n a t i ve E c onomy In Bolivia Ma. Daniela Sanchez Lopez As a master student of the major in Politics of Alternative Development (PAD), I had two important questions: How can ‘alternative development patterns’ be defined within the globalization process? Also, what elements distinguish ‘the alternative’ from the mainstream in the development field? For developing countries like Bolivia – rich in natural resources but with high levels of poverty and inequality - these questions are closely related. Perhaps critical thinking beyond the usual primary commodity based economic patterns towards alternative development patterns based on multiple and more flexible economic activities can help us get through this puzzle. Especially alternatives from organic agriculture, biocommerce, forestry management and environmental services as these are all capable of conserving the local environment and generating local development. As part of the research team at the Human Development Report (UNDP-Bolivia) I have had the

valuable opportunity of being part of a Thematic Human Development Report La otra frontera (The Other Frontier). This report presents different characteristics of traditional commoditybased economic development, which it terms ‘the old frontier’. It presents an alternative model – ‘the other frontier’- and in this article these two will be contrasted to show how they co-exist and also provide quite different perspectives on the place of this small country within global trade.

Two Development Patterns In Bolivia Bolivia is rich in renewable and non renewable natural resources and this means, on the one hand, that traditional commodity-based economic growth is highly dependent on mines and hydrocarbon resources. The consequence for Bolivia has been ‘impoverishing economic growth’; the economy grew by 5 per cent in 2007, for example, whilst the number of people living below the poverty line increased

(UNDP, 2008). This development pattern has deep historical roots; Bolivia has always been highly dependant on raw material exports of silver, tin, rubber and now also of hydrocarbons. Orthodox economic development patterns were reliant on a cheap, unskilled labour force, and this pattern tended to concentrate wealth in just a few sectors and in the hands of wealthy families and large companies.

The paradox of impoverishing economic growth is twofold: first, it shows the country lacks diversity in its productive matrix. Extractive activities, drawn into nationalization processes since the election of Evo Morales to power in 2006, have led the government to spend a great deal of its revenue on these conventional sectors and on social assistance programmes.

Second, mining and hydrocarbons are capital intensive sectors, with weak linkages to the rest of the Bolivian economy. These sectors employ only 10 per cent or so of the economically active

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population of the country; indeed, the main sources of employment remain agriculture (36 per cent) and trade (14 per cent). Consequently, in line with the so-called ‘curse of natural resources’, the richness of Bolivia’s natural resources is not translated into a better standard of life for most Bolivians (Sanchez, 2009).

On the other hand, the Report refers to the ‘the other frontier’. This refers to Bolivia’s great potential to diversify and re-value the land according to its uses and degree of biodiversity. ‘Alternative’ activities would include environmental services, ecotourism, sustainable forest management, biotrade and organic agriculture, all being examples of income-generating activities that tend to produce linkages between different sectors of the economy. Such activities also tend to be organizationally sustainable, environmentally compatible and to position the country favourably in relation to the main products involved.

This table summarises the issue:

networks (which puts Bolivia in fourth place in Latin America). The small size of these initiatives is not an accident; their scale means they are less capitalintensive and so have the potential to diversify both the economy and people’s livelihoods. With time, the ‘other frontier’ might help shape a new identity for Bolivia as a high-ranking, mega-biodiversity country.

and higher environmental yields and standards, are more important than absolute increases in acreage or production. Different certification processes (organic, fair trade, forestry certifications, among others) are a distinctive and valuable ‘intangible’ value added for all exported commodities in these ‘alternative’ sectors.

In my view, this alternative development pattern has three main strengths in the Bolivian context:

(2) The wide, diverse and dense social fabric (tejido social) of small producers in Bolivia represents an important network and creates some positive potentials for public policies.

Producers’ associations are key actors that can promote local development, can enhance the impact of public interventions and can support capacity building and challenge unequal power relations, especially in terms of access to markets. The 24 successful case studies of the Bolivian UNDP Report show how important the positive impact of peasant and community associations can be to this changed overall economic dynamic.

(1) The high-biodiversity and relatively well preserved environment is a distinct source of comparative advantage, opening up prospects for exchanges in alternative markets which value both the quality of the productive process as well as the final product.

For instance, organic Brazil nuts, quinoa, organic coffee, vicuña fibre and many other products like these, require good quality and distinctive production processes in order to be certified as organic and have access to

Two realities in Bolivia The old frontier: commodity based model

The other frontier: intangible added value model

Four main commodity exports of Bolivia (hydrocarbons (natural gas), zinc, tin, and soya). World wide they represent:

Tiny exports - already visible. For example:

0,2% of world hydrocarbons exports; 1% of world zinc exports;

World’s top 12 countries with organic agriculture surface (incl. Brazil nut organic plots in the Amazon rainforest);

3,2 % of world tin exports;

World’s top 3 exporter of Brazil nuts;

0,04% of world soya exports.

