abstract: Beneficiary participation has become popular in international development generally, and it is an essential feature of sustainable development. But there are diverse definitions of and motivations for using beneficiary participation, and empirical literature on its effects is underdeveloped. This dissertation aims to clarify what beneficiary participation is and whether there is empirical support for claims about its benefits. I review historical trends in international development that led to the popularity of both sustainable development and beneficiary participation. This review identifies central themes in defining beneficiary participation and motivations for using it. I also developed a new typology of beneficiary participation based on a literature review of how scholars define beneficiary participation. I found that the main dimensions of beneficiary participation are (1) participants, (2) channels, (3) types of inputs, (4) timing, and (5) goals. By making these dimensions explicit, this work helps researchers and development practitioners more clearly describe the types of beneficiary participation they study, employ, and advocate for. To contribute to empirical literature about beneficiary participation, I conducted a case-study of two urban development projects in Bhopal, India. I collected data with a structured survey of project beneficiaries in four slums (two slums from each project) and semi-structured interviews with each project's organizers. And project documents provided secondary data on both projects. The results indicate that local elites did not capture a disproportionate share of either project's benefits, at least with respect to individual household toilets. Because project organizers rather than beneficiaries selected households that would receive toilets, both cases serve as counterexamples to the claim that beneficiaries must intensely participate for projects' benefits to be distributed equitably. Finally, I review academic literature for empirical evidence that supports claims about the advantages of beneficiary participation. There is relatively strong empirical support for the claim that beneficiary participation improves project outcomes, but empirical support for most other claims (i.e., that it helps make projects more efficient, distribute benefits equitably, and sustain project benefits) is weak. And empirical research suggests that one claimed benefit, empowerment, rarely materializes. In general, more empirical research about beneficiary participation is needed. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Sustainability 2014

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This dissertation represents a year-long (August 2004-August 2005) ethnographic case study of 15 adolescent schoolgirls attending a secondary school in a poor, rural area of Masaka District, Uganda which explores the challenges, opportunities and potential for future identities that were associated with secondary level education. This study includes an extensive analysis of the degree to which the global objective of gender equity in education, prioritized in UNESCO’s Education For All initiative as well as the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals, is promoted and/or achieved in the National Strategy for Girls’ Education in Uganda (NSGE). I consider various ideological understandings of international development in general as well as development theory specifically related to gender, and I draw on the Capabilities Approach (as developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum) and Imagined Communities and Identities (Benedict Anderson, Bonny Norton) to interpret my findings. My research reveals that girls’ educational opportunities are constrained by many “unfreedoms” (Sen, 1999), such as extreme poverty, sexual vulnerability and gender discrimination, that are deeply and extensively rooted in cultural, historical, and socioeconomic circumstances and contexts, and that these unfreedoms are not adequately addressed in international and national policies and programme objectives. I propose several recommendations for change, including: a safe and secure “girls’ space” at school; mentorship roles and programmes; counselors; comprehensive sexual health education and free and easy access to birth control and disease prevention products, and sanitary materials; regular opportunities for dialogue with male students; employment opportunities; closer community/school ties; and professional development opportunities for teachers. / Education, Faculty of / Language and Literacy Education (LLED), Department of / Graduate

This qualitative study explores how youth in Tanzania, with low levels of basic education, manage their personal lives and seek opportunities in the workplace or in post-basic education training programs. In Tanzania, Education for All (EFA) has served as a key focal point of coordination between the government and the international donor community. While substantial attention has centered on the challenges of ensuring the sustainability and quality of EFA, there is relatively little known about the socio-economic circumstances of young school leavers and their perceptions of education and its relation to their post-school life trajectories. Using structuration theory as the theoretical framework to illuminate the dynamic interconnectedness of social structures and youth agency, I conducted semi-structured interviews with 14 young male and female school leavers. Disturbing patterns of social reproduction and a fundamental discontinuity between basic education and post-school challenges were revealed in the research. Yet, in view of their resilience, orientation to the future and entrepreneurial resourcefulness, findings suggest that despite profound qualitative shortcomings, aspects of basic education and the structuring effects of economic liberalization may be contributing to enhanced youth agency. The dissertation contributes to the theoretical discourse in the study of youth phenomena by adapting and advancing Klocker’s (2007) use of the notion of thinners and thickeners of agency within structuration theory. Exploring factors like educational quality and attainment level, in addition to those already established by Klocker (tribe, gender, age, and poverty), my research shows how young people’s agency can be attenuated or accentuated in space and time. This dissertation contributes empirical, hermeneutic and narrative data to illuminate the educational experience and post-basic education realities for a group of Tanzanian youth, reducing what has heretofore been described as a paucity of such qualitative accounts of marginalized African youth and the challenges they face.

