Genuine Development Research Articles

La misma historia de siempre: reproducción y reciclaje del discurso dominante en la investigación sobre la educación física de las chicas

Our purpose in this paper is to show how a particular narrative, what we call here ‘the same old story’, about girls and physical education is maintained and reproduced by many of the researchers who study this topic, and by sections of the media who report on some of this research. We believe we need to understand the extent of the contribution researchers of girls and physical education make to the same old story if we are to contribute to a process of bringing about change for the better for all girls. First of all, we summarise the collective knowledge from social, pedagogical and historical research on girls and physical education overviewed by Flintoff and Scraton in 2006, before going on to examine some of the research literature post-2006 that we think reproduces the same old story in a variety of ways. Next we present a case study of the treatment of the report of a large-scale study in England by the media to show not only that newspapers and other media outlets are parasitic upon research but that they also invariably simplify, sensationalise and misrepresent the findings of studies of girls and physical education. We conclude that this topic of study, like the broader field of physical education and sport pedagogy, is marred by poor citation practices and a consequent general lack of systematic building on previously published studies. Moreover, we suggest that there appear to be few programmes of research and a marked absence of a broader programme of interlocking research studies that could produce genuine developments in practice. Finally, we propose that a large part of a shared mission for this field of inquiry is that it must become more focused on how we go about improving the situation for girls in physical education, building on what we already know from activist studies and other student-centred interventions.

Local Government and Rural Infrastructural Delivery in Nigeria

In the contemporary world today, the need to decentralize administration to facilitate efficiency, effectiveness and good governance has become the rule rather than the exception. Both developed and developing countries ensure that services are delivered to the people at the grassroots. It is no doubt that these services are delivered via a structure put in place by these countries, which are given different names. In Nigeria, it is called local government. Larger percentage of people in Nigeria live in the rural areas, where most of the local foods are produced, and bulk of votes also reside. It is however unfortunate that larger percentage of local government in Nigeria lack basic rural infrastructure needed to engender development. It is against this background that this paper assessed the level of rural infrastructure at the grassroots level with a view to identify the problems militating infrastructural development. The paper relied on both primary and secondary data to source its data. The paper submitted that for genuine development to take place in the rural areas necessary infrastructure must be put in place.

Business as a development agent: evidence of possibility and improbability

An emphasis on making markets work for the poor has thrust companies into the role of ‘development agents’ – organisations that consciously seek to deliver outcomes that contribute to international development goals. This paper examines what business as a development agent means in terms of the promise, the conceptualisation and the developmental outcomes of several initiatives engaged in ‘bottom billion capitalism’. It argues that, while these initiatives are hailed as a solution for poverty, the benefits of such engagement must be weighed against other factors, including exclusion, the emphasis on capital assets and the reinterpretation of positive outcomes. The paper presents an alternative model of business as a development agent that better meets the criteria for a genuine development actor.

Organisational Behaviour for Social Work

There has been a distinctive increase over recent years in debates about social work that relate specifically to the context and organisational frameworks guiding practice and encouraging increasing reflection on how tinkering at the edges is no longer acceptable or desirable. Much of the discussion has included issues such as the need for systemic cultural change (Munro, 2012) and on more realistic expectations and better understanding of the role played by social workers actually implementing policy and reforms. This refers not only to the need to draw on discipline-specific knowledge, skills and expertise, but also to the ability of social work to be able to access more diverse subject areas, research and evidence from a broad range of sources. These can encourage new ways of thinking and working and so contribute to the genuine development of sustained improvement and quality services. It is refreshing, therefore, to see a text that engages both prequalifying and front line social workers with topics and issues that normally have been seen to lie in the remit of management practice. Bissell has managed to bring a number of these topics together in a succinct and timely way in his approach to examining organisational behaviour for social work.

