Lack of appropriate level of beneficiary involvement during the project lifecycle may lead to mismatch between the project output and needs of beneficiaries. Therefore, involving beneficiaries in the project helps to assure that the Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) provide the right solution to needs of beneficiaries as well as sustaining project results. Although beneficiary involvement is useful, the challenge is to determine how and when to involve beneficiaries in the project.    The purpose of this study is to improve the process of managing beneficiary involvement in NGOs. To achieve this, a review of the existing literature was done to have an initial understanding of beneficiary involvement. During our literature review, we identified six progressive levels of involvement which include: information sharing, listening and learning, joint assessment, shared decision-making, collaboration and empowerment.  Based on this literature review, we suggested a framework for managing beneficiary involvement.   In addition, we conducted a multiple case study and collected data from five different cases through interviews. Our respondents were professionals with several years of experience in developing and implementing development projects which are aimed at improving the livelihood of vulnerable communities. Through the analysis of the empirical findings, we got new insights on how the process of beneficiary involvement is managed. We identified four additional levels of beneficiary involvement within the project cycle. These include incentive system, peer facilitators, group forming, and cost sharing. The study also reveals the factors that affect beneficiary involvement, such as cultural context and, donors’ influence and requirements. We also highlighted that the appropriate level of beneficiary involvement should be chosen depending on the project context. Regardless of these factors, the research findings show that beneficiary involvement creates a sense of ownership, enhances project outcome and is useful in sustaining a project’s results in the long term. Therefore, NGOs should endeavour to involve beneficiaries as much as possible to ensure that the projects being implemented are addressing community needs.

This thesis deals with the assessment of the effectiveness of selected bilateral projects of Czech official development assistance. Main purpose is to assess how well were the projects prepared and what were their results and eventual impacts. On the basis of aid effectiveness literature and manuals and handbooks for project management some main recommended principles and components of the ideal project design were specified. These principles and components were confronted with the reality of selected Czech development projects, the way these projects were design and with results they brought. These information were gathered by undertaking an own survey among projects leaders and through analysis of existing evaluation reports. In general, the design of considered projects has not been found sufficiently coherent with the recommended principles. Projects' results have not been as good as was expected. Although many of the considered principles had already been well known a long time before the evaluated projects were implemented, it has to be noted that there were no common standards formally declared in the Czechia in the time when these projects were formulated and implemented. Key words: development cooperation, aid effectiveness, project cycle management, Czechia

In 1992, the Government of Botswana appointed a National Commission to review the education system and advise how it could promote human resource development to address the country’s socio-economic challenges. The Commission identified the need to diversify the labour market and shift towards occupational groupings based on skills, attitudes and competence. However, fifteen years on, Botswana’s dependence on diamond mining, coupled with immigration from neighbouring countries and a mismatch of skills supply and demand has resulted in a pool of labour exceeding the number of jobs available. Access, opportunity and social inclusion therefore represent major challenges, since large numbers of under and un-utilised people imply a heavy socioeconomic burden. This thesis employed a Problem Based Methodology within the framework of a Project Cycle Management approach to develop a project for an Adult Basic Vocational Education and Training (ABVET) programme as a contribution towards the development of human and social capital in Botswana.

