Bezalel

A steep decline in the number of girls as compared to boys born in India highlights a deepening crisis in the country. Due to a strong cultural preference for sons and the easy availability of technology to determine the sex of a fetus, sex selective abortions have increased radically. Statistics show that in the last hundred years, 35 million females are missing from the population. The 2001 census showed that there are 927 girls for every 1000 boys in the 0-6 age group, nationally. In an effort to combat sex selective abortions, the Government of India promulgated the Prenatal Diagnostic Technique Act in 1994, which has been amended to include pre conception techniques. Now the Act is called the Pre-conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act (PCPNDT Act) 1994. However it has not been effectively implemented.

'International humanitarian aid provides relief to tens of millions of people each year: in 2007 to more than 43 million people through UN humanitarian appeals alone. However, it is also often too little, too late, and unpredictable, or inappropriate to the needs of communities, including specific groups such as women and girls. The UN-led reforms since 2005 to improve humanitarian aid have begun - but only begun - to make a difference to this variable performance. Oxfam International published its analysis of the successes and challenges facing humanitarian action in a major report, The Right to Survive, in April 2009. This note now considers one specific recent reform: the development of 'pooled funds'. This reform has coincided with increased competition for humanitarian resources - at the same time as the need for humanitarian aid is growing.'

'This paper summarises the events of a workshop on institutional collaboration in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The workshop was held in Pakistan in March 2009, and discussed the participatory research in livelihoods that two Norwegian organisations conducted in Afghanistan. The paper states that this work has great potential for contributing further toward capacity and institution building in Afghanistan in several rural development sectors, including water and sanitation (WATSAN).

There are growing signs that the global economic crisis has reached both poor countries and poor people in those countries. In February, for example, the World Bank's forecast for Africa's growth in 2009 was revised downward from 6.8 percent to 3.5 percent. Another World Bank document suggests that the crisis has pushed more than 50 million people below the $1.25 per day poverty line. This type of evidence has convinced many world leaders that a problem exists: U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has called 2009 "a development emergency" and this past weekend the boards of the World Bank and the IMF both recognized that the global economic crisis had metastasized into a "human and development calamity." Full paper in PDF format; Number of pages: 10p

Fragile states matter, as an ODI public event in London last week confirmed. Internal conflict and instability contaminates and infects neighbouring countries and entire regions, contributing to global security problems. In development terms, a failure to address and meet the challenges presented by fragile states means that, at the current rate of progress, the global Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will not be met, regardless of how much progress is made in other developing countries. According to the UK Department for International Development (DFID) people living in countries affected by violent conflict, or where governments are chronically weak, are three or four times more likely to suffer from extreme poverty, or die before the age of five, than those living in other developing countries.

How to engage more effectively in fragile states is now a key concern in the international development community, and several new books outline different diagnoses and recommendations. Seth Kaplan presented his book: Fixing Fragile States: A New Paradigm for Development, at a recent ODI public event, with ODI's David Booth as the discussant. Kaplan brings a fresh, if not entirely new, perspective to the discussion on fragile states that has, to a large extent, been missing in international development debates. He offers a critique of the existing aid paradigm in fragile states, and proposes an alternative strategy to bring security and development to such settings.

The UNU-WIDER project 'Fragility and Development' explored state fragility and its relationship to household vulnerability, noting that there is a lack of research on the economic dimensions of conflict, aid, and development in fragile states. This Research Brief provides a summary of the various contributions made by this project, including case studies on Iraq, Kosovo, Palestine, and Somalia. It also addresses a number of pertinent questions such as; when are states fragile? What are the costs that fragile states impose on their people and the international community? Should the sovereignty of fragile states be reconsidered? And how can aid flows to fragile states be made more effective?

Learning for Change in ADB The rapidly changing-and, at times, excessively complex-nature of development work demands diverse competences from aid agencies such as the Asian Development Bank. The learning challenges these present require the ability to work more reflectively in a turbulent practice environment. Learning for Change in ADB broadly defines a learning organization as a collective undertaking, rooted in action, that builds and improves its own practice by consciously and continually devising and developing the means to draw learning from its own (and others') experience. It identifies the 10 challenges that ADB must overcome to develop as a learning organization and specifies practicable next steps to conquer each. It can help deliver the increased development effectiveness that Strategy 2020, ADB's long-term strategic framework for 2008-2020, seeks.