The Canadian foreign aid program increasingly has been linked to trade and other commercial objectives- How and why has this happened? Has this been a successful linkage? What are the implications for Canada and its foreign aid program of this pursuit of the aid-trade linkage? This thesis attempts to answer these questions by exploring the origins and evolution of Canada's aid program, the political and bureaucratic status of Canada's aid agency, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), and the various policies and policy instruments employed in this recent orientation of aid. It is here argued that in the pragmatic origins of Canada's aid efforts, beginning with the Colombo Plan of the 1950s, lay the seeds for today's aid-trade policy linkage. These origins enabled the interests and objectives of other federal government departments to intrude on and often supersede developmental considerations in Canadian development assistance. As a result, the creation of a strong central aid agency has consistently been impeded, and the needs of Third World nations consistently overshadowed by domestic concerns. Exacerbating this situation was the fiscal restraint and domestic recession of the late 1970s and early 1980s. The pressures stemming from these twin problems gave the final impetus for the increasing integration of aid and commerce. While it is questionable whether linking aid with commerce serves Canada's political and economic interests, in either the short term or the long term, the federal government seems intent on continuing this policy trend. Indeed, the aid-trade linkage superficially resolves a number of administrative problems for CIDA, and enthusiastically is promoted as a bright new opportunity for Canada and its development partners. Conversely, efforts to reverse this policy trend face many obstacles in the Canadian polity and society. In the absence of decisive political leadership on this issue, then, aid-trade linkage is likely to continue. / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate

In Sierra Leone unemployed young college graduates explored entrepreneurship as alternatives to formal employment. Qualitative approaches were followed to understand their motivations and the entrepreneurial environment in which they operated. The sample for this study included forty-two unemployed graduates in two regional districts of Sierra Leon and tenkey informants as resource persons. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with the graduates through individual interviews in the city of Freetown, Western district and focus groups in the city of Bo, Southern district. Telephone interviews were conducted with the tenkey informants/resources persons. Using the integrated theoretical frameworks of Azjen’s Theory of Planned Behavior and the Shapero-Sokol Entrepreneurial Event Model the study identified the underlying factors of desirability and feasibility of entrepreneurship with insights into the entry-level experiences in setting up a venture. The data wereanalyzed using the theoretical thematic approach and open coding techniques to identify patterns and trends. Thefindings were then triangulated and validated. Desirability of entrepreneurship was found to begenerallyhigh, but feasibility was generally low and difficult to explore. The inability to secure start-up capital and a generally weak support system for entry level entrepreneurs accounted for the barrierstosuccessful entrepreneurship. Two descriptive models, each on desirability and feasibility, were developed from the findings. Theyexplainthe processes involved in the transmission from entrepreneurial intentions to actions. The findings of this study would contribute to advocacy campaigns for the facilitation of entrepreneurship for unemployed young graduates aspiring for self-employment, inform educational programs about the gaps in entrepreneurial proficiencies, and advice policy interventions to scale-up support for young adults to enable them to create businesses for self-employment in a developing country context.The study suggests collaborative engagements to synergize the actions between communicators, educators and policy actors to facilitate entrepreneurship for unemployed graduates.

