Robyn Eversole

Managing the Pitfalls of Participatory Development: Some Insight from Australia

Abstract The shift from top-down to participatory development models has given “local people” a voice, but in practice, real participation is often elusive. Reflecting on a series of development projects by and for indigenous Australians, this article probes the complexity of social relationships which underlie the apparently straightforward concept of participation. This paper argues for greater attention to “development relations”: the way that various actors in the development process relate to one another, and how these relationships directly influence project success. Key principles of power, motivation, legitimacy, and trust emerge to assist practitioners in understanding complex social relationships and managing the pitfalls of participatory development.

Community Agency and Community Engagement: Re-theorising Participation in Governance

Interest in participatory governance recognises that communities can make valuable contributions to governance, but attempts to strengthen community participation encounter obstacles theorised as failures or incompleteness of participatory governance. This paper offers an alternative approach, drawing on ethnographic field data from a decade of work in rural Australian communities. It shows the nature of the community agency that is at the heart of policy interest in participation and how it differs from government efforts at community engagement. These insights suggest a need to rethink participatory governance, not as a single process with multiple participants, but as the juxtaposition of different ways of governing. Doing so opens up the possibility of governments and communities working together in new ways, with governments not only valuing what communities can contribute in theory, but also recognising how diverse communities work in practice.

Measurement as legitimacy versus legitimacy of measures: Performance evaluation of social enterprise

Purpose - – The purpose of this paper is to review the growing emphasis on quantifiable performance measures such as social return on investment (SROI) in third sector organisations – specifically, social enterprise – through a legitimacy theory lens. It then examines what social enterprises value (i.e. consider important) in terms of performance evaluation, using a case study approach. Design/methodology/approach - – Case studies involving interviews, documentary analysis, and observation, of three social enterprises at different life-cycle stages with different funding structures, were constructed to consider “what measures matter” from a practitioners perspective. Findings - – Findings highlight a priority on quality outcomes and impacts in primarily qualitative terms to evaluate performance. Further, there is a noticeable lack of emphasis on financial measures other than basic access to financial resources to continue pursuing social goals. Social implications - – The practical challenges faced by social enterprises – many of which are small to medium sized – in evaluating performance and by implication organisational legitimacy are contrasted with measures such as SROI which are resource intensive and have inherent methodological limitations. Hence, findings suggest the limited and valuable resources of social enterprises would be better allocated towards documenting the actual outcomes and impacts as a first step, in order to evaluate social and financial performance in terms appropriate to each objective, in order to demonstrate organisational legitimacy. Originality/value - – Findings distinguish between processes which may hold symbolic legitimacy for select stakeholder groups, and processes which hold substantive, cognitive legitimacy for stakeholders more broadly, in the under-researched context of social enterprise.

A new direction for regional university campuses: catalyzing innovation in place

Ideas about the importance of knowledge and innovation in the global economy have implications for the changing role of universities – but so too do ideas about the role of place-based knowledge in generating competitive advantage and innovation at the regional scale. As the concern to structure effective innovation systems intersects with the growing interest in distinctive, place-based knowledge, an opportunity emerges to reconsider the role of universities in regions. As institutions specialized in knowledge creation and knowledge transfer, regional university campuses are in a key position to catalyze regional development outcomes by bringing together different forms of knowledge, including place-based knowledge, in new ways. In line with current thinking about open and user-generated innovation, it is arguable that this kind of approach to co-creating knowledge in place can catalyze regional development outcomes. Yet for university campuses to take on this catalyst role, they must move beyond the limitations of their current “engagement” approaches. This paper explores some of the limitations and conflicts in current regional engagement approaches, then considers how the meeting-point between universities and complex regions may be operationalized in practice.

Keeping Youth In Communities: Education and Out-Migration in the South West

The out-migration of youth is a particular concern facing rural communities. A study of eight communities in the Blackwood region of Southwestern Australia demonstrates the key role of educational availability in encouraging the out-migration of people, especially young people, from rural areas. The study also highlights difficulties involved in university study for people who do not reside in a metropolitan area. Finally, the study suggests three possible ways that access to educational services can be increased for people in rural towns: via innovative delivery styles, diversification of the client base, and differentiation of educational products.

Beyond microcredit-the Trickle Up Program

Microloans for businesses on the Grameen or BancoSol model are designed to serve well only one sub-set of a very diverse microenterprise market. This market has varied needs which cannot all be met by a loan methodology designed for high-turnover, experienced microbusinesses needing working capital. A wider variety of financial (and non-financial) services to microenterprise needs to be offered, responding to the variety of needs in the marketplace. Conditional grants for businesses offer an alternative to an exclusive focus on microcredit as a way to provide capital to the poorest entrepreneurs. This article describes the Trickle Up conditional grant programme, in which a single small grant, usually for a start-up, is offered to poor entrepreneurs. This programme is often run alongside, and not in competition with, microcredit programmes for more experienced business people. With regard to sustainability, the emphasis is not so much on the recycling of funds for institutional sustainability, but on the s...

Development in motion: what to think about migration?

Recent interest in migrant remittances as a development resource calls attention to a deeper issue: the relationship between migration and development. Remittances may be a significant source of economic inflows to poor countries and regions, but their actual development impact (positive or negative) is tied to the migration processes that generate them. Attention to migration in turn creates an opportunity to think about the broader context of development policy and practice, and to re-think the boundaries that we put around our work.

Governance in the Gaps: Inter-Agency Action in a Rural Town

Abstract It is generally understood that local people with local knowledge and a longterm interest in their area are uniquely equipped to create sustainable solutions to local needs. At the same time, higherlevel support and resourcing is often needed to make ‘grassroots’ solutions work. Current governance models thus posit a facilitatory vertical relationship between government agencies and local actors in which the former devolves responsibility and resources to the latter – often characterised as the quest for greater ‘local participation.’ Questions are frequently raised, however, about the amount of local autonomy that is actually achievable within these vertical governance frameworks. How can locals influence the larger contexts in which they work? This paper discusses and reflects upon several recent local experiences of inter-agency action in a rural Australian town. As local organisations come together to tackle common issues and themes at the local level, they create new governance spaces that lie outside of existing government and organisational bureaucracies. What is the potential for such arrangements to leverage local influence over existing higher-level structures, and to what extent is local action still constrained?

Value-adding Community? Community Economic Development in Theory & Practice

Abstract As rural areas seek to diversify their economic base, there is an expectation that local community groups will play a key role in driving change. Bottomup models of social change emphasise local knowledge and local control of economic development activities, yet often fail to consider the larger economic and political context in which change is located, and the realities of limited local resources. Current practice among rural small towns in southwestern Australia suggests that the terminology of ‘community’ economic development, while highlighting the important issue of local control of change processes, can also cloud important questions about participation, scale, and responsibility for resourcing change. As one example, the paper explores the popular grassroots economic strategy of community, or town, promotion: questioning its assumptions, pointing out some of its inherent tensions, and suggesting the way forward to more creative thinking about the role of ‘community’ in creating local economic options.

Remittance Flows and Their Use in Households: A Comparative Study of Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the Philippines

International migrant remittances have stimulated considerable interest as a development resource. This paper looks closely at the household-level dynamics of remittance flows and remittance usage, recognizing that the key actors in the remittances story are migrants and their households. Data are drawn from household surveys, focus groups and interviews with remittance recipients and returnees in three countries with substantial remittance inflows: Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and the Philippines. The paper describes variations and patterns in migrant destination and work, remitting behavior, and the use of remittances in households, with attention to their larger implications.