World’s top 10 exporter of organic coffee and cacao;

World leader in rainforest certification;

World’s top 5 exporter of certified rainforest timber.

Source: Own translation based on Sanchez (2009) and UNDP (2008) The Potential Of An Alternative Development Pattern Although Bolivia’s economy will remain hydrocarbon- and mining- based in the long term, the ‘other frontier’ described here has started to be a feasible source of livelihood options for thousands of Bolivians. This ‘alternative’ economy involves an estimated half a million smaller producers and their families, and contributes an estimated US$300 million annually in export revenue, generating 370,000 jobs in total across Bolivia. There are around 60,000 organic producers across Bolivia and 26 organizations involved in Fair Trade

these ‘alternative’ markets. The ‘extra’ price or ‘premium’ paid by consumers in importing countries is because these products are grown and processed without chemicals or pesticides and in ways that are environmentally friendly, without use of child labour and in ways that encourage employment, selfreliance and community development.

This alternative pattern of production implies that land use in the long term needs to be sustainable and needs to consider different productive processes not based on simple expansion of the agricultural frontier. Intensification, based on improvement of land use

(3) Thirdly, and not least, the imminent threat of the climate change and the stark terms of the environmental debate today are forcing developing countries to find alternatives and ways to insert themselves differently into the global economy.

In conclusion, this research experience has convinced me that alternative and sustainable development patterns really are possible. I am also convinced that Bolivia has a unique opportunity and the potential now and in the future, to position itself as an important stakeholder within the new paradigm that involves alternative, more sustainable forms of natural resources use, so that Bolivians can cross ‘the other frontier’ of development.

The responsibility for opinions expressed in this article rests solely with the author.

Maria Daniela Sanchez Lopez (PAD 2006) is a researcher at the Human Development Report (UNDP-Bolivia). She has a bachelor’s degree in Economic Sciences (Universidad Católica Boliviana, Bolivia, 2003). Her main areas of research include: environment, natural resource management social participation, civil society and economics. She can be contacted at sanchez.danielex@gmail.com / daniela.sanchez@idh.pnud.bo

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Border Communities: The Case of Colonias in Texas Cecilia Giusti The distance between high-income and low-income countries is a prevalent problem in the global economy. Dramatic poverty in developing nations has both domestic and international consequences. Such disparity is creating massive population movements from low-income to highincome countries as people search for job opportunities to better their lives.

What happens to migrant populations from developing countries when they settle in the developed world?

That question frames this paper. It concentrates on Latinos in the United States - or more specifically, on border communities in the south, on the border with Mexico. These so-called colonias have been the focus of my research for the last eight years.

established than was expected.

Colonias in Texas emerged and grew as the result of supply and demand forces in a ‘free’ Texas land market, with almost no regulations or public intervention (Larson, 1985). Their appearance dates back to the 1950s, but their largest growth occurred in the 1980s and early 1990s. ‘Developers’, taking advantage of local conditions, created unincorporated subdivisions using land in floodplains, agriculturally worthless land, or other rural properties.

They divided - not developed - the land into small lots, put in little or no infrastructure and sold them to individuals with no other housing alternatives (Ward et al., 2004; Giusti et al., 2008).

Texas Colonias

About 98 per cent of colonias are populated by Latinos, of which the majority is of Mexican heritage.

Education levels are very low there.

In El Cenizo, one established colonia in Webb County, only 15 per cent of people older than 25 are high-school graduates, a lower figure than the 76

Colonias refers to poor settlements usually located in semirural outskirts of cities along US – Mexico border regions. Colonias are found in the four US border states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. However, Texas has the largest number of colonias, as well as the largest population within them, and this article focuses on colonias there.

Characteristics of colonias

per cent in the state of Texas and 80 per cent in the US as a whole. The median age of El Cenizo residents is 18.5, much younger than 32 years for Texas.

Low income levels. Income levels are very low in these settlements. About 60 per cent of the colonia population lives below the official poverty line. In El Cenizo about 68 per cent are under the poverty threshold, much higher than in Texas (15 per cent) and the United States (12 per cent).

Incremental construction patterns.

Construction in small steps is common.