There are more or less 900 000 farm workers in South Africa. Among these approximately 600 000 are permanently employed, while the rest are seasonal workers. It is estimated that six to seven million people are currently living on farms, which implies that up to seven people are dependent on the wages of a single farm worker. In order to improve the situation of farm workers, the Department of Labour implemented the minimum wage system for farm workers on 1 March 2003. The argument is posed, however, that many farm workers would lose their jobs because of the sectoral stipulations. Unemployment has far-reaching consequences. Farm workers who have lived on farms before, have to resettle and adapt to new social structures, such as community structures and new codes of conduct. In order to adapt to social change, it is argued that training agencies could use project management as a suitable management tool to launch empowering interventions. The analysis of the social conditions in which farm workers find themselves ought to be undertaken on the basis of a specific theory on changes. From this perspective certain theories of social change have been identified. Empowerment is discussed as a process of change. This means an increase in influence and control by acquiring knowledge and skills by means of the necessary training. While theorists on conflict view conflict as the main driving force in change, empowerment is considered to be the process by means of which change can be managed effectively. For the rest the principles of project management are discussed to show that the project cycle is based on project management principles. If project management principles and the project cycle are applied as yardsticks during an empowerment project, the chances of being successful will be much better than when launching an unstructured and unplanned project. The most important conclusion to be made from this research is that the management of change by means of empowerment projects is of decisive importance to unemployed farm workers. Empowerment projects for unemployed farm workers are the first steps in the direction of effective management of social change and sustainable development in South Africa. / Thesis (M. Ontwikkeling en Bestuur)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2005.

There are more or less 900 000 farm workers in South Africa. Among these approximately 600 000 are permanently employed, while the rest are seasonal workers. It is estimated that six to seven million people are currently living on farms, which implies that up to seven people are dependent on the wages of a single farm worker. In order to improve the situation of farm workers, the Department of Labour implemented the minimum wage system for farm workers on 1 March 2003. The argument is posed, however, that many farm workers would lose their jobs because of the sectoral stipulations. Unemployment has far-reaching consequences. Farm workers who have lived on farms before, have to resettle and adapt to new social structures, such as community structures and new codes of conduct. In order to adapt to social change, it is argued that training agencies could use project management as a suitable management tool to launch empowering interventions. The analysis of the social conditions in which farm workers find themselves ought to be undertaken on the basis of a specific theory on changes. From this perspective certain theories of social change have been identified. Empowerment is discussed as a process of change. This means an increase in influence and control by acquiring knowledge and skills by means of the necessary training. While theorists on conflict view conflict as the main driving force in change, empowerment is considered to be the process by means of which change can be managed effectively. For the rest the principles of project management are discussed to show that the project cycle is based on project management principles. If project management principles and the project cycle are applied as yardsticks during an empowerment project, the chances of being successful will be much better than when launching an unstructured and unplanned project. The most important conclusion to be made from this research is that the management of change by means of empowerment projects is of decisive importance to unemployed farm workers. Empowerment projects for unemployed farm workers are the first steps in the direction of effective management of social change and sustainable development in South Africa. / Thesis (M. Ontwikkeling en Bestuur)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2005.

Yes / This paper is one in a series of working papers prepared under a research project on Goodbye to Projects? The Institutional Impacts of a Livelihood Approach on Projects and Project Cycle Management. This is a collaborative project between the Bradford Centre for International Centre for Development (BCID) with the Economic and Policy Research Centre (EPRC), Uganda; Khanya ¿ managing rural change, South Africa; and, the Institute for Development Management (IDM), Tanzania. The project is supported by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) under their Economic and Social Research Programme (ESCOR). / Department for International Development

The assistance from the EU funds is a contribution to Lithuanian economic development, upturn in the economy, better quality of life and it plays the significant role for the environmental protection. The project is the main measure for using the EU support. The EU financed projects management has a very complicated management mechanism, which involves a number of national and other interested authorities, as well as fulfils a number of necessary procedures. The management system efficiency of the water sector projects financed by the EU Cohesion fund is the research object in this work. The aim of this work consists of the project cycle analysis through the management system. There were identified significant problems in the each stage of the project cycle as well as evaluated administration capabilities of the EU support managed institutions and project final beneficiaries. There were presented proposals for the EU Cohesion fund water sector projects management system efficiency increasement.

