Thesis (M.Dev.) -- University of Limpopo, 2013 / The purpose of this study was to evaluate post-settlement support given to beneficiaries of land restitution on selected farms in Mpumalanga Province. The study used qualitative and quantitative research methods. Data collection was done using focus group discussions and semi-structured questionnaires. Three groups of respondents participated in the study: the beneficiaries (n=193), government officials (n=13) and private sector [NGOs] (n=5). The study highlighted the inadequacy of support provided to beneficiaries. Support was inadequate in terms of infrastructure, provision of training services and improving access to markets. The findings revealed that there is poor participation by the youth and educated people in the projects. The study also found that strategic partners did not significantly contribute towards viability of projects, primarily, because of conflicting interests between the two. The study recommends that the government, with the private sector, should make enough resources available and attract the youth and educated people to participate in the projects.

Thesis (M.DEV.) -- University of Limpopo, 2013 / The study aims to provide insights into the nature and extent of development funding provided to various poverty eradication projects by the National Development Agency (NDA) and its subsequent impact on reducing poverty in the predominantly rural communities of the Makhuduthamaga Municipality in the Limpopo Province. It examines in detail the impact made by the NDA on community development through the disbursement of funds to poverty eradication projects. It also provides insights into the total number of the NDA-funded projects and the total proportion of the NDA-funds allocated to them in the Makhuduthamaga Municipality. The study further examines the nature of the NDA support regarding the design of the interventions, relevance, participation of communities, delivery modalities and sustainability. The effectiveness of the NDA-funded projects in community development is determined using employment opportunities created, income generated, skills transferred, assets accumulated, sustainability mechanisms and community empowerment indicators. Although all of these indicators are found to be tightly linked to the NDA’s mandate of poverty eradication, the extent to which the NDA has achieved its objectives in disbursing development funding earmarked for poverty eradication and strengthening of CSOs was yet to be determined, hence the relevance of this study. The study, therefore, highlights key issues regarding the types of employment opportunities created and levels of income emanating from the NDA-funded projects. The study further highlights various areas of community empowerment, financial and sustainability measures put in place for the sustainability of the NDA-funded projects. Using a combined method of research, that is the qualitative and quantitative case study approach, the study highlights in detail insights into the impact made by the NDA on community development, particularly on Makhuduthamaga Municipality. The study highlights that while the NDA made some strides in the creation of employment opportunities, income generation, food security and community empowerment, both financial and institutional sustainability proved to be a daunting challenge for the NDA-funded projects Tailor-made and accredited training interventions coupled with the introduction of market-driven products to the NDA-funded projects as opposed to heavy reliance on donor funding will go a long way in bringing about productivity and, most probably, positive balance sheets and the maximum impact on the NDA funded projects.

Bibliography: leaves 126-131.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität, Bonn, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [427]-467) and index.

<p>International aids, which target socio-development in developing and/or underdeveloped countries, are generally undertaken through projects. These projects, which are named as international development projects (IDPs), are financed mainly by multilateral and bilateral development agencies. However, management of these projects, which have less tangible objectives and deliverables, differ drastically from traditional industrial-commercial project types, that have more tangible objectives and deliverables. Moreover, the intensive investments on IDPs have not yielded the expected progress yet. Therefore, ensuring a successful IDP management through the satisfaction of factors that are critical for project success becomes crucial for both sponsoring bodies and receiving countries. Nevertheless, the current literature provides only a limited number of studies, such as studies conducted by Diallo and Thuiller (2004; 2005), Do and Tun (2008), on this subject area. Then, this study following previous studies by Diallo and Thuiller (2004; 2005), Do and Tun (2008), aims to contribute to this gap in the literature through investigating critical success factors (CSFs) for implementation phase of international development projects (IDPs) in Kazakhstan. Not only the applicability of Do and Tun’s (2008) CSFs for IDP implementation phase to IDPs being implemented in Kazakhstan are tested but also a new set of CSFs is generated for the implementation phase of IDPs being implemented in Kazakhstan.</p>

