Economic matters entered a new phase of importance in the wake of the Cold War. Concerns within development-assistance efforts to the Third World have also shifted. The current macro-environment of development has been accompanied by a plethora of new concerns and methods, such as how to consider gender in development projects and how to develop participatory-centered projects. Yet no text has covered many of the new approaches and techniques related to development projects, including issues of participation, gender, and evaluation-until now. Hira and Parfitt bridge these serious gaps, drawing on their hands-on experience and teaching in the field. The end of the Cold War was supposed to bring a new era of peace prosperity, and development. However, the post-Cold War world has not led to any major improvements in development. In this book, Hira and Parfitt examine why 50 years of development have not led to the wiping out of poverty. In the first part of the book, they break down the political agendas behind development in the post-Cold War World, as well as the serious flaws in current development project management. In the remainder of the book they look carefully at a number of new initiatives that seek to correct these problems, examining carefully their promise for bringing about more tangible results. This book provides a thorough overview of the classic concerns and approaches of development project management, including clear explanations of predominant planning and evaluation practices. In addition, the book introduces the major new initiatives in development project management, including those regarding environmental sustainability, participation, gender, and the steps needed to create a real learning environment in development project planning. The result is a guide for the project manager and policymaker who want to know the implications of recent development ideas in terms of everyday practices, as well as for the student and interested citizen seeking to move beyond theory and critique to see how new practices can change the way that development projects are administered.

Over the past fifteen years, ideas in the field of development studies have been highly contested. During this time, most countries from the South have come under the iron heel of the IMF and World Bank, who have imposed structural adjustment programmes wherever they have provided loan capital to governments. However, these programmes have had little success, and development studies has suffered accordingly. Many development theorists turned to postmodernist theory to try to move on from this impasse, which in the 1990s led to a new line of critical thought that heralded 'the end of development'. They argued that development studies should be replaced by new strategies of emancipation, or 'new social movements' theory, originating in groups such as the Zapatistas of Mexico. This book summarises the contested ideas of development studies and new social movements theory while rejecting calls for the end of development. Using postmodern theory to demonstrate that forms of development can be complementary to emancipatory social movement projects, Trevor Parfitt develops an alternative model of development which incorporates the needs of peoples both South and North.

Economic matters entered a new phase of importance in the wake of the Cold War. Concerns within development-assistance efforts to the Third World have also shifted. The current macro-environment of development has been accompanied by a plethora of new concerns and methods, such as how to consider gender in development projects and how to develop participatory-centered projects. Yet no text has covered many of the new approaches and techniques related to development projects, including issues of participation, gender, and evaluation—until now. Hira and Parfitt bridge these serious gaps, drawing on their hands-on experience and teaching in the field. The end of the Cold War was supposed to bring a new era of peace prosperity, and development. However, the post-Cold War world has not led to any major improvements in development. In this book, Hira and Parfitt examine why 50 years of development have not led to the wiping out of poverty. In the first part of the book, they break down the political agendas behind development in the post-Cold War World, as well as the serious flaws in current development project management. In the remainder of the book they look carefully at a number of new initiatives that seek to correct these problems, examining carefully their promise for bringing about more tangible results. This book provides a thorough overview of the classic concerns and approaches of development project management, including clear explanations of predominant planning and evaluation practices. In addition, the book introduces the major new initiatives in development project management, including those regarding environmental sustainability, participation, gender, and the steps needed to create a real learning environment in development project planning. The result is a guide for the project manager and policymaker who want to know the implications of recent development ideas in terms of everyday practices, as well as for the student and interested citizen seeking to move beyond theory and critique to see how new practices can change the way that development projects are administered.