This dissertation outlines a comprehensive study about Zambezia Agricultural Development Project Phase 2 (ZADP 2). It examines its impact and its relationship to the targeted communities. The study analyses development in the targeted areas and presents an outline of the activities, its conceptual basis, its approaches and its goals. It explores the impact of poverty alleviation and livelihoods between households and their strategies to overcome the food insecurity through on-farm and off-farm income generation. ZADP 2 applied several strategies to help the communities in their struggle against poverty and vulnerability. It was assumed that rural people do not improve their surplus because of the backward technology they use in their farming. To resolve this problem ZADP 2 realized that improved seeds would enable rural people to deal with improved agriculture through an increase in agricultural output, which would increase the quality of life of many. This led to the introduction of improved seeds, which were multiplied on the peasants' farms. It also introduced livestock restocking component. Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) is an approach put in place in order to involve the targeted communities to actively participate in development process aimed at them. It is recognized in this dissertation that Participatory Rural Appraisal and problem-solving are crucial to successful outcomes, and that, as a result, PRA approach is a fundamental instrument in motivating the targeted people to be fully involved in prioritising their problems and needs. This dissertation also remarks that PRA can succeed if development practitioners are committed to local problem-solving by not overturning real local needs and not disregarding the local knowledge. Several African and international development models were reviewed in order to see how the applied development has been undertaken and how it can be applied in Mozambique. This dissertation shows that the assumptions held during the ZADP's implementation that all stakeholders involved such as facilitators, livestock promoters, the government and the smallholders would guarantee the sustainability of the project were merely an assumption. It moves on to show that in order to contribute to poverty alleviation, the ZADP 2 should be long-term rather than short-term. / Thesis (M.Dev.Studies)-University of Natal, Durban, 2003.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / The idea that the development of people's capabilities lies at the heart of all community and social development has gained support internationally over the past decades. This reflects a significant shift in community and society development thinking, addressing the broad spectrum of social upliftment, human rights and poverty alleviation needs that gained ground during the different historic economic phases of the past two centuries. Historically development thinking progressed from a centralised, structured and systemic approach as, for example, espoused by Adam Smith and Karl Marx, to Maynard Keynes’s more people-centred approach, and more specifically the Capability Approach advanced by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. In the world of liberal democratic capitalism, the mainstream view of development holds that civil society is a key role player in both deepening democracy and enhancing forms of development through various programmes and practices. In turn, the professionalised Non-Governmental Organisations sector, as opposed to more localised community-based organisations or social movements, tends to receive most donor funding to deliver high impact interventions. In sum, the development of society’s capabilities relies significantly on NGOs to deliver capability enhancing services to the needy in society. A key consideration in development debates has been how to efficiently operationalise the development of capability enhancing activities based in the context of the Capability Approach, the focus of my study. This study recognises that NGOs are major delivery agents of development work, both in South Africa and internationally. Their operations focus on delivering quality impact on their beneficiary communities, and on raising funds to sustain their operations. The current methods to assess the impact of NGO operations, both by NGOs and their donors, primarily address past performance of the organisation in delivering external programmes as measured against the objectives stated in NGO concept and roll-out proposal documents. These assessments are customised for every NGO, making it impossible to standardise assessments for comparative and rating purposes and focus on external delivery. When problems are uncovered, this approach results in proposing corrective recommendations during or after completion of a funding round. This study argues that a gap exists in techniques to assess NGO internal performance to improve external delivery before and during NGO operations. Furthermore, it will contribute to assessing the merits of NGOs' internal capacity to deliver on the promises made in funding proposals - before and during NGO operations. In practice the assessment of an NGO for funding purposes currently consists of consideration of a project proposal in the form of a concept and roll-out document of what the organisation intends to achieve, accompanied by historic record data. The assessment of project roll-out focuses on the outputs claimed in the proposal document without paying too much attention to the NGOs internal organisational culture and capacity which is the key to successful external service delivery. In addressing this two part gap of incomplete assessment techniques and overlooked key internal indicators, the study demonstrates, via a series of ten case-studies, that a direct causal relationship exists between the internal organisational capabilities of an NGO, including the motivation, skills and culture of its staff, and its delivery on its external programmes. In essence, an organisation’s internal capabilities will impact directly on the organisation’s ability to deliver externally on its programmes. In spite of this, no standardised organisational capability assessment is used by NGOs or grantmakers, and to date no set of instruments exists to measure the internal capabilities of NGOs. The study sets out to address this gap by offering a methodology for the systemic assessment of internal NGO capabilities, and includes its operationalisation in a toolkit of instruments to measure these capabilities. The instruments presented enable the quantifying of qualitative staff motivational data to develop comparable baseline