Des Gasper

Evaluating the ‘logical framework approach’ towards learning-oriented development evaluation

The logical framework approach has spread enormously, including increasingly to stages of review and evaluation. Yet it has had little systematic evaluation itself. Survey of available materials indicates several recurrent failings, some less easily countered than others. In particular: focus on achievement of intended effects by intended routes makes logframes a very limiting tool in evaluation; an assumption of consensual project objectives often becomes problematic in public and inter-organizational projects; and automatic choice of an audit form of accountability as the priority in evaluations can be at the expense of evaluation as learning. Copyright

Sen's capability approach and Nussbaum's capabilities ethic

The paper assesses Sens more abstract version of capabilities theory, Nussbaums more substantive Aristotelian version and attempts to apply such conceptions to womens lives. Sens capability approach is a helpful intervention in the discourses of mainstream Western welfare economics and moral philosophy. To influence these, it retains some of their assumptions, and appears limited by its conceptions of the person and of agency. In both areas Nussbaum goes deeper, but her emphatically Aristotelian style is controversial and can short-circuit the debate she sought to advance. Priority areas for further work are: more adequate pictures of ‘culture’ and ‘the individual’ than she or Sen have used, to combine insights from communitarian critics with the strengths of the capabilities approach.

Human well-being : concepts and conceptualizations

What should those who measure well-being try to measure? To address this question one must consider the nature of well-being, and the various purposes of the exercise of conceptualizing and measuring. This chapter concentrates on the nature of well-being, especially in the earlier sections; purposes will be addressed too, especially in the second part.

DEVELOPMENT AS FREEDOM v - v AND AS WHAT ELSE?

To what extent can Amartya Sens ideas on freedom, especially his conceptualization of development as freedom, enrich feminist economics? Sens notion of freedom (as the capability to achieve valued ends) has many attractions and provides important opportunities to analyze gender inequalities. At the same time, Sens recent emphasis on freedom as the dominant value in judging individual well-being and societal development also contains risks, not least for feminist analysis. We characterize the risks as an underelaboration and overextension of the concept of freedom. Drawing on Sens earlier work and various feminist theorists, we suggest instead a more emphatically pluralist characterization of capability, well-being, and value, highlighting the distinct and substantive aspects of freedom, as well as of values besides freedom, in the lives of women and men. We illustrate this with reference to womens economic role as caregivers.

Introduction: Discourse analysis and policy discourse

Introducing a collection on policy discourses and argumentation in international development, this review clarifies meanings of ‘discourse analysis’, and emphasises that discourse analysis requires systematic attention to texts as well as contexts. It outlines work in policy discourse analysis, notably on metaphors, framing and policy narratives.

Development as freedom: taking economics beyond commodities-the cautious boldness of Amartya Sen

Amartya Sens 1998 Nobel Prize and his recent synthesis of his views in Development as Freedom provide an opportunity to assess his intellectual contribution and style. The paper identifies entitlements analysis and capabilities analysis as the areas which make him stand out for wider audiences from the economists of his generation; and considers the integrative development philosophy which he has constructed around those two areas, centring on the direct and instrumental values of freedom and democracy. Three aspects of Sens intellectual style are discussed: first, his multi-disciplinarity and fruitful balance between vivid cases, formal theorizing, and policy relevance; second, a preference for gentle persuasion, seen in adoption of evocative but ambiguous, politically safe labels and an avoidance of seeking debate on all fronts (e.g. concerning hyper affluence); third, a continuing project to debate with and influence economists, and hence, while upgrading parts of their inadequate picture of persons, retention of other parts. His capability approach lends itself however to enrichment by deeper analyses of human agency. Copyright

The Idea of Human Security

textabstractPrelude: The surprising spread of ‘human security’ discourse Although the language of human security‘ that became prominent in the 1990s has encountered criticism from many sides, it has continued to gain momentum. One encounters it frequently now in discussions of environment, migration, socioeconomic rights, culture, gender and more, not only of physical security. Werthes and Debiel propose that: human security provides a powerful ―political leitmotif‖ for particular states and multilateral actors by fulfilling selected functions in the process of agenda-setting, decision-making and implementation‘ (2006:8). I suggest that in order to understand human security discourse and its spread this specification of actors and functions should be broadened. The relevant actors include more than states and multilateral agencies. What was primarily a language in United Nations circles is now far more. Like the sister idea of human rights, human security could be becoming an idiom that plays important roles in motivating and directing attention, and in problem recognition, diagnosis, evaluation and response.

Essentialism In and About Development Discourse

Several types of essentialism form potential dangers in policy and development discourse. First, essentialism in defining terms, including in claims that a term referring to a broad and multi-dimensional category means ‘essentially’ and exclusively such-and-such and is not ‘essentially contestable’. Second, essentialism about the performance and desirability of policies and policy means, including: the treatment of a means or strategy as having ‘inherent’ performance attributes (strengths/weaknesses); and the treatment of a means as inherently (or ‘basically’) appropriate and ‘proper’. Illustrations come from debates on rural centres, co-operatives, and collectivisation. Thirdly, essentialism in descriptions of schools of development thought and practice, discussed with reference to work by Kitching, Ferguson, Escobar and others on development discourse, and the stream of ‘anti-development discourse’.

Violence and Suffering, Responsibility and Choice: Issues in Ethics and Development

Part of the broadening of ideas of ‘development’ involves matters of personal security and societal peace. This article examines why and how, with reference to conceptual and historical analyses and to case studies of domestic violence, emergency relief in civil wars, and South Africas Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It considers physical violence as a major and ethically central aspect of many peoples experience; how violence and the resultant suffering are neglected and even denied, due partly to an economics-style focus on commodities; and some alternative lines of intellectual and practical response – at individual, agency and societal levels – to past, present and prospective violence.

Ethics and the Conduct of International Development Aid - Charity and Obligation

ABSTRACT Ethical debate around development aid has gradually grown and diversified, and a field that spans some aspects of policy, organisational and personal practice has partly emerged. After characterising this trend, the paper considers: (1) The key question of the types of obligation, if any, involved in aid; is aid purely charity and beyond obligation(s)? What do different views here imply for roles and conditions in aid? (2) The significance in aid, especially technical cooperation, of inter-personal relations and work-style and life-style issues. (3) Will specified ethical guidelines and codes for aid organisations and aid workers be worthwhile? The paper suggests that even a charity mode of aid entails important obligations concerning manner of operation, and that helpful guidelines are possible. Whether directive codes will help is more open to doubt.