Colonia residents often work on their homes as schedules and finances permit. Houses are constantly improved and, as families grow, they expand accordingly. During construction, families continue to live in the houses and the building pace is generally slow.

This practice, known as incremental construction, characterizes the housing supply in these settlements. While such an approach is common among the poor in developing countries, it is not accepted by US construction standards.

In 2006 there were 1,786 colonias identified in the six most populous border counties in Texas, with a population of 359,825 (US Census, 2010). However, Texas has 29 border counties, meaning that the actual numbers are even higher although there is no reliable data available.

Some estimate that the actual colonia population is at least half a million, but it is difficult to know, since colonias still emerge without public control.

Originally colonias were characterized as the ‘first stage’ in a migration process from the south onto the US mainland, but it appears that colonias are more

Trailers in a colonia Cecilia Giusti

22

Incremental construction results in neighbourhoods with houses in all stages.

Home ownership. Home ownership is high in colonias. Empirical research shows that 91 per cent of residents are homeowners, as opposed to renters (Giusti et al., 2008) - higher than national figures for 2007, when about 68 per cent of US housing units were owner occupied. Current US housing literature shows that high rental rates are a negative indicator for neighbourhood quality. Ownership, on the other hand, is considered a proxy for good quality neighbourhoods. This characterization does not hold true for colonias, however.

Property values. Very low property values and poor construction quality typify colonias. Houses are small, with few conveniences and little maintenance, so their market value does not increase. Because the neighbourhoods lack infrastructure (such as paved roads, water and wastewater), the surroundings do not add worth to the individual lot.

Location has a negative effect in colonias.

Discussion and Research Perspectives Migrant populations from developing into developed countries show different location patterns. A well-studied case

is that of ‘immigrant enclaves’ found in metropolitan areas in developed countries. Job opportunities as well as access to urban services explain this trend. A less known studied pattern is that of the colonia-type settlements in US border areas as described above.

In the last 20 years federal and state money has been invested in colonias in Texas to improve water and wastewater infrastructure, electricity, roads and the provision of health and education services. However, this investment is small compared with the needs found in colonias. This is why several non governmental organizations are now working there as well as university outreach programmes. Furthermore, in the last fifteen years several local organizations have emerged promoting better infrastructure and the provision of services and raising the voice of local residents.

While poverty and isolation are still facts in colonias, some are starting to evolve into mixed-use neighbourhoods with a sense of belonging, resulting in established families, emerging businesses and higher levels of civic involvement. But there are many others that do not follow this trend and would require too much investment in order to improve living conditions; some are located on floodplains or in environmentally sensitive areas that ought to be protected. In the long run

not all colonias should be improved; some may need to be removed or relocated. It would be necessary to have an environmental assessment of the location of these settlements Immigration from a developing to a developed country is not an easy process. Low-income immigrants find it hard to settle into mainland urban areas. In the process, coloniatype developments emerge, many of them out of the radar of local planning authorities. These border communities concentrate immigrants, poverty and lack of infrastructure and are isolated from urban, more developed areas. Some of them would need to be removed as their locations are not environmentally adequate, while others ought to be supported as they are growing in population and services. While colonias emerged as ‘transitory’ communities, some of them are becoming more established than originally expected and could potentially develop into communities.

Cecilia Giusti got her professional degree in economics from the Catholic University, Lima – Peru. She got her MA in Development Studies with specialization in Community Development and Planning from the ISS. Her Ph.D. is from the University of Texas at Austin. Her research concentration is on economic development and planning with emphasis on Latin America. Cecilia can be contacted at cgiusti@archmail.tamu.edu

The Global ISS Alumni Network Sandra Nijhof ‘Try to imagine the more than 11,000 students who have studied at ISS. People from so many nationalities, living all over the world, in all kind of jobs… That makes a fantastic network.

A network you can contribute to and can benefit from. Many alumni have discovered this already, but we are trying to include even more alumni in our activities.’

So says Sandra Nijhof, ISS coordinator for all alumni activities. The number of activities has increased substantially over the past years. ‘Alongside the alumni section on the ISS website, we also send out alumni newsletters every two or three months. There is an ISS alumni group in Facebook with over 1,500 members. And we have just set up an ISS Linkedin group too. In addition to all this, we organize alumni gatherings

around the world: last year, we had an average of two ISS alumni meetings each month.’