results between NGOs assessed, thereby presenting qualitative data in a quantitative form that enables a comparison between NGOs’ performances. This capacity addresses a significant shortcoming in the assessment of NGO performance based on purely qualitative assessment that is the current norm, not enabling a measurement against a standardised baseline for NGO performance. In contrast the validity and reliability of the proposed instruments are demonstrated through its application to ten real-world case studies drawn from the SEEDS Consortium. The system proposed in this study is based on Nel and Beudeker's commercial change management and organisational performance improvement model. Nel developed his system over a period of some twenty years whilst working for the then Arthur Andersen Consulting and subsequently as a private change management consultant focusing on the development of high performance organisations, and it has been administered in more than 3000 companies. This model uses key performance indicators, using quantitative methods to develop a standardised internal capability profile for a business based on qualitative data. This study expands on and makes innovative changes in developing new NGO specific metrics to substantially refine Nel's model and thus provides an instrument for measuring the capability profile of NGOs. The modifications were necessitated as Nel's model was designed for commercial change management applications presupposing that all governance considerations are in place and that the business is a running medium or large concern. Nel's proven commercial change management system does not make provision for NGO specific criteria that are critical indicators for both internal NGO performance assessment and for grant-maker capability assessments. The areas added to the instrument relate to internal NGO specific considerations such as internal governance, management, monitoring and evaluation processes that are standard and legislated compliance issues in commercial concerns. This goes beyond the requirements for a substantial commercial concern to include key internal organisation indicators that reflect the opinion of the staff, the people who deliver on the NGO's objectives. As staff are the people who directly impact on the NGO's output, the system does not only rely on the opinion of the CEO of the NGO or the fundraising staff, i.e. the "promise-makers", alone. In order to assess the value of the proposed method, and more specifically the internal capability toolkit, the measuring instruments were administered to the CEOs and staff of ten NGOs/NGO equivalent projects at universities. The responses were quantified and confirmed that in at least ten of these cases, there is a 95% correlation between internal organisational capability and external performance output, both positive and negative. The results also enabled the creation of a baseline internal capability profile for NGOs. Ten international grant-makers from OECD embassies were also interviewed on current methods of assessing funding applications, indicating a 62% confidence level in current systems and an 84% confidence level in the proposed internal organisational capability assessment method. This serves as an indicator of external delivery on promises and to guide internal change interventions to optimise output. This approach reflects the potential value of a shift in assessment thinking beyond a systems approach towards a people-centred approach that focusses on the measurement and development of the organisation and its staff's internal capabilities to meet and exceed its external delivery objectives. My research confirms that a focus on NGO internal organisational capabilities directly reflects the capability levels of staff to deliver externally. The output is a new, standardised, replicable and defendable methodology and toolkit of instruments for assessing an NGO’s current and future operational performance. The toolkit should also provide for the objective comparison of the performance of NGOs and thus be of great use for future grant-maker decision-making. It will also complement existing assessment techniques by focusing on the internal people motivation and capability issues of an NGO. Furthermore, the study provides a method to support organisational self-improvement efforts and grant-making efficiency that can be used in pre-project and during project capability assessment. This goes beyond the more prevalent post-project systemic and summative evaluation methods. In conclusion, the proposed method and toolkit can make a significant contribution to the efficiency of NGOs as the key role-players in enabling the delivery of capability development of communities and societies. All the elements described collectively point to a practical way to operationalise the Capability Approach, an aspect criticised as a weakness in Amartya Sen's work.

The field of nonprofit management education is nascent and little of the research has extended into the area of leadership as a requisite competency for nonprofit leaders. Likewise, the research on leadership has not been widely extended to the nonprofit sector. Prior research suggests a broad range of competencies are necessary to lead in the dynamic, complex environment of nonprofits, the exercise of which differs from that in the for-profit sector. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015 / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

This interdisciplinary thesis has two principal objectives: to measure the relative efficiency of South Africa's public universities between 1994-97 and to provide explanations for levels of efficiency observed. Two methods Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and analytical review - were used to measure relative efficiency and to attempt to explain efficiency amongst the ten universities for which comparable data were available, covering the years 1994 to 1997. Three DEA models academic, research and consolidated - were estimated and this analysis was supplemented by the analytical review method. which confirmed the results from the DEA computations. Institutions were grouped according to their relative efficiency measures within three suggested apparent levels of efficiency. An attempt was made to explain efficiency across various dimensions and the issue of quality was also addressed. Finally, some benchmarks of 'best practice' for the university sector were suggested. These findings have important implications for policy in higher education, particularly in respect of university rationalisation and governance. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2000.