<p>A1302</p><p>Introduction: Peru is a country that is undergoing a process of democratic transformation. Local and international development agencies are established in Peru in order to support this process. In the last decade, there has been an encouragement for these agencies to use strategic management in their project work. The Logical Framework Approach (LFA) is an objective-oriented approach that has become widely employed for the planning, implementation and evaluation of development projects. The so called “vertical logic” of the LFA, rests on the assumption that project stakeholders can predetermine and agree on how certain activities will lead to the accomplishment of a hierarchy of formally stated goals.</p><p>Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the applicability of the vertical logic of LFA on development projects in Peru.</p><p>Theoretical framework: The theoretical framework of this paper is based on theories and arguments raised for and against Management By Objectives (MBO) from which the LFA originates. In addition, the special features of the development sector are discussed in regard to this rational goal approach.</p><p>Method: This paper has been carried out as a Minor Field Study (MFS) in Peru where representatives of local as well as international development agencies have been interviewed.</p><p>Empirical findings and Analysis: This paper highlights the special characteristics of development work in Peru. Projects are typically large with abstract, complex goals and multiple stakeholders. In addition, they are carried out in an environment typified by significant instability and change. These characteristics potentially make some of the features inherent in the vertical logic of LFA, such as strict planning and goal congruency, unrealistic. This potentially limits its usefulness as a strategic management tool.</p>

Abstract Problem: The desire for development in less privileged countries like Uganda has created the need for the privileged countries like Sweden to embark on external knowledge transfer through different projects, as one of the objectives to achieve development. However, some factors tend to limit the success of this external knowledge transfer process. Purpose: The purpose of this research is to find out the factors that lead to the barriers and limitations of knowledge transfer in development projects. Since there are differences in objectives between nonprofit and profit making projects, the research is also aimed at highlighting the extent to which the affecting factors hinder the achievement of objectives and goals. Method: Qualitative methods were used in this research. Telephone interviews were conducted after sending questionnaires to four respondents from different organizations that were actively involved in the projects. In order to have balanced results, two respondents each from Uganda and Sweden were interviewed. Trustworthiness and ethical issues were put into consideration while conducting the interviews, in a bid to create a desirable atmosphere for conducting the study. Result: External knowledge transfer is affected by factors like culture, individual factors, and knowledge management factors. Apart from the mentioned factors, research found that instead of organizational factors that would affect profit making projects to a greater extent, factors like the political will, ownership and local needs are the ones that affect development projects. Conclusion: The factors that affect the external knowledge transfer process are to a greater extent human, and are controllable. In development projects, the recipient country should identify the needs that would initiate the external knowledge transfer process. Most of the affecting factors would be controlled through building of relationships and strong ties, local ownership, and political considerations. All this put into consideration, external knowledge transfer between developed and developing countries stand a high chance to succeed.

International aids, which target socio-development in developing and/or underdeveloped countries, are generally undertaken through projects. These projects, which are named as international development projects (IDPs), are financed mainly by multilateral and bilateral development agencies. However, management of these projects, which have less tangible objectives and deliverables, differ drastically from traditional industrial-commercial project types, that have more tangible objectives and deliverables. Moreover, the intensive investments on IDPs have not yielded the expected progress yet. Therefore, ensuring a successful IDP management through the satisfaction of factors that are critical for project success becomes crucial for both sponsoring bodies and receiving countries. Nevertheless, the current literature provides only a limited number of studies, such as studies conducted by Diallo and Thuiller (2004; 2005), Do and Tun (2008), on this subject area. Then, this study following previous studies by Diallo and Thuiller (2004; 2005), Do and Tun (2008), aims to contribute to this gap in the literature through investigating critical success factors (CSFs) for implementation phase of international development projects (IDPs) in Kazakhstan. Not only the applicability of Do and Tun’s (2008) CSFs for IDP implementation phase to IDPs being implemented in Kazakhstan are tested but also a new set of CSFs is generated for the implementation phase of IDPs being implemented in Kazakhstan.

This study has discussed women&rsquo / s empowerment through development projects. For this aim, development thought and practices are questioned by establishing their relationship with modernization theory and (neo)liberal politics / the theories, which include women and development, are issued historically. From these theories, Women in Development (WID) Approach, Gender and Development (GAD) Approach, and Empowerment Approach are critically discussed. In the study three points are emphasized. Firstly, the theoretical approaches have developed by articulating to each other. Secondly, the approaches have lost their transformative and political characteristics in the usage of mainstream development theoricians and institutions. It is pointed that the inclusion of women into development by the mainstream is instrumentalized for the other development goals. Thirdly, although the language of GAD and Empowerment Approaches are adopted by the mainstream, at the discursive and practical level, the dominancy of WID continues. The development projects implemented in Turkey, in the period between 1960 and 1980 and post 1980 that are significant periods of the economic and political history of Turkey, are evaluated from gender perspective and their parallel characteristics to the discourse and practices in the world are indicated. It is seen that whereas the GAD and Empowerment Approach exist in the language of the development projects implemented in Turkey, they do not reflect to the practices. Within the light of these discussions, to be able to comprehend whether the development projects provide contribution to women&rsquo / s empowerment or not, two development projects that are implemented in Turkey are analyzed. The projects are assessed from the Empowerment Approach, as a current feminist approach in the development field, within the framework of power relations.

