Ideas for DevelopmentOur world seems entangled in systems increasingly dominated by power, greed, ignorance, self-deception and denial, with spiralling inequity and injustice. Against a backdrop of climate change, failing ecosystems, poverty, crushing debt and corporate exploitation, the future of our world looks dire and the solutions almost too monumental to consider. Yet all is not lost. Robert Chambers, one of the ?glass is half full? optimists of international development, suggests that the problems can be solved and everyone has the power at a personal level to take action, develop solutions and remake our world as it can and should be. Chambers peels apart and analyses aspects of development that have been neglected or misunderstood. In each chapter, he presents an earlier writing which he then reviews and reflects upon in a contemporary light before harvesting a wealth of powerful conclusions and practical implications for the future. The book draws on experiences from Africa, Asia and elsewhere, covering topics and concepts as wide and varied as irreversibility, continuity and commitment; administrative capacity as a scarce resource; procedures and principles; participation in the past, present and future; scaling up; behaviour and attitudes; responsible wellbeing; and concepts for development in the 21st century. |
From inside the book
Results 6-10 of 48
... Chapter 7). For the issues are less simple: they include whether, with the same resources, many more ears of corn, or many more blades of grass, might not be grown in other ways or in other places; and whether those politicians and ...
... Chapter 2). Still, in Hirschman's view, too little commitment and too easy withdrawal could mean premature abandonment before there was time to learn and improve.This, he argued, was a weakness of agricultural projects, which were ...
... Chapter 5). Sida had a long-standing relationship with Vietnam as the only Western donor who hung in with support through the 1960s and 1970s. A sequence of projects, initially a pulp mill, then for forestry and farm forestry, and ...
... Chapter 4). In my judgement, neither the Philippine irrigation reforms nor UPPAP could have occurred without the relationships, trust and shared purpose, which could evolve because the main actors remained for some years in their posts ...
... Chapter 3, 'Liberation by letting go') became increasingly difficult when 'staff were coming and going at all levels' as part of a massive restructuring process (David and Mancini, 2004, pp17–18). Individual and organizational learning ...
Contents
1 | |
2 Aid and Administrative Capacity | 30 |
3 Procedures Principles and Power | 54 |
Review Reflections and Future | 86 |
5 PRA Participation and Going to Scale | 119 |
6 Behaviour Attitudes and Beyond | 156 |
7 For Our Future | 184 |
References | 221 |
Index | 252 |