Business and development: making sense of business as a development agent

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide a framework for understanding and analysing business's role as a development actor, and the distinction between development tool and development agent.Design/methodology/approachThe paper presents a theoretical analysis based on secondary data and empirical research.FindingsBusiness has various roles to play in the social and economic development of poorer countries, but are all of them equally important and laudable? Mainstream economics has long held that the private sector is essential to economic prosperity, and this has led policy‐makers and neoliberal thinkers to treat it as a tool for development. But under what circumstances does business go beyond acting out its assigned role as a tool of development to become what this article calls a “development agent” – something that consciously strives to deliver, and moreover be held to account for, developmental outcomes?Research limitations/implicationsThe article presents a framework for a more structured approach to further empirical research, but does not claim to apply that framework in empirical situations.Social implicationsDespite the considerable literature advocating why business should be a development agent, much less attention has been paid to two more fundamental questions: whether and under what circumstances business will take on such a role; and what being a development agent means. These are the central questions of this article. Answering them enables business practitioners, policy‐makers and academics to predict more accurately when business engagement is likely to deliver genuine development value and be sustainable, and hence when it is a worthwhile business, advocacy or policy objective. It also enables improved decision‐making by non‐private sector partners such as development agencies and NGOs.Originality/valueThe article addresses the above questions in turn with reference to empirical research by the author over nearly two decades, and both the corporate responsibility and the international development literature. It discusses what being a genuine development agent means, and provides a framework for understanding the business‐poverty relationship based on business as a cause, a victim, and a solution in international development terms. It concludes with a discussion of how well business is performing as a development agent, and the future potential and limitations of this role.

Info-Tech in African Countries! Where are we in Economic Development? (A Critical Examination of the Social, Economic, Technical and Policy Growth, with Respect to the Expansion of Information and Communications Infrastructure in Nigeria)

The trend of globalization and the spread of ICT has taken an important place in the African development agenda; but, more than just a global demand, the presence of information and communication technologies (ICT) has somewhat carved out an alternative path to development. Notwithstanding the urgency and enthusiasm with using this new medium for social and economic change, the Internet has brought about negative as well as positive contributions to development in Africa. “Of about 1000 COMMUNICATION SATELLITES LAUNCHED into Space just few were from Africa while the greatest are from Asian and Europe. Egypt has the highest in Africa with just 4, South Africa has only 2 while Nigeria lunched 2 in 2003 and 2007 but successful in one while the later on November 11, 2008, NigComSat-1 failed in orbit after running out of power due to an anomaly in its solar array.” (NIGCOMSAT 2011 Newsletter). Genuine development cannot take place in a continent that is full of leaders who are indifferent to the plight of its citizens. These leaders are lured by the profit business motives of multinational companies that come to invest in their countries at the expense of local industries struggling to stay afloat. We have to focus on Advanced Information Technology, for ourselves and by ourselves. His Excellency Owelle Rochas Okorocha, Governor, Imo State Nigeria, said “if we want the future to be bright then education/e-learning must be right”. Therefore, if we must ensure economics stability, adequate and safe food supply for an expanding world of Africa and must develop an Economic System that will intervene in the mechanism of African Growth we have to go ICT in all our dealings. This article examines how Information Technology (IT) will contribute and has contributed in promoting economic development initiatives in Nigeria and African as a whole. The emergence of the new technologies requires quick skill in innovation and integration which is influenced by a profound access to e-assessed economic valuable knowledge.

The corruption of political elites in Iraq – an economic analysis

This article examines the corruption of political elites in Iraq in the wake of the 2003 American occupation – a phenomenon that has had disastrous consequences for the country as well as astronomical fiscal costs. The corruption that has now become endemic has served not only to undermine reform and reconstruction efforts – while simultaneously accomplishing the embezzlement of billions of dollars – but also has left the Iraqi people exposed to a wide array of harms from contaminated wheat imports to an infrastructure in complete disarray to foreign machinations, including those of international food conglomerates. Through the acquiescence of corrupt Iraqi elites, the country has been laid open to external interests and foreign initiatives as well as those of the World Trade Organization (WTO) through means such as the 100 ‘orders’ signed by US ‘Ambassador’ Paul Bremer III under the auspices of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). Graft and kickback schemes of every stripe are rife throughout the country, and monies donated in the form of international assistances have served to line the pockets of the corrupt, never reaching the intended recipients among the average Iraqi population in many instances. The vicious cycle is further perpetuated also through a corrupt judiciary that militates against any sort of meaningful transparency or oversight. Corruption, and that of the powerful elites in particular, has not only squandered genuine development opportunities that might have benefited the country at large and done much good to facilitate reconstruction efforts, but also it has – for the foreseeable future – thrown the issues of Iraqi oil revenues and food security as well as that of national sovereignty into a peril of the first order.

Lonergan on the Person and the Economy: “reaching up to the mind of Aquinas,” in view of responding to Pope Leo XIII, vetera novis augere et perficere

AbstractGiven the reputation of Bernard Lonergan as a thinker, whose philosophical discourse is about intentionality and the seamless connection of cognitional theory, epistemology, and metaphysics, and whose self-confessed role in theology is to generate a method that meets the exigencies of a world that is on the move and culturally diverse, the article tells the story of his contribution to economic theory, and how this effort occupied both the beginning and the end of his mind's journey. There occurs, of course, the question about how these interests are related, and the key to the answer is found in the motto of Leo XIII, where the vetera imply especially Aquinas’ clear vision of the meaning of being human, and the nova include responses to the two-fold challenge emergent in both the object (to promote genuine development in the economic order) and the subject (to work out a coherent explanation of the structure of the human good).

