scholarly journals Assessing Sustainability in Development Interventions

Author(s):  
Ellen Fitzpatrick

AbstractSustainability is often claimed as an impact in development interventions although there is rarely a shared understanding of what it means, how to design for it, and especially how to assess the likelihood that intended streams of benefits will continue. This chapter asserts that to design and later to evaluate an intervention with sustainable impacts, the intervention must deepen indigenous capabilities to manage the program, to solve problems, and to innovate. The design and implementation also must operate within environmental boundaries, not extracting resources beyond the ability to regenerate or degrading environmental services—that is, design and implementation must incorporate the primacy of the environment. A postprogram evaluation 3–10 years after a program has ended provides evidence on whether the program is likely to have sustainable impacts. A case study of an asset transfer program in Malawi highlights the criteria for evaluating sustainability: deepened capabilities and social capital, reinvestment in program activities, and the development of backward and forward linkages catalyzing growing economic opportunities.

Author(s):  
Craig M. Parker ◽  
Wahyudi Agustiono ◽  
Rodney Carr ◽  
Dilal Saundage

It can be difficult for organisations which develop an information system (IS) for use by many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to recruit SME personnel during IS design. The paper addresses this problem by exploring the nature of relationships that organisational stakeholders can use to recruit SME personnel during IS design, which has received little attention in the literature. We present an interpretive, revelatory case study of the insights from managers and field officers who recruited SME farmers during the design of an inter-organisational IS. We identified three relationship types, based on an existing framework in the literature derived from stakeholder theory: between managers of organisations; between managers and field officers; and between field officers and farmers. We extend this framework by incorporating relationship attributes based on social capital concepts: ties, shared cognition, structure, homophily and bridging capital. We found that the complex interplay of the three relationship types, and the degree of strength of the social capital attributes of these relationships, help explain how farmers were recruited into, or were discouraged from participating in, a lengthy IS design process.


Author(s):  
Nurul Nadjmi

Kepulauan Riau merupakan provinsi yang terdiri dari beberapa pulau diantaranya Pulau Batam, Pulau Bintan dan Pulau Karimun. Modal sosial merupakan serangkaian nilai dan norma informal yang dimiliki oleh kelompok masyarat dalam membagun kerjasamanya. Lingkup penelitian pada pembahasan ini adalah terfokus pada pengaruh modal sosial terhadap perkembangan pariwisata di Kepulauan Riau dalam hal ini Pulau Batam, Pulau Bintan, dan Pulau Karimun. Metode penelitian yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah penelitian deskriptif kualitatif. Penelitian ini dikondisikan sebagai penelitian kualitatif melalui strategi studi kasus. Sistem pendekatan yang digunakan juga merupakan pendekatan deskriptif analitik. Melakukan pengamatan langsung, mengumpulkan data-data kemudian menghubungkannya dengan kajian teori yang digunakan. Lokus penelitian ini terdapat di Kepulauan Riau dengan melihat pengaruh modal sosial pada perkembangan pariwisata di ketiga pulau yaitu Pulau Batam, Pulau Bintan dan Pulau Karimun. Berdasarkan hasil survey yang saya lakukan di Kepulauan Riau, terutama pada ketiga pulau yaitu Pulau Batam, Pulau Bintan, dan Pulau Karimun, dari ketiga pulau tersebut ternyata pada Pulau Karimun perkembangan pariwisatanya tidak terlalu berkembang karena masyarakat yang tidak menerima adanya wisatawan terutama wisatawan mancanegara. Riau Islands is a province consisting of several islands including Batam Island, Bintan Island and Karimun Island. Social capital is a set of informal values ​​and norms that are owned by community groups in building cooperation. The scope of research in this discussion is focused on the influence of social capital on the development of tourism in the Riau Islands, in this case Batam Island, Bintan Island, and Karimun Island. The research method used in this research is descriptive qualitative research. This research is conditioned as qualitative research through a case study strategy. The system approach used is also a descriptive analytic approach. Make direct observations, collect data and then relate it to the study of the theories used. The locus of this research is in the Riau Islands by looking at the influence of social capital on the development of tourism in the three islands, namely Batam Island, Bintan Island and Karimun Island. Based on the results of a survey I conducted in the Riau Islands, especially on the three islands, namely Batam Island, Bintan Island, and Karimun Island, of the three islands, it turns out that on Karimun Island the development of tourism is not very developed because people do not accept tourists, especially foreign tourists.


Author(s):  
Konstantin Aal ◽  
Anne Weibert ◽  
Kai Schubert ◽  
Mary-Ann Sprenger ◽  
Thomas Von Rekowski

The case study presented in this chapter discusses the design and implementation of an online platform, “come_NET,” in the context of intercultural computer clubs in Germany. This tool was built in close cooperation with the children and adult computer club participants. It was designed to foster the sharing of ideas and experiences across distances, support collaboration, and make skills and expertise accessible to others in the local neighborhood contexts. In particular, the participatory-design process involving the children in the computer clubs fostered a profound understanding of the platform structure and functionalities. The study results show how younger children in particular were able to benefit, as the closed nature of the platform enabled them to gather experience as users of social media, but in a safe and controlled environment.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (8) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristian Silva ◽  
Francisco Vergara-Perucich

AbstractUrban sprawl has been widely discussed in regard of its economic, political, social and environmental impacts. Consequently, several planning policies have been placed to stop—or at least restrain—sprawling development. However, most of these policies have not been successful at all as anti-sprawl policies partially address only a few determinants of a multifaceted phenomenon. This includes processes of extended suburbanisation, peri-urbanisation and transformation of fringe/belt areas of city-regions. Using as a case study the capital city of Chile—Santiago—thirteen determinants of urban sprawl are identified as interlinked at the point of defining Santiago's sprawling geography as a distinctive space that deserves planning and policy approaches in its own right. Unpacking these determinants and the policy context within which they operate is important to better inform the design and implementation of more comprehensive policy frameworks to manage urban sprawl and its impacts.


2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-82
Author(s):  
Lana Apple ◽  
Mira Debs

PISA test data from 2000 to today have shown Germany’s education system is one of the most inequitable within the OECD, with high correlations between student background and achievement outcomes. Scholars have identified the highly differentiated school structure, which tracks students as young as 10 years old, as a central cause. This scholarship has not evaluated why German tracking has proved difficult to reform over the last 20 years, despite evidence of negative outcomes. Using a case study of parents’ actions in Hamburg, this paper employs a discourse analysis of debates surrounding a tracking reform to argue that opportunity hoarding—that is, parents with more social capital maintaining certain advantages through ingrained systems that are theoretically open to all—may contribute to why Germany’s early tracking system persists despite evidence showing that it increases educational inequality. The findings presented have implications for an international discussion of tracking reform and opportunity hoarding.


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