Thesis (MEng)-- Stellenbosch University, 2013. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Performance management systems are integral to many organisations. On all levels of management such performance measurements are used to drive a desired behaviour and business units, departments, as well as individuals are rewarded for meeting or exceeding set targets. In large silo-structured organisations, divisions are particularly focused on their own targets and responsibilities. This may result in a diminished view of the effect their strategies and processes may have on overall stakeholder value. These divisions execute strategies to enhance the achievement of their own goal. The execution of these strategies sometimes hampers other divisions in meeting their goals. The net effect of this hampering may result in reduced stakeholder value. A mechanism is needed through which organisational divisions can evaluate the systemic environment, in order to identify hampering processes. The case may be that their processes are hampering other divisions, or that their processes as such are being hampered. The main objective of this research study was to develop such a mechanism. This mechanism emerged through a framework which can be used during investigations of hampering processes. Such investigation is conducted by following six predefined steps to guide the investigator in identifying the hampering factors. This framework was developed by combining primarily three disciplines: Systems thinking, Performance evaluation and Supplier perceived value. The evaluation framework was validated through three case studies. In all of the cases the framework delivered the expected result. It is thus concluded that organisations can apply the framework to help identify systemic environmental factors that may hamper business processes. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Prestasiebestuurstelsels maak ʼn integrale deel uit van die meeste organisasies. Prestasiebeoordeling word op alle vlakke van bestuur ingespan om die verlangde gedrag aan te moedig. Sake-eenhede, departemente en individue word vergoed indien hulle die gestelde doelwitte haal of oorskry. In groot silo-gedrewe organisasies is afdelings grootliks gefokus op hulle eie verantwoordelikhede en om hulle eie doelwitte te bereik. Gevolglik verminder dit soms die uitwerking wat die uitkomste van hulle strategieë en prosesse het op die belanghebbendes van die organisasie. Hierdie afdelings voer dus strategieë uit om hulle eie doelwitte te behaal. Soms verhinder hierdie strategieë ander afdelings om hulle doelwitte te bereik. Die basiese effek hiervan kan wees dat minder waarde aan die belanghebbendes deurgegee word. ‘n Organisasie het dus ʼn meganisme nodig om die sistemiese omgewing mee te evalueer en sodoende prosesse te identifiseer wat belemmer is of wat belemmering kan veroorsaak. Die hoofdoel van hierdie navorsingstudie was om so ʼn meganisme te ontwikkel. Hierdie meganisme het na vore gekom in ʼn raamwerk wat tydens ondersoeke gebruik kan word om belemmering te identifiseer. Die raamwerk is ontwikkel deur hoofsaaklik drie dissiplines in gedagte te hou: Sistemiese Benadering, Prestasie-beoordeling en die Begrip van verskafferwaarde. Die raamwerk is aan die hand van drie gevallestudies getoets en in al drie gevalle het die raamwerk die verwagte resultate opgelewer. Die gevolgtrekking is dus gemaak dat organisasies wel die raamwerk kan toegepas kan om die sistemiese omgewing te evalueer en sodoende die belemmering van prosesse op mikrovlak uit te wys.

This thesis deals with the efficiency of the measures, which are implemented within the projects supported by the European Social Fund and are aimed at the endangered groups of parents (mostly women) on the labour market. The theoretical part introduces the concept of labour market segmentation, theory of human and social capital and finally outlines labour market policies within the framework of the EU and the Czech Republic. Empirical research uses techniques of interviews and a questionnaire in order to evaluate the implementation of the measures and targeting of the funds towards the needs of this specific group of women which is under a long term threat on the labour market. The contribution of this thesis is primarily in a detailed study on the efficiency of the system of subsidies in one part of the support from the ESF from the perspective of non-profit organizations. Key words: Labour market, European Social Fund, evaluation, non-profit organizations, Prague

Food insecurity and chronic hunger are devastating global problems currently facing more than a billion people. There are many actors involved in the response to stomp out world hunger, including International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs). These INGOs, however, work in tumultuous environments with limited resources. This dissertation examines the INGOs involved in the food security dilemma (N=51) to investigate how they use resources to reach hungry populations. It is hypothesized INGOs use a mix of material resources and social capital to enhance their organizational performance. However, little is known about the impact these resources have on reaching communities in need. Social network analysis is used to examine the connections between and among INGOs to create a measure of organizational social capital. In addition, material resources, such as human resources, revenue and volunteers are used to examine an organization's material capacity. Material and social resources are examined through a moderated regression analysis to evaluate how they interact, and if the promotion of both types of resources is beneficial to the INGOs and the communities they serve. With data from over 1186 projects globally, results are presented regarding the effectiveness of social capital and material resources in reaching the world's "bottom billion."

