Brookings: Experts - Caroline Moser

Ordinary Families, Extraordinary Lives : Assets and Poverty Reduction in Guayaquil, 1978-2004

Caroline Moser — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0500

Brookings Institution Press 2009 360pp.

Fifty years after Oscar Lewis's famous depiction of five Mexican families caught in a "culture of poverty," Caroline Moser tells a very different story of five neighborhood women and their families strategically accumulating assets to escape poverty in the Ecuadoran city of Guayaquil. In Ordinary Families, Extraordinary Lives, Moser shows how a more sophisticated understanding of the complexities of asset accumulation as well as poverty itself can help counter inaccurate stereotypes about global poverty. It provides invaluable insight into strategies that may help people in developing countries improve their wellbeing.

The similar socioeconomic characteristics and economic circumstances of the Guayaquil families in 1978, when Moser began her research, set the stage for a natural experiment. By 2004, these circumstances varied widely. Moser captures the causes and consequences of these developments through economic data, anthropological narrative, and personal photos. She then places this compelling story within the broader context of political, economic, and spatial changes in Guayaquil and Ecuador.

Moser describes how households in a Third World urban slum relentlessly and systematically fought to accumulate human, social, and financial capital assets. Her longitudinal account of their odyssey captures long-term trends and changes in perception that are missed in snapshot assessments. Chapters in this holistic story cover diverse issues such as housing and infrastructure, community mobilization and political negotiation, employment, family dynamics, violence, and emigration.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Caroline Moser

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International NGOs and Poverty Reduction Strategies: The Contribution of an Asset-based Approach

Caroline Moser and Pamela Sparr — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 00:00:00 -0400

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This scoping study has two principle objectives. It provides a summary of current poverty reduction strategies of US and UK-based international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) with a special emphasis on the underlying frameworks that form the basis of their development interventions.

Secondly, the study identifyes the applicability of an asset accumulation framework to prevailing programmatic and advocacy strategies for poverty reduction employed by INGOs. After an initial desk review of background materials, a sample group of 21 INGOs was finalized based on seven selection criteria. These relate both to the substantive focus of each organization as well as to institutional factors, and were developed in order to achieve the greatest diversity possible in the sample. The criteria were: mission focus; stated or known analytical approaches to poverty — termed poverty frameworks in this paper; relationship to the field; length of time in operation; size of revenues; primary funding sources; and organizational structure. A questionnaire was developed for use in the final research phase in which 34 staff from 7 UK-based and 14 U.S.-based INGOs were interviewed.

The study assesses five possible determinants of INGO poverty approaches. The first determinant is history — both organizational and the broader historical forces at work in the world. Interviews suggest that history is perhaps a stronger factor in shaping an organization's poverty strategy than mission, which appears to have only a partial connection with strategy. Current development theory seems to have a tenuous and weak impact on the strategic framework. This intellectual determinant expresses itself more effectively indirectly through funders' interests, which had a definite impact on poverty reduction strategy. Not surprisingly, the research found that funding sources were influential, particularly the US government and foundations. Organizational structure, the last determinant investigated, seems to have an unclear and complicated relationship to INGO poverty frameworks and strategies.

Structured conversations with staff raised unexpected issues relating to the changing context in which the INGOs conduct their poverty reduction work. At least five key trends are evident which have bearing upon the usefulness of an asset framework. They are:

increasing emphasis on aid effectiveness stressed by both government agencies and foundations;
emergence of new sources of funding and a new breed of development actors;
shifting North-South INGO power relationships;
growing convergence of conservation and development concerns; and,
increased awareness of the impact of climate change on development and conservation.

Respondents' understandings of the theoretical dimensions of an asset framework tended to be unspecific and partial, with notable exceptions. Some of the INGOs surveyed were just beginning to explore the potential of an asset approach. Respondents felt that asset accumulation could be significantly useful in a range of settings. In fact, most INGOs already were engaged in a variety of asset-related projects or programs across all five mission foci, sectors and contexts tested. This finding underscores the practical relevance of an asset framework.

Climