Whose Reality Counts? Putting the First Last. By Robert Chambers. London: Intermediate Technology Publications, 1996. Pp.xx + 297. £3.25. ISBN 1 85339 386 X Fighting for the Rainforest: War, Youth and Resources in Sierra Leone. By Paul Richards. Oxford: The International African Institute in...

Global Transformations: Politics, Economics and Culture. By David Held, Anthony McGrew, David Goldblatt and Jonathan Perraton. Cambridge: Polity, 1999. Pp.xxiii + 515. £59.50 and £16.99. ISBN 0 7456 1498 1 and 1499 X Housing and Finance in Developing Countries. Edited by Kavita Datta and...

World Development Report 1997: The State in a Changing World. By the World Bank. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Pp.viii + 265. ISBN 0 19 521115 4 and 521114 6 Agenda for Africa's Economic Renewal. Edited by Benno Ndulu and Nicolas van de Walle. New Brunswick and Oxford: Transaction...

This article explores the changing livelihood strategies among a group of rural households in southern Zimbabwe across 20 years. The study uses a combination of a household survey, in-depth biographical interviews and wealth ranking to examine livelihood change. The households studied in...

The problem of the proliferation of the number of aid donors and aid channels continues to worsen. It is widely and plausibly believed that this significantly reduces the value of aid by increasing direct and indirect transactions costs. We contribute to the existing literature by: (a)...

The Maharashtra Employment Guarantee Scheme stands out among rural public works programmes in developing countries for its size, longevity, the generosity of its funding arrangements, and the political sophistication of its design. Its mission is highly ambitious: to supply employment flexibly...

In developing countries in particular, services are often delivered through unorthodox organisational arrangements that cannot simply be dismissed as relics of 'traditional' institutions, or as incomplete modern organisations. Some have emerged recently, and represent institutional adaptations...

This survey critically examines the development studies literature dealing with the connections between social structure, politics and the emergence or development of 'indigenous' capitalism in developing countries. This literature has focused mainly on the apparent absence or weakness of...

John Humphrey and Hubert Schmitz have recently made an important contribution to the literature on trust and economic transactions between firms. Unfortunately, the evidence that high levels of societal trust contribute significantly to economic growth is far less reliable than they suggest. We...

Community Development around the World: Practice, Theory, Research and Training. Edited by Hubert Campferns. Toronto and London: University of Toronto Press, 1997. Pp.xvi + 481. NP. ISBN 0 8020 0903 4 and 7884 2 Cultural Perspectives on Development. Edited by Vincent Tucker. London and Portland,...