Thesis (MA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2002. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This is a study of the growmg importance of Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) in global governance. Global governance is defined as a complex and dynamic process that deals with issues that go beyond the capacity of national governments, that is distinguished from global government because of an absence of a central authority that can ensure compliance and the presence of a wide range of actors including non-state actors. The theory of Complex Multilateralism captures the role of NGOs and NGO coalitions well. Using this theory as a theoretical framework, this study focuses on two recent transnational NGO campaigns (The International Campaign to Ban Landmines [fCBL) and the NGOs against Arms Trade) to determine why some NGO campaigns are more successful than others. The theory of Complex Multilateralism in combination with extensive information on different types of NGOs and their activities on national and international levels, makes it possible to identify criteria that can determine success. These criteria are: a realistic goal, the issue area (type, number, salience and techniques used to frame the issue), government and intergovernmental organisation (lGO) commitment, access to IGOs, extensive expertise, effective use of the media, effective use of information technology, activity variance, leadership, persuasive and influential spokespersons, membership and funds. These criteria are described, defined and then applied to the above-mentioned transnational NGO campaigns. The main finding was that the ICBL was the more successful of the two campaigns because it had more of the criteria for success. In this case the most important reasons for success is: a realistic goal, the focus on a single issue and the effective framing of the issue, significant government commitment as well as good leadership. Although, the criteria that were developed can hardly be universalised, they do provide a useful starting point for further research into this important field in International Studies. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie werkstuk bestudeer die toenemende belangrikheid van Nie-Regerings Organisasies (NROs) in "global governance" Laasgenoemde konsep word gedefinieer as 'n komplekse en dinamiese proses wat behels die hantering van vraagstukke wat buite die beheer is van 'n enkele staat, wat onderskei word van 'n wereld regering as gevolg van die afwesigheid van sentrale gesag en die aanwesigheid van 'n wye reeks van akteurs of rolbekleers insluitente nie-staatlike rolbekleers. Komplekse Multilateralisme bied 'n goeie teoretiese begrip van die rol van NROs en NRO koalisies in hierdie proses. Hierdie studie maak gebruik van Komplekse Multilateralisme as 'n teoretiese raamwerk om te fokus op twee onlangse transnasionale NRO veldtogte ( Die internasionale veldtog om landmyne te verban en die NROs teen wapenhandel) en sodoende te bepaal hoekom sekere NRO veldtogte meer geslaag is as ander. Reedsgenoemde teorie in kombinasie met inligting oor verskillende tipes NROs en hul aktiwiteite op nasionale en internasionale vlakke maak dit moontlik om kriteria vir 'n suksesvolle NRO veldtog te identifiseer. Hierdie kriteria bestaan uit die volgende: 'n realistiese doel, die aard van die vraagstuk (tipe, hoeveelheid, "salience", en tegnieke wat gebruik is om die vraagstuk te formuleer, toewyding van regerings en tussen-regerings-organisasies, toegang tot tussenregerings -organisasies, veelsydige kundigheid, effektiewe gebruik van die media, effektiewe gebruik van inligtingstegnologie, verskeidenheid van aktiwiteite, leierskap, oorredende en invloedryke segspersone, lidmaatskap en fondse. Die bevinding is dat die internasionale veldtog om landmyne te verban die meer geslaagde veldtog is. Die belangriskste redes hiervoor is: 'n realistiese doel, die fokus op enkele vraagstukke en die effektiewe formulering van die vraagstuk, die toegewydheid van baie regerings, sowel as goeie leierskap. Alhoewel die kriteria wat in die studie ontwikkel is nie veralgemeen kan word nie dien dit as 'n nuttige basis vir vedere navorsing oor hierdie belangrike tema in die veld van Internasionale Studie.