This thesis work describes the formulation of a Bayesian approach along with new tools to systematically reduce uncertainty in Research&Development (R&D) alternatives. During the initial stages of R&D many alternatives are considered and high uncertainty exists for all the alternatives. The ideal approach in addressing the many R&D alternatives is to find the one alternative which is stochastically dominant i.e. the alternative which is better in all possible scenarios of uncertainty. Often a stochastically dominant alternative does not exist. This leaves the R&D manager with two alternatives, either to make a selection based on user defined utility function or to gather more information in order to reduce uncertainty in the various alternatives. From the decision makers perspective the second alternative has more intrinsic value, since reduction of uncertainty will improve the confidence in the selection and further reduce the high downside risk involved with the decisions made under high uncertainty. The motivation for this work is derived from our preliminary work on the evaluation of biorefiney alternatives, which brought into limelight the key challenges and opportunities in the evaluation of R&D alternatives. The primary challenge in the evaluation of many R&D alternatives was the presence of uncertainty in the many unit operations within each and every alternative. Additionally, limited or non-existent experimental data made it infeasible to quantify the uncertainty and lead to inability to develop an even simple systematic strategy to reduce it. Moreover, even if the uncertainty could be quantified, the traditional approaches (scenario analysis or stochastic analysis), lacked the ability to evaluate the key group of uncertainty contributors. Lastly, the traditional design of experiment approaches focus towards reduction in uncertainty in the parameter estimates of the model, whereas what is required is a design of experiment approach which focuses on the decision (selection of the key alternative). In order to tackle all the above mentioned challenges a Bayesian framework along with two new tools is proposed. The Bayesian framework consists of three main steps: a. Quantification of uncertainty b. Evaluation of key uncertainty contributors c. Design of experiment strategies, focussed on decision making rather than the traditional parameter uncertainty reduction To quantify technical uncertainty using expert knowledge, existing elicitation methods in the literature (outside chemical engineering domain) are used. To illustrate the importance of quantifying technical uncertainty, a bio-refinery case study is considered. The case study is an alternative for producing ethanol as a value added product in a Kraft mill producing pulp from softwood. To produce ethanol, a hot water pre-extraction of hemi-cellulose is considered, prior to the pulping stage. Using this case study, the methodology to quantify technical uncertainty using experts' knowledge is demonstrated. To limit the cost of R&D investment for selection or rejection of an R&D alternative, it is essential to evaluate the key uncertainty contributors. Global sensitivity analysis (GSA) is a tool which can be used to evaluate the key uncertainties. But quite often global sensitivity analysis fails to differentiate between the uncertainties and assigns them equal global sensitivity index. To counter this failing of GSA, a new method conditional global sensitivity (c-GSA) is presented, which is able to differentiate between the uncertainties even when GSA fails to do so. To demonstrate the value of c-GSA many small examples are presented. The third and the last key method in the Bayesian framework is the decision oriented design of experiment. Traditional 'Design of Experiment' (DOE) approaches focus on minimization of parameter error variance. In this work, a new "decision-oriented" DOE approach is proposed that takes into account how the generated data, and subsequently, the model developed based on them will be used in decision making. By doing so, the parameter variances get distributed in a manner such that its adverse impact on the targeted decision making is minimal. Results show that the new decision-oriented DOE approach significantly outperforms the standard D-optimal design approach. The new design method should be a valuable tool when experiments are conducted for the purpose of making R&D decisions. Finally, to demonstrate the importance of the overall Bayesian framework a bio-refinery case study is considered. The case study consists of the alternative to introduce a hemi-cellulose pre-extraction stage prior to pulping in a thermo-mechanical pulp mill. Application of the Bayesian framework to address this alternative, results in significant improvement in the prediction of the true potential value of the alternative.