Development asks that the inequity and unsustainability of the widening gap between rich and poor be narrowed, ultimately impacting on households in the most economically excluded communities. Local community-based organisations (CBOs) provide much of the organisational fabric through which development is delivered. Largely resourced by the poorest themselves, many of these CBOs aspire to attracting funds from the development aid industry. In attempting to comply with the rules of these funding sources and compete in funding relationships, organisations become players in the funding game fraught with power imbalance and seemingly contradictory incentives. Neither the funding agencies, intent on disbursement, nor the CBOs in their desire to build organisations and contribute to their communities, seem aware of the true costs of these relationships. Aid funding is complex, operating at numerous levels, across a multiplicity of varied organisations, stakeholders and contexts. Over the last 60 years, the aid industry has evolved complicated and highly engineered mechanisms to manage relationships with funding recipients, including detailed conventions for evaluation. As part of contractual obligation, criteria for success are pre-defined; outcomes are predicted; and targets are projected. Development, however, is not linear or predictable. It is contradictory and complex. Despite objections and alternatives since the late 1980s, ‘conventional’ linear, simplistic rationale has dogged the development industry. The HIV support sector as a focus for funding, capacity building and service contracts from government and international aid agencies, offers rich examples of aid industry dynamics. This research, set amongst small but established CBOs working in HIV/AIDS support in Soweto and Lawley (Gauteng) and Mabeskraal (North West Province), explores alternative evaluation approaches, methodologies and principles, based on grounded evaluation. Two models are tested and compared. Firstly, inward-looking, organisation-based, reflective self-evaluation using Stories and Metaphor. Than secondly, outward-looking, community research using a Most Significant Change approach. The evaluation processes developed help participating CBOs describe success and outcomes against their own criteria. The approaches use narrative, visual and metaphorical formats. The central purpose of the research is meta-evaluation aimed at an effective process using iterative, cumulative action research based on the principles of grounded theory. Meta-evaluation data included descriptions of the processes and the nature of evaluation results. They are analysed using reflection, learning and re-design in an action research cycle. The results provide both practical insights into conducting evaluation, and the principles of effective development in a CBO setting. They demonstrate that grounded evaluation can be used to understand organisational dynamics and programme outcomes. Participatory methods, particularly visual and verbal communication, are shown to be far superior to written communication in this setting. The results demonstrate the mutual compatibility and ethical inseparability of organisation development with evaluation, providing insight into the practice of utilisation-based evaluation. The value of appreciative inquiry and the risks of accusatory inquiry are described. A thread that runs through the results highlights the impact of power, ownership and process use in effective evaluation. The research has also elaborated some of the intractable contradictions and conundrums in development aid. Money carries the power vested in global economics and market forces. In making funding judgements, evaluators purvey the power of wealth inequity: the very power imbalance which itself purports to address. As a development practitioner, an evaluator’s role should be to facilitate pathways out of dependent mindsets. As gatekeepers to financial support, however, their work entrenches distortions in perceptions of wealth and power. These complex interactions of power and ownership demand moderation and compromise. The industry requires investment of greater energy into theoretical, methodological and practical research. Suggestions for such research are included. Without fresh creativity, development and evaluation will remain frustrated forces within an entrenched, self-perpetuating system of inequity and disparity. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Human Resource Management / unrestricted

Magister Artium (Development Studies) - MA(DVS) / South Africa is a regional hub for international immigration and the main destination for many African descent, a home of high number of refugees ad asylum seekers across African continent. The refugees and asylum seekers communities in South Africa are settled and melting into the city life with the host communities.

Waste reprocessing is a growing trend in different communities around South Africa which has become influential to the socio-economic liberalism of the people that are recycling at source in their respective areas. The focus of the research study is on the contributions of community-based organisations involved in recycling towards the social and environmental sustainability. The study explores (i) work done by community-based organisations in recycling, (ii) how the organisations turn unwanted products in to something usable and manage to sustain themselves and provide for their families, and (iii) how unpleasant municipality policies on the management of waste are to the organisations involved in recycling. As a result a comprehensive and consistent information set comprising significant contributions from the responsible stakeholders that contribute to the national waste stream will be expressed; regarding the development of relevant statutory frameworks to address and clarify issues facing reprocessing at large. South Africa is signatory to a number of international accords, hence a comprehensive international perspective on waste re-utilisation is incorporated. The notion of partnership is emphasized as it ought to be accompanied by other measures that can unleash a practical validity and influence; hence the public-private partnership strategy towards recycling is recommended as a requisite to try and tackle the challenges facing community-based organisations and the system of managing waste especially in the Emfuleni Local Municipality. The partnerships should be determined as the principle framework between the people, the private sector and the entire administration. The more serious the community-based organisations towards the system of managing waste around an area, the better it will turn out to be for the communities concerned. Unemployment is also the biggest issue thus far and strategies have long been implemented to tackle the crisis, and yet the public is still faced and halted by means that are expensive in nature. Advanced educational facilities for instance, which are still major challenges to the people around Emfuleni. The logic of responsibility now is therefore to develop, implement and enforce recently formulated legislation to encourage the masses to be involved in the process of recycling. Indeed, the lack of co-ordination by private sector, the people and local authorities has resulted in the involvement of community-based organisations being regarded as non-existing and not being intensified in South Africa. The contributions made by waste pickers in making sure that the green environment concept is maintained in societies they live in, is in fact the actual concern in undertaking these research study. The negative stigma associated with the communities involved in recycling is endured as individuals are able to support their families and themselves through recycling ingenuities. The Emfuleni Local Municipality has some of the best strategies and plans to address the involvement of community-based organisations in their disposal, and the full implementation of this category has to prioritised in order to achieve a hospitable and sustainable environment for the area. / M Development and Management (Public Management and Governance), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014