The aim of the present thesis is to draw a complex picture of the project cycle in the international development cooperation of the Czech Republic and to focus on the matter of the practical implementation of the project cycle in the case of a grant. The theoretical part of the thesis studies the character of the foreign development cooperation policy of the Czech Republic and describes the theory of its project cycle. The thesis describes the individual phases of the project cycle, explains their purpose, notices the roles of all stakeholders and describes the required project documentation. The practical part of the thesis deals with a particular case study. The study presents a description of the project based of an analysis of its project documentation, compares the form of the project cycle implementation with the theory described in the first part and suggests solutions leading to increasing the project cycle's effectiveness in the implementation of future development interventions.

Management of the Faculty of Humanities, Charles University considers opening a pre-school child care facility in a new seat of the faculty. The intention of this diploma work is to map and analyze legal forms of pre-school child care, needs of parents - employees and students of the faculty, and financial sources from which such facility could be funded; and then on the base of the analysis to design a solution suitable for the faculty. The solution has a form of a project plan, which, when approved, could be worked up and realized. Data needed for the project plan were gathered via analysis of documents, i.e. legal rules and web pages, and a questionnaire among employees and students of the faculty. According to the survey and in the case of available sufficient financial coverage, it would be ideal to establish at the faculty a facility with two children groups, each consisting of 15 children and a special children area of a 12 children capacity.

Die Serikultur, Produktion und Verarbeitung von Seide durch Ernährung der Seidenraupen mit Maulbeerblättern, hat ihren Ursprung in China. Von dort aus breitete sie sich jedoch in vielen anderen Ländern aus. Die Arbeit konzentriert sich auf einen Fall Indonesiens, analysiert die Prinzipien des Projektzyklus'' des BSA-Projekts in Zentral-Java, um durch Verknüpfung von induktiver und deduktiver wissenschaftlicher Vorgehensweise zu ermitteln, wie ein Projekt praktisch hinsichtlich grundlegender Methoden und ihrer Generalisierbarkeit analysiert werden kann. Ziele der Arbeit sind zunächst die Darlegung der Implementierung der Entwicklungsziele in einem konkreten Fall. Weiteres Ziel ist die Veranschaulichung der Ergebnisse einer Investitionsanalyse, um auf der Basis aller durchgeführten Analysen die Rolle der Serikultur als Annäherung zum Ziel der potentiellen Cash-Gewinnung und Armutsreduzierung in Zentral-Java zu beurteilen. Es wurde eine Investitionsanalyse und Sensitivitätsanalyse nach drei unterschiedlich Betriebsgrößen erstellt. Um einen Strategieplan zu entwickeln, wurde eine Regressionsanalyse anhand einer Evaluierung der Maulbeersorten Morus alba L. (Ma), Morus cathayana (Mc) and Morus multicaulis (Mm) und der optimalen Frequenz der Fütterung der Seidenraupen unternommen. Die institutionelle Organisationsleistung wurde anhand einer SWOT-Analyse (Strengths; Weaknesses; Opportunities; Threats) ausgewertet. Die sich daraus ergebenden Schlussfolgerungen wurden im Hinblick auf die zukunftsfähigen Unternehmungen im Projekt BSA dargestellt. / Sericulture, the production and processing of natural silk from silkworms feeding on mulberry leaves has its origin in China, but has spread to many other countries. This study focuses on Indonesia, analyses the principles of the project cycle of sericulture project in Central Java to show in a combination of inductive and deductive scientific procedure how a very practical project can be analysed for its basic methods and generalisability. The objectives of the study are to follow through the implementation of development goals for a concrete example; to demonstrate the consequences of an investment analysis, to discuss on the basis of all the analyses carried out the potential role of sericulture as an approach to cash generation and poverty alleviation in Central Java. Investment analysis and sensitivity analysis for different farm size categories were carried out. In order to develop strategic plan, a regression analysis was undertaken to evaluate the mulberry varieties Morus. alba L (Ma), Morus cathayana (Mc) and Morus multicaulis (Mm) and the best frequency of feeding on silk production. The institutional performance was subjected to a Strength Weakness Opportunity Threat (SWOT)-Analysis. Emerging conclusions are presented with a view to their future application to the project at Banyumas Sutera Alam.