The Theory of Brain-Sign: A Physical Alternative to Consciousness

Abstract Consciousness and the mind are prescientific concepts that begin with Greek theorizing. They suppose human rationality and reasoning placed in the human head by (in Christian terms) God, who structured the universe he created with the same kind of underlying characteristics. Descartes’ development of the model included scientific objectivity by placing the mind outside the physical universe. In its failure under evidential scrutiny and without physical explanation, this model is destined for terminal decline. Instead, a genuine biological and physical function for the brain phenomenon can be developed. This is the theory of brain-sign. It accepts the causality of the brain as its physical characteristics, already under scientific scrutiny. What is needed is a new neurophysiological mapping language that specifies the relation of the structure and operation of the brain to organismic action in the world. Still what is lacking is an account of how neurophysiologies in different organisms communicate on dynamic, i.e. unpredictable, tasks. It is this evolved capacity that has emerged as brain-sign. Thus rather than mentality being an inner epistemological parallel world suddenly appearing in the head, brain-sign, as the neural sign of the causal status of the brain, facilitates the communicative medium of otherwise isolated organisms. The biogenesis of the phenomenon emerges directly from the account of the physical brain, and functions as a monistic feature of organisms in the physical world. This new paradigm offers disciplinary compatibility, and genuine development in behavioral and brain sciences.

Islam, Peacebuilding and Development

As this special issue of JPD was being finalised, the world was anxiously watching the popular uprisings unfolding across the Middle East and North Africa. The editorial staff considered delaying this special issue to include new articles analysing the events, but the changes were occurring too quickly for a refereed journal to keep pace. We knew our role would be a longer-term one, aimed at providing a space for readers to analyse and reflect on the issues and challenges, placing them in an historical context and mapping potential long-term solutions that serve genuine peace and development for these societies as a whole.

Caritas in veritate: una globalización diferente y una nueva conciencia ética

The world is currently undergoing an accelerated economic, technical, scientific, cultural globalization process that requires the understanding there of in its complexity and the modification of macro trends marked by injustice. To achieve genuine human development is urgent to have a people and community-oriented cultural approach open to transcendence, which entails a new ethical awareness.

Subjectivism in Hume’s Empiricism: Implications for Nigeria’s socio-political life

Empiricism stands in contrast to rationalism, realism, and various other views descended from Platonic realism. Empiricism’s extreme form in the history of thought, especially the type found in Hume’s philosophy ended in skepticism, secularism and individualism, which in turn led to subjectivism. Subjectivism in this context is personal, radical extension of empiricism. This paper argues that dragging empiricism to its logical conclusion as Hume did, has given rise to subjectivism, which has thrown out authority and bases truth on whether ideas can be effectively argued and proved with accepted rules of logic. We argue strongly that empiricism should be blamed for the ills and decadence in our society today. It is the root of moral decadence and corruption in Nigeria’s socio-political life. It is our view, therefore, that we must go beyond the empirical if we are to curb decadence, squalor and corruption in the Nigerian nation and achieve genuine development in all sphere of our socio-political life.

Trading in Freedoms: Creating Value and Seeking Coalition in Western Australian Arts and Culture

Trading in Freedoms: Creating Value and Seeking Coalition in Western Australian Arts and Culture

A synthesized discussion on the Macao monetary reform

The prolonged RMB appreciation affects Macao deeply and requires a major monetary reform without further delay. What we propose for Macao reform as an optimal choice includes shifting its monetary anchor to the strong RMB, revaluing its domestic currency to the original level, and setting up a sovereign wealth fund for autonomous growth. This proposal is based on Macao’s economic fundamentals such as trade competitiveness, business relations, real welfare, monetary stability, and genuine development. We also recommend a monetary union of Macao with Hong Kong as the 2nd-best choice of reform by introducing what we term the SAR dollar.