The contextualisation of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in development attracts ample research interest in the field of ICT for Development (ICT4D). This study focuses on exploring the perspectives from which deep rural communities define development. In addition, this study seeks to understand the issues facing deep rural communities, as well as the effect that these issues have on community engagement in ICT4D initiatives. The core problem being considered is the differing views about the meaning of development as understood by the intended beneficiaries of development initiatives, compared to that which those working to develop deep rural communities hold. Furthermore, the role of ICT in development is also examined, with primary criticisms levelled against its use considered. In an attempt to understand these ideas, interpretive case study research is used and qualitative techniques applied to analyse data from the field work that was completed. The results confirm the dominance of basic human needs and economic growth ideas as the basis from which the majority of poor people define development. Moreover, the study reveals that, deep rural communities share the same sentiments as with the so-called development ‘experts’ regarding the importance of ICT in facilitating development goals. / Dissertation (MIT)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Informatics / unrestricted

The world's poorest people, most of whom reside in under-developed nations, lack access to clean water and sanitation facilities, nutritious food, and education (UMP, 2005). These conditions are linked to malnutrition, disease, and low life expectancies (WHO). In an effort to reduce global poverty, the United Nations (UN) adopted the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Under Goal 7c the UN denotes that by 2015 the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation as compared to the proportion who do should be halved. As a response to this objective the international development (ID) sector has implemented projects aimed at increasing access to clean water and sanitation facilities, yet reports of high rate of project failure continue (Ika, 2012). In this thesis factors contributing to project failures are outlined based on the literature. In response to these findings this thesis explores the components of sustainability as it relates to the WASH sector and creates a framework for minimum standards that should be met in order for a WASH project to be considered successful. These standards are adapted based on the World Health Organization (WHO), a project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that evaluates WASH projects called WASHCost, as well as the standards proposed by Carter et al (1999). Furthermore, it is argued that if implementing organizations are expected to monitor, evaluate and report on the environmental, social, economic as well as technical components of their implemented project, it will create a level of transparency that promotes organizational accountability that will inherently cause a shift towards more effective WASH projects.

The purpose of this research is to identify gender-based constraints and opportunities to the introduction of an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) program for tomato crops based on a case study of tomato farmers in the town of Tuobodom in the Brong Ahafo region of Ghana. The study seeks to identify the knowledge, practices, perceptions, and access to resources of men and women tomato farmers in Tuobodom, specifically with respect to pesticides and pest management. A mixed methods approach combined quantitative and qualitative methodologies including focus group discussions, household interviews, participatory mapping, field visits, key informant interviews, participant observation, and a survey. Key findings in the areas of health and safety, markets and the tomato value chain, and information and training reveal general and gender-specific issues that an IPM program should address when working with farmers to develop an effective and sustainable IPM package for tomato in this area. The results of this study also demonstrate the importance of gender analysis in identifying context-specific gender issues. For example, while this study confirmed that men's roles in tomato production place them at higher risk of exposure to pesticides, results challenge the assumption that women's reproductive roles (e.g., food preparation, caring for the sick, and washing clothes) make them more aware of the risks of pesticides. / Master of Public and International Affairs

In light of a scant, fragmentary geographical literature attending specifically to charity and charitable giving (cf. Bryson et al, 2002), this research presents an in-depth exploration of one particular (and highly popular) ‘charity’ mechanism- child sponsorship –by way of delineating a more coherent set of geographical understandings and sensibilities towards the topic. Using research carried out in the UK between 2011 and 2012 with both child sponsorship charities and ‘sponsors’, and drawing together an array of theoretical and conceptual resources from within geography and beyond, I seek to engage particularly with the ways in which charity is organised, promoted and practised; the spatial, relational ways in which charitable action is configured and performed, and the flows of ethical concern, embodied praxis and power which co-constitute it. As such, and mobilising ‘relational’ geographical work on networks and assemblages, I present an alternative reading of ‘charitable space’ which allows for its dynamic complexities to be more fully appreciated. Given my focus on child sponsorship, I set these interests within broader debates on the UK’s Third Sector, international development and humanitarian aid, particularly debates regarding neoliberalism and (post)colonialism. As such, the research also contributes to an emerging literature on Global North ‘development constituencies’ and their mobilisation (Baillie Smith, 2008; see also Smith, 2004; Desforges, 2004), as well as to well-established geographical literatures on voluntarism. I also foreground a focus on the dynamics of ‘faith-based’ giving, since the empirical landscape of child sponsorship displays a distinct orientation towards Christian modes of charitable organisation and action, though in complex, often blurry ways. In all, the work seeks to critically appraise and (where appropriate) disturb common narratives and assumptions used to apprehend charity in both popular and academic discourse, and offer instead a more critically attuned set of understandings which re-imagine charity in more enlivened ways.