Nicky Pouw

Governing beyond cities: the urban-rural interface

If 70 % of the global population will reside in metropolitan regions by 2050, this poses new governance challenges related to urban-rural interfaces and linkages. It calls for governance that stretches across scales and beyond urban boundaries, taking into account both problems and opportunities of urbanization. This chapter reviews the literature on urban-rural interfaces and linkages and discusses suggestions for dealing with them. It also addresses three governance problems that hinder a more integrated approach towards the urban-rural interface, specifically fragmentation, institutional inertia, and the inability to realize inclusive development. Based on potential governance approaches to address these three problems, we present six institutional design dimensions for a more inclusive governance approach for urban-rural regions. Bridging organizations, nested issue-based platforms, and combining governance with strong government are identified as pathways towards inclusive urban-rural governance.

“Fishing Na Everybody Business”: Women's Work and Gender Relations in Sierra Leone's Fisheries

While small-scale fisheries in many developing countries is “everybodys business,” a gendered labor division concentrates production in the hands of fishermen while women dominate postharvest processing and retailing. The production bias of fisheries management programs has not only largely overlooked the role of fisherwomen, but also marginalized “fish mammies” in terms of resources and training. This study draws on three in-country fisheries surveys, as well as interviews and focus groups, and employs a gender-aware sustainable livelihood framework to make visible the economic space occupied by women in Sierra Leones small-scale fisheries. The study highlights how womens variegated access to capital and resources interacts with social norms and reproductive work and argues for more social and economic investment in womens fish processing and reproductive work enabling them to reconcile both roles more effectively.

Modelling Priority Patterns in Asset Acquisition: The Case of Smallholder Farmers in Three Rural Districts in Uganda

Abstract Poor smallholder farmers in Uganda live at or below subsistence level. They are vulnerable to multiple risks and insecurities and have limited access to capital markets. In this article we propose a model to estimate household priority patterns in asset acquisition using cross-section data. The model is applied to a field-survey consisting of 938 farm households from three districts. The model predicts the distribution of asset ownership, conditional on the type of assets owned. Based on the established priority patterns the article proposes a low-cost, regional poverty monitoring instrument using only asset type data.

Participatory Assessment of Development Interventions: Lessons Learned from a New Evaluation Methodology in Ghana and Burkina Faso.

This article presents the principles and findings of developing a new participatory assessment of development (PADev) evaluation approach that was codesigned with Dutch nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and northern and southern research institutes over a period of 4 years in the context of rural development in Ghana and Burkina Faso. Although participatory approaches in development evaluations have become widely accepted since the 1990s, the PADev approach is different by taking the principles of holism and local knowledge as starting points for its methodological elaboration. The PADev approach is found to have an added value for assessing the differentiated effects of development interventions across different subgroups in a community through intersubjectivity. Moreover, if PADev is taken up by a multitude of stakeholders, including the intended beneficiaries of development interventions and development stakeholders, it can contribute to a process of local history writing, knowledge sharing, capacity development, and providing input into community action plans and the strategies of community-based organizations and NGOs.

Occupational genders and gendered occupations: the case of water provisioning in Maputo, Mozambique

Abstract Taking issue with how associations between technical prowess or entrepreneurship and masculinity tend to be taken for granted or are seen as stemming from natural or intrinsic gender differences, over the last two decades feminist scholars have developed theoretical approaches to understand the gendering of professions and abilities as the performative outcome of particular cultures and histories. We build on these insights to explore how associations between masculinities, technology and entrepreneurship shape ideas and practices of small-scale water provision in Maputo. Our findings show how activities (i.e. technical craftsmanship, hard physical work) or abilities (i.e. risk-taking, innovativeness) regarded as masculine tend to be considered the defining features of the profession. This shapes how men and women make sense of and talk about their work, each of them tactically emphasizing and performing those aspects best fitting their gender. Our detailed documentation of men’s and women’s everyday involvements in water provisioning challenges the existence of sharp boundaries and distinctions between genders and professional responsibilities. It shows that water provisioning requires many other types of work and skills and male and female household members collaborate and share their work. The strong normative-cultural associations between gender and water provisioning lead to a distinct under-recognition of women’s importance as water providers. We conclude that strategies to effectively support small-scale water businesses while creating more space and power for women involved in the business require the explicit recognition and re-conceptualization of water provisioning as a household business.

The politics of implementation or why institutional interaction matters: The role of traditional authorities in delivering pro-poor social policies in Kenya

The paper contributes to the debate on the political economy of implementation of propoor social policy. It argues for a broadening of the debate, which is dominated by technocratic arguments, emphasizing the lack of financial resources, technology or skills as the major barriers for effective implementation. Describing the dynamic interplay of ‘formal’ operational programme structures and ‘informal’ traditional institutions in delivering the CT-OVC – the largest and oldest cash transfer programme in Kenya – it argues for the need to look more closely into the local political economy as an important mediating arena for implementing social policies. Implementation is heavily contingent upon the local social, political and institutional context that influences and shapes its outcomes. These processes are highly dynamic and ambivalent evolving between ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ structures and institutions. They may change over time and place, challenging the implicit assumption that programmes are evenly implemented across geographic and political entities.

Understanding multiple trajectories of extending social protection to the poor: An analysis of institutional change in Kenya

Political economic analyses of recent social protection reforms in Asian, African or Latin American countries have increased throughout the last few years. Yet, most contributions focus on one social protection mechanism only and do not provide a comparative approach across policy areas. In addition, most studies are empirical studies, with no or very limited theoretical linkages. The paper aims to explain multiple trajectories of social protection reform processes looking at cash transfers and social health protection policies in Kenya. It develops a taxonomy and suggest a conceptual framework to assess and explain reform dynamics across different social protection pillars. In order to allow for a more differentiated typology and enable us to understand different reform dynamics, the article uses the approach on gradual institutional change. While existing approaches to institutional change mostly focus on institutional change prompted by exogenous shocks or environmental shifts, this approach takes account of both, exogenous and endogenous sources of change.

Unpacking Globalization: Markets, Gender, and Work

EITC as no more that a wage supplement for employers. Generally, the EITC has been championed by progressive economists and think tanks, with a special effort to get individual states to adopt their own EITCs. 3 As an example, eleven short articles/commentaries on poverty in a special issue on poverty of The American Prospect (September 2009) – one of the few progressive journals with a large circulation in the United States – had nothing about women or single mothers, but ironically included a piece entitled ‘‘Don’t Forget the Men’’ (Dick Mendel 2009).