Institutional reforms and the development of Nigeria Prisons Service, 1999 - 2007

Nigeria as a country experienced over twenty nine years of military rule. Consequently, the Nigeria Prisons were nothing less than a concentration camp where democrats, civil rights activists and some social deviants suffered. The emergence of civilian rule in 1999 with promises both to restore human rights and the rule of law and to reform the justice system of which the prisons are part of, led to the appropriation of billions of naira. This paper provides an overview of the reformation of Nigerian Prisons service and its reforms using documentary and primary sources of information with a view to assessing the extent of its consistency with international standard and its impact on both prison inmates and the institution itself. The paper discovered that the reforms centred on administrative and logistic conveniences with complete disregard for structural changes, inmates conditions and international standards. The reforms failed because of the class character of the prison inmates and the objectives for the establishment of prisons in Nigeria. It is therefore recommended that Nigerian Prisons should pursue a structured pro-inmates’ international standard reforms as a negation to the interest of the ruling class. In this lies the genuine development of Nigerian prisons. Key words: Prisons, reforms, democracy, development, institutions.

The Indispensability of the Basic Social Values in African Tradition: A Philosophical Appraisal

There are indispensable basic social values in African tradition which are for genuine development. The West in her own ways has attempted to jettison these values for theirs to take place, but in all, it is seen that theirs do not tally with the African society. Also, the Western aim is to render Africa dependent on them. The indispensability of African basic values presupposes that Africa has value system that is in consonance with her environment and conditions, and any way to displace it renders the society backward. These values are the guiding principles for genuine development which must remain indispensable to the Western values of colonialism, neo-colonialism and imperialism. With emphasis on these basic values by her leadership the future of Africa (and Nigeria in particular) will be of radical development.

The Commonwealth Local Government Pacific Project: Seeking ‘most significant change’

The origins of the Commonwealth Local Government Forum’s Pacific Project date to a 1997 roundtable in Papua New Guinea. Substantial activity, however, commenced more recently in 2005 with the launch of a 5-year project to enhance the quality of local government in the small states of the Pacific Islands. The project was well-conceived and managed to establish strong ‘buy-in’ by major stakeholders and partners. A mid-term review was undertaken in 2008 and was generally positive. The project is now in the final stages of implementation of what it hoped will be only its first phase. In 2009-2010 its central task is to ensure that the ‘key results’ envisaged at the outset are achieved: donors are looking for evidence of real impact in participating countries; project administrators are refining management practices on the basis of the mid-term review (as well as the regular feedback they receive from participating countries); participating countries are being asked to realistically plan, and to better integrate project activities into their ongoing work-plans as evidence of both genuine development outcomes and future sustainability of lessons learned.

Development Beyond Market-led Globalization

Bjorn Hettne asks whether a more genuine development thinking is on its way back after three decades dominated by globalism: the ideology of market-led globalization as the only path to global welfare. It is argued that the global crisis has been a catalyst for discursive change, but since real change also implies political and societal change, the question is what kind of world-order trends that will accompany the emerging discourse on global development. This is a comprehensive concept going far beyond economics. Hettne looks at different post-Westphalian scenarios for global governance. He argues that it is not yet clear if we are heading for a global concert of great powers, pursuing conventional realist power politics, or towards cooperating regions, based on inclusive global ethics. The latter implies transcendence of Westphalian international diplomacy, centred on the supremacy of national interests. He explores what this great transformation means for possible future global governance proposing that global ethics is essential for a sustainable world order.

Ethical qualities of professional development of the educator a humanistic perspective needed to manage a new way to see the quality of education

Human progress shows a scientific and technical breakthrough and calls for an ethical interaction among men and the peoples to ensure a genuine human development and a new society. The quality of education has been understood and developed from paradigms dominated by efficiency, focusing their attention on the resources and results. The new way to assume an education of quality revolves around the educator and in fact, on education itself. What inspires this new way is based on the principle of solidarity and on the ethos of teaching, understanding it, as the way of being by the exercise of teaching. Five ethical qualities shape that ethos: competence, initiative, responsibility, commitment and dedication. It is necessary to propose to educators and executives of educational institutions the ethical qualities inherent to their professional development and help them to discover and incorporate these ethical qualities.

Giving voice: instigating debate on issues of citizenship, participation, and accountability

While there is a near unanimity on the need for participation, there is as yet no such agreement on the type and degree of participation to be adopted in projects. One thing that has never been doubted is the fact that local people have not been accorded their rightful recognition and respect by most intervention agencies, hence the failure of some projects. So, how does a project that seeks to address issues of citizenship, participation, and accountability using a variety of participatory methodologies fare, especially against the backdrop of a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, and politically complex society like Nigeria? This paper examines the use of these methodologies, highlighting issues drawn out, and the successes and limitations of the findings for future research. Effective as the methods appeared to be, there were many questions and issues unanswered beyond the immediate mandate of the project, which beg for attention in order for the communities to move towards genuine development and stop open display of sometimes misplaced aggression.