Our most important ambassadors ‘Our experience is that ISS alumni continue to be interested in what is going on at the ISS: what courses are on offer, new publications, news about ISS staff and, of course, about our link

23

Kenya, Nigeria and the Philippines), but most of them are for all men and women in a country that studied in the Netherlands. Each association is unique in its organizational set-up, resources and the range of activities it carries out, but their ambitions are quite similar: to promote ties and cooperation with the Netherlands and the institutions and share experience and a network with other professionals. ‘Some of these associations are very active and organize a lot of very useful activities for their members, very often in close cooperation with the Dutch Embassy.’ l-r: Marie-Louise Gambon (database), Jane Pocock (website), Karen Shaw (newsletter and website), Amy Gammon (alumni meetings), Sandra Nijhof (head alumni office)

with Erasmus University Rotterdam. Our alumni also want to hear about the ISS events that they remember from their time studying here: the international day, the Dutch evening, graduation….

Not so much has changed. If we publish pictures of the graduation, it is for most alumni a nice and sweet memory of their days at ISS. To keep ISS alumni connected with each other and with ISS, that is our aim.’

The alumni office also realises that ISS alumni are the most important ambassadors for the ISS. ‘When we analyse the application forms, we find that most applicants have heard about ISS through colleagues, friends, managers etcetera who previously studied at ISS.’ This was also an important element in the report by the visitation committee in 2006 when it came to assess ISS’ accreditation of its teaching programmes: that ISS’ students (the future alumni) are the best promoters of the ISS. Online communication The worldwide availability of internet has substantially increased the

Alumni budget Dutch Government Since 2005 the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs has provided a budget to the Nuffic to spend on central alumni matters. This budget is used for the development of an alumni website, financial support for new Netherlands Alumni Associations, refresher courses and (new) support for conferences and seminars. See for more information www.nuffic.nl/alumni

possibilities of communication between alumni and ISS and the alumni.

‘Whereas in the past letters and printed reports were used in our communication with alumni, these days 99 per cent of all communication goes through email, newsletters, the website, Linkedin and Facebook. The speed of online communication and the low costs allow us to have more intensive contact than we ever had in the past.’ There is of course a downside to this trend; if alumni are not connected to ISS through an email address or social networks, contact may be lost. ‘In practice the alumni gatherings and refresher courses provide a good opportunity to reconnect us with “lost” alumni and we are always very grateful when alumni send us their updated details or the details of fellow alumni.’

Alumni networks Apart from staying in touch with the individual alumni, the Alumni Office has contacts with the Netherlands Embassies and the Netherlands Alumni Associations and Alumni Networks.

There are some specific ISS alumni networks in a few countries (such as

Academic needs Of course it is important to know what alumni want from ISS. ‘We carry out surveys and during the regional gatherings we listen to the suggestions alumni come up with. What we have found is that along with information about other alumni and general ISS news, alumni have a big need for academic information: research output, papers, journals etcetera. Although publishers do not allow ISS to make online journals available to all alumni, this need is heard and we are looking into ways to provide alumni with the information they need.’

ISS constantly tries to find new ways to reach our alumni and to give them support after they studied at ISS. It is not a coincidence that the overall ISS communication strategy is very much based on this unique network of alumni.

Sandra Nijhof is alumni officer at ISS. Contact her via the alumni office at alumni@iss. nl. The ISS alumni Facebook group can be accessed at: http://www.facebook.com/home. php?#!/profile.php?id=582877974&ref=ts The Linkedin group is at: http://www.linkedin.com/ groupRegistration?gid=2773140

Stay in touch! * You do not receive the ISS alumni newsletter on a regular basis; * You have changed jobs or have a new address; * You are looking for fellow classmates; * You are aware of a vacancy that might be of interest to ISS alumni; * You are aware of scholarships that might be of interest to ISS alumni; * You are looking for information on a specific country or organization.

For all these things and more, please send an email to alumni@iss.nl

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Working Papers

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Development and Change

498 Managing migration in the IOM’s world migration report 2008 / Beatriz Campillo Carrete Des Gasper The journal Development and Change is published six and times a year

by Blackwell Publishers (Oxford, 497 The global forum on migration andInstitute development: ‘all Studies. talk andFor no more action’information, or ‘a chancesee to frame issuesorinemail a wayus that of Social the ISSthe website at d&c@iss.nl. Avail allows you to move forward together’? / Bernice Roldan and Des Gasper http://www.blackwellpublishers.co.uk/online.

Special rate available to ISS alumni.