In rural China, when approaching the end of nine-year compulsory schooling, students face four equally popular post-compulsory education decisions (PCED): dropout, work after graduation, vocational high school, and academic high school. The literature tends to simply treat PCED as dichotomous (continue vs. leave school), and there is a geographical research imbalance favoring inner China. An increasing volume of studies also suggest that traditionally recognized factors like socioeconomic status and academic performance are not as influential as before in advancing the schooling. People have started to look at socio-emotional support, such as the promotion of self-discipline and confidence. At present, it is grassroots NGOs (GNGO) who take the major responsibility for providing this type of support in rural China, and there is rare discussion of achievements, let alone evaluation of practical impact. Given the existing problems, the key research questions of this study are: (1) What are the current PCED determinants for China’s rural students? More specifically, what are the PCED determinants for lower secondary students in rural Guangdong, a coastal province? (2) How can GNGO intervention affect PCED by boosting certain subjective factor(s)? The tested treatment is the Lighthouse program, whose one-month summer camp aims to improve student attitudes towards their life, such as making them more confident, organized, and social. The key to answering the first question is to explore a comprehensive list of variables applying to local populations, which cannot be achieved simply through a literature review. When answering the second question, since Lighthouse participation is voluntary, it is important to deal with selection bias, to ensure that any identified Lighthouse impact results from its activities rather than the student characteristics that lead to their participation. To overcome these methodological challenges, I first employed the Delphi approach. Delphi is an iterative process used to collect and distill the judgments of experts using a series of questionnaires interspersed with feedback. It is used to identify possible PCED determinants that are missing in the literature, to determine factors that lead to Lighthouse participation, and to collect discussions about both PCED determinants and GNGO intervention. Based on the Delphi results and literature, I then designed five questionnaires for students, households, teachers, principals, and Lighthouse volunteers. In Jun-Oct 2012, I led seven research assistants in conducting two waves of surveys in eight towns, building a firsthand dataset of 6298 valid observations with imputations. Multinomial logit was used to investigate PCED determinants. It predicted the PCED probabilities, given nine groups of independent variables. Propensity score matching was used to evaluate the program impact. It calculates the treatment propensity for each student based on their characteristics, so the Lighthouse impact can be compared between treated and untreated students of similar treatment propensity. Tests of robustness and heterogeneity were conducted after both methods. Qualitative materials collected from Delphi and on-site interviews were used to explore the causal mechanism. I use relative risk ratios to report the findings of PCED determinants. The findings challenge the existing literature regarding the roles of gender and parental background, further extend knowledge of monetary reward/cost and subjective factors, and confirm new possible determinants that have seldom been investigated in literature. The main model passes the robustness check, and there exist explainable heterogeneity effects. It is notable that education aspiration stands out as a strong PCED determinant, ceteris paribus. Propensity score matching shows that the Lighthouse program mainly affects PCED by boosting educational aspiration for students with high academic performance, although that impact fades gradually if there is no follow-up service. The novelty of the program to local people, volunteer team morale, and volunteer acceptance of Lighthouse training could help explain why increases in aspiration varied across sites. The role-model effect might explain why the increase in aspiration exists, as there are signs that the students tried to copy the volunteer’s schooling decision once trust was built. This study makes three major contributions. It can be translated into comprehensive advocacy for education policies related to PCED, such as dropout prevention and the promotion of VHS. It may also suggest the value of, or at least the required improvement to, China’s educational GNGOs, which are young and remain confined by governmental regulations. Last but not least, this is a unique showcase of how qualitative-quantitative sequential mixed-method works better in exploratory analyses. The study has limitations in timing, missing data, external validity, implementation of research methods, and heavy rely on self-reported questionnaires, but they can be largely eliminated by conducting proper further studies.

Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) have occupied a prominent role in the development of rural Zimbabwe since the time of its independence in 1980. NGO work in Zimbabwe currently takes place within the context of a tense and fluid political climate, an economy struggling to recover from crisis, international skepticism toward long-term donor investment in development, and global expectations about the methodologies and accountability measures carried out in intervention-based development work. In the light of the participatory methodologies and empowerment-based development frameworks that dominate the current global expectations for work within the NGO sector, this thesis focuses on the work of one particular NGO working in Zimbabwe, namely, World Vision. The main objective of the thesis is to understand and explain the participatory methods, accountability and effectiveness of World Vision in Zimbabwe (with particular reference to Umzingwane District) and, in doing so, to deepen the theoretical understanding of NGOs as constituting a particular organizational form. World Vision is a large-scale international NGO that has a pronounced presence in Zimbabwe and it is specifically active in Umzingwane District in Matabeleland South Province. The thesis argues that NGOs exist within a complex and tense condition entailing continuous responses to pressures from donors and states that structure their survival. Ultimately, in maneuvering through such pressures, NGOs tend to choose directions which best enable their own sustainability, often at the cost of the deep participatory forms that may heighten the legitimacy of their roles. World Vision Zimbabwe responds to donor trends, national and local expectations of the state and its own organizational expectations by building local government capacity in order to maintain the longevity and measureable outputs of its projects. In doing so, it redefines the concept of participation in pursuing efficient and practical approaches to ‘getting things done’. This compromises deep participatory methodologies and, in essence, alters the practices involved in participatory forms in order to maintain World Vision’s own organizational sustainability and presence in Zimbabwe.