The central argument of this thesis is that participative approaches to evaluating voluntary rural community-based organisations are an effective tool for organisational learning and ensuing rural community development. This proposition is explored through the evaluation and strategic planning of the Southern Riverina Rural Advisory Service, a community-based counselling organisation. The Service works with families experiencing financial hardship and associated stress. The thesis is multi-faceted and generic issues included: the importance of commitment by rural communities and organisations to creating frameworks for understanding and acting in integrated ways to the diversity, inter-relatedness and conflict of issues, wishes and needs of members, and to develop the capacity to transform contexts of dependency-oriented crisis situations to ones of self-responsible, interdependent change; the need to view contexts through integration of local, regional, national and global perspectives and to develop networks to integrate understanding and action; and to continue learning how to better enhance organisational and community-based learning. / Master of Science (Hons)

<p>&nbsp / <font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">possessing more information on which projects could be carried out in the hometowns, and which finally executes these projects. The study concludes that the existence of HTAs in the USA is explained by the socially enforced institution of the </font></font><i><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">hijos del pueblo </font></font><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">(sons of the town) having a duty to help their hometowns, as well as the private benefits of preserving Gar&iacute / funa traditions and the possibility of helping repatriate dead immigrants. Fulfilling this duty (and the consequent prestige attained) provides the incentives to send CRs home. In the cases studied, CRs were used to partly finance potable water projects, electricity projects, road paving, a community centre and the construction of a Catholic temple. In most of the cases HTAs worked with a local development organisation, known as </font></font><i><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">Patronato</font></font><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">, which formed specific committees for executing projects, for example the water and the electricity committees. For the construction of the temple, a religious organisation known as </font></font><i><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">Pastoral </font></font><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">was the local partner.</font></font></i></i></i></p> <p align="left">The term Collective Remittances (CRs) refers to the money sent by migrant associations, known as Hometown Associations (HTAs), to Community-Based Organisations (CBOs) in their hometowns for financing public works projects. Few cases of CR are known in Honduras. The only ones reported are among the Gar&iacute / funaethnic group living on the Caribbean Coast, and with a large migrant community in New York City (NYC). This mini-master&rsquo / s thesis is the first study written on CRs in Honduras. It studies CR experiences in four Gar&iacute / funa hometowns and their corresponding HTAs in NYC. It answers three questions: How do CRs work in each case? What are the determinants for HTAs to provide CRs to the hometowns? And what are the determinants for local CBOs in the hometowns to use the CRs effectively to provide public goods in the hometowns? CR is conceptualised as a <font face="Times New Roman" size="3">that chooses which local group and project to finance, and the local CBO, which is the </font><i><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">agent </font></font></i></p>

<p>&nbsp / <font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">possessing more information on which projects could be carried out in the hometowns, and which finally executes these projects. The study concludes that the existence of HTAs in the USA is explained by the socially enforced institution of the </font></font><i><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">hijos del pueblo </font></font><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">(sons of the town) having a duty to help their hometowns, as well as the private benefits of preserving Gar&iacute / funa traditions and the possibility of helping repatriate dead immigrants. Fulfilling this duty (and the consequent prestige attained) provides the incentives to send CRs home. In the cases studied, CRs were used to partly finance potable water projects, electricity projects, road paving, a community centre and the construction of a Catholic temple. In most of the cases HTAs worked with a local development organisation, known as </font></font><i><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">Patronato</font></font><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">, which formed specific committees for executing projects, for example the water and the electricity committees. For the construction of the temple, a religious organisation known as </font></font><i><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">Pastoral </font></font><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">was the local partner.</font></font></i></i></i></p> <p align="left">The term Collective Remittances (CRs) refers to the money sent by migrant associations, known as Hometown Associations (HTAs), to Community-Based Organisations (CBOs) in their hometowns for financing public works projects. Few cases of CR are known in Honduras. The only ones reported are among the Gar&iacute / funaethnic group living on the Caribbean Coast, and with a large migrant community in New York City (NYC). This mini-master&rsquo / s thesis is the first study written on CRs in Honduras. It studies CR experiences in four Gar&iacute / funa hometowns and their corresponding HTAs in NYC. It answers three questions: How do CRs work in each case? What are the determinants for HTAs to provide CRs to the hometowns? And what are the determinants for local CBOs in the hometowns to use the CRs effectively to provide public goods in the hometowns? CR is conceptualised as a <font face="Times New Roman" size="3">that chooses which local group and project to finance, and the local CBO, which is the </font><i><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">agent </font></font></i></p>