What is 'capacity-building'? Specifically, capacity building encompasses the country's human, scientific, technological, organizational, institutional and resource capabilities. A fundamental goal of capacity building is to enhance the ability to evaluate and address the crucial questions related to policy choices and modes of implementation among development options, based on an understanding of environment potentials and limits and of needs perceived by the people of the country concerned.

Pertinent questions and sound methodologies are essential for quality research, as are quality partnerships. By what criteria do we select partners and how do we build meaningful partnerships that add value to our research efforts? And that contribute to improving the overall landscape for the development and use of research? We would like to propose several areas of concern for partnership development and management that many of us deal with on a daily basis and that might seem obvious but nonetheless merit repetition as we still do not integrate them fully into our work. Drawing on personal experience in a research network, this essay invites reflections from others in grappling with questions related to the development of quality partnerships for quality research. We try to present here perspectives of research units, networks and institutions, including university-based ones, particularly in West and Central African contexts.

'This journal article presents a framework for assessing the effectiveness of education aid in fragile states which is derived from three key aspects of aid effectiveness identified in the Principles for Good International Engagement in Fragile States - coordination, state building, and 'do no harm'.'

10 facts about women's health

Empowerment of women is a process through which women in general and poor women in particular get the opportunity to join the workforce, contribute to family income, and have a place in family as well as social affairs. In the past women were segregated from out-of-home productive work. They were kept within the four walls. The hearth became the place for them. So cooking, cleaning, washing, giving birth and rearing children became their jobs. Men became the wage earners and all other activities became their responsibilities.

'Historically and across a diverse range of countries, women from disadvantaged racial and ethnic groups have tended to provide care services to meet the needs of the more powerful social groups, while their own needs for care have been downplayed and neglected. This paper by the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development traces the evolution of ideas in the area of gender and care, and analyses some of the main strands of thinking. The author analyses the contribution of feminist economics to the conceptualisation, as well as the measurement and valuation, of the unpaid economy, including its care components. The author shows how in approaching the issue of care from their distinct disciplinary perspectives in social policy and sociology, gender analyses of welfare regimes have contributed to the theorisation of care in important ways, some of which intersects with the work of feminist economists.'

'This issue of Capacity.Org looks at the capacities that need to be developed in order for the water and sanitation MDGs targets for 2015 to be achievable. The main focus is on capacity needs at the intermediate and local levels, but links between macro-level policy making and local-level implementation are also addressed.'

'As part of its strategy to increase rural incomes, USAID/Kenya has supported two projects to develop tree fruit value chains-the Kenya Business Development Services (KBDS) project implemented by the Emerging Markets Group and the Kenya Horticulture Development Project (KHDP) implemented by Fintrac. This report presents the findings from a study of the impacts of these projects on smallholder farmers who grow avocados and passion fruit in Central and Rift Valley provinces in Kenya. The study included a panel survey of 1,640 farmers including those who have participated in these projects and a comparison group of non-participating farmers. The survey was complemented by qualitative research comprising in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with over 100 individuals involved in the tree fruit value chains: farmers, producer group leaders, input suppliers, extension service providers, brokers, exporters and the KBDS project and KHDP directors and staff.'

'The objective of the Sindh Education Sector Reform Project for Pakistan is to increase school participation, reduce gender and rural/urban disparities in schooling outcomes, increase retention and transition, and improve quality. The key potential environmental and safety issues related to the program include: (i) liquid and solid wastes generated during school construction and operation; (ii) lack of adequate measures, both at the design and construction stages, to address the schools´ vulnerabilities to natural disasters (both in new and rehabilitated schools); (iii) drinking water contamination and lack of adequate sanitation facilities; (iv) lack of education programs for children in personal hygiene and safety procedures during emergencies; (v) lack of low-cost renewable power systems in schools located in off-grid areas, resulting in an inadequate learning environment for children (excessive heat and poor lightning), and preventing the use of low-cost water decontamination techniques; and (vi) land acquisition issues.

'The Safeguard School Program connects with kids in a language that they understand. This program leverages the animated character Commander Safeguard as the communication vehicle to make the overall hygiene message relevant, memorable and engaging for school children. Commander Safeguard communicates with children in a way that is novel and exciting.'