496 Is China turning Latin? China’s balancing act between power and dependence on the wave of global imbalances / Andrew Martín Fischer Volume 40 Number 3 May 495 Movements of the ‘we’: international and transnational migration and the capabilities approach / Des Gasper and ThanhTor A. Benjaminsen, Dam Truong 494 Challenging women’s vulnerability: Faustin feministP.representations Sentido, a Nicaraguan opera social Maganga and of rape in Sexto The Kilosa Killings: Political soap Ecology of afor Farmer–Herder Confli change / Stefania Donzelli (one of theJumanne three ISSMoshi MA Research Award winners for the academic year 2008-2009).

Abdallah 493 How can power discourses be changed? Contrasting the ‘daughter deficit’ policy of the Delhi government with Gandhi Toby Carroll ‘Social Development’ as Neoliberal Trojan Horse: The World Ban and King’s transformational reframing / Manisha Sinha and Des Gasper Development Program in Indonesia 492 Remittances and competitiveness: the case of the Philippines / Veronica Bayangos and Karel Jansen F. Tuozzo WorldYilma BankDebebe Influence and Institutional Reform in Argentina 491 Child labor, agricultural shocks and Maria labor sharing in rural Ethiopia / Zelalem 490 Evaluating India’s national rural employment guarantee scheme: the case of Birbhum districts, West Bengal Negotiating / Subhasish Participation in Sarinda Singh World Bank-directed Development?

Dey Hydropower Project in Laos 489 An assessment of the effects of the 2002 crisis on children’s health in Malawi / Renate Hartwig and Michael Grimm Juanfood Pablo Galvis Developing Exclusion: The Case of the 1961 Land Reform in Col 488 Aid: the drama, the fiction, and does it work? / Arjan de Haan Xun Wu and M. Ramesh Health Care Reforms in Developing Asia: Propositions and Real 487 Marginal benefit incidence of public health spending: evidence from Indonesian sub-national data / Ioana Kruse, Menno Stefan Kühl Capacity Development as the Model for Development Aid Organ Pradhan, Robert Sparrow BOOK 486 Democratic citizenship or market based entitlements? : a gender perspective onREVIEWS social protection in South Asia / Amrita Chhachhi 485 Development through global value chains and the achievement of decentVolume work : challenges and representational 40 to workNumber 4 July processes / Lee Pegler Reassessingeconomy: Fiscal Policy: Perspectives 484 Positive natural resource shocks andLeonardo domestic Vera adjustments in a semi-industrialized Argentina in thefrom 2004-Developing Countri Nikita Sud The Indian State in a Liberalizing Landscape 2007 period / L.A. Serino Halleh Ghorashi and The Iranian Diaspora and the New Media: Kees Boersma

From Political Action to Humanitarian Help

Philippe Le Billon and

Building Peace with Conflict Diamonds?

Development andEstelle Change Levin

Merging Security and Development in Sierra Leone

Brian Dill

Alan Fowler and Kasturi Sen

Gabriel Medina, Volume 41 /Benno Number

The Paradoxes of Community-Based Participation in Dar es Sala

Development Agents and the Exercise of Power in Ama 1Loggers, / January 2010

Pokorny and Bruce Campbell Embedding Warand on Terror: State and Civil Society Relations and Poverty Reduction Huck-juthe Kwon Economic Development

Bram Büscher

Ilcheong in Korea: Multifunctional Institutions Anti-Politics as Yi Political Strategy: Neoliberalism andGoverning Transfrontier Conservation in Southern Africa

Andreas Lange

Elites in Local Development in the Philippines

Canar Bakir and Ziya Öniş

The Regulatory State and Turkish Banking Reforms in the Age of Post-Washington Consensus ISS Working Papers can be found on 483 Understanding the diversity of conceptions of well-being an Customary Tenure and Reciprocal Grazing Arrangements in Eastern Ethiopia the ISS website at www.iss.nl/Library/ 482 Gender, poverty and social justice / Amrita Chhachhi and Th They canOpportunities in Southern Sri Lanka The Publications/Working-Papers.

Changing Accessibility of Educational 481 Feminist knowledge and human security: bridging rifts throu also be ordered in hard copy from The Thanh-Dam Truong Bookshop, PO in Box 29776, LT The Chain: Naxalite and State Governance in Tribal Diffuse Authority the Beedi2502 Commodity 480 Land reform in Bolivia: the forestry question / Lorenzo Pelleg Hague, India The Netherlands Tleangana,

Fekadu Beyene Jonas Lindberg Bert Suykens

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The 2007 ‘NO CAFTA’ movement in Costa Rica: reflecting on

participation rights / Mercedes Alvarez Rudin and Helen Hin 478

The weight of economic and commercial diplomacy / Mina Y Bergeijk

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Ensuring daughters survival in Tamil Nadu, India / by Sharad

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