Waste reprocessing is a growing trend in different communities around South Africa which has become influential to the socio-economic liberalism of the people that are recycling at source in their respective areas. The focus of the research study is on the contributions of community-based organisations involved in recycling towards the social and environmental sustainability. The study explores (i) work done by community-based organisations in recycling, (ii) how the organisations turn unwanted products in to something usable and manage to sustain themselves and provide for their families, and (iii) how unpleasant municipality policies on the management of waste are to the organisations involved in recycling. As a result a comprehensive and consistent information set comprising significant contributions from the responsible stakeholders that contribute to the national waste stream will be expressed; regarding the development of relevant statutory frameworks to address and clarify issues facing reprocessing at large. South Africa is signatory to a number of international accords, hence a comprehensive international perspective on waste re-utilisation is incorporated. The notion of partnership is emphasized as it ought to be accompanied by other measures that can unleash a practical validity and influence; hence the public-private partnership strategy towards recycling is recommended as a requisite to try and tackle the challenges facing community-based organisations and the system of managing waste especially in the Emfuleni Local Municipality. The partnerships should be determined as the principle framework between the people, the private sector and the entire administration. The more serious the community-based organisations towards the system of managing waste around an area, the better it will turn out to be for the communities concerned. Unemployment is also the biggest issue thus far and strategies have long been implemented to tackle the crisis, and yet the public is still faced and halted by means that are expensive in nature. Advanced educational facilities for instance, which are still major challenges to the people around Emfuleni. The logic of responsibility now is therefore to develop, implement and enforce recently formulated legislation to encourage the masses to be involved in the process of recycling. Indeed, the lack of co-ordination by private sector, the people and local authorities has resulted in the involvement of community-based organisations being regarded as non-existing and not being intensified in South Africa. The contributions made by waste pickers in making sure that the green environment concept is maintained in societies they live in, is in fact the actual concern in undertaking these research study. The negative stigma associated with the communities involved in recycling is endured as individuals are able to support their families and themselves through recycling ingenuities. The Emfuleni Local Municipality has some of the best strategies and plans to address the involvement of community-based organisations in their disposal, and the full implementation of this category has to prioritised in order to achieve a hospitable and sustainable environment for the area. / M Development and Management (Public Management and Governance), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014

Student Number : 8906043R - MSc research report - School of Architecture and Planning - Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment / This study engages with community participation in post-apartheid South Africa, in an attempt to discern participation approaches that might enhance development in the upgrading of informal settlements within the Metropolitan Cities. The research attempts to come up with an intervention strategy that incorporates participation of Community- Based Organisations, Community leaders and society into informal settlement interventions in South Africa. It reviews the South African framework and structures for informal settlement community participation (including civic organisations, other community-based organisatios, and elected statutory representation). It then examines to what extent lessons from the International literature review 2003 study conducted by Thabelo Nethenzheni may be relevant to the South African situation.

Literature on effectiveness indicates the interest of researchers in the role that teams play within organisations. The conclusion is that different variables affect team performance effectiveness. A further analysis of literature on team effectiveness enabled the researcher to develop a matrix of assessment of team effectiveness from these variables to serve as a benchmark. In addition to this, a matrix consisting of perceived variables of team effectiveness was constructed from the outcome of in-depth interviews and focus group sessions with the members of management committees of community-based organisations (CBOs) based within Port Elizabeth townships. These matrixes were used by the researcher to assess the operationalisation of these variables within the CBO management committees. The research indicates that management committees either did not operationalise these variables within their teams or did not do so to their fullest capacity. The overall outcome of these assessments indicates the areas that require attention, and provides opportunity for group practitioners to assist CBO management committees to enhance their effectiveness as teams. It is suggested that group practitioners together with members of CBO management committees, embark as a task team project to develop a strategy to refine the perceived variables guided by those emphasised by experts within this field, to strategise a clear path towards enhanced team effectiveness.

<p>A disaster always means a huge death toll, displacement and inconceivable destruction for a poor country such as Bangladesh. Recently, Bangladesh has taken a holistic approach to prioritising interrelated activities and the involvement of various organisations in disaster management. A number of disaster management committees (DMCs) have been formed to coordinate and implement risk reduction measures. But the levels of success of these organisations have varied in different regions. Improper consideration of local knowledge, corruption of actors, lack of coordination and capacity of actors, etc., are perceived as major causes of this. Primarily, this mini-thesis aims to measure the impact of self-organisation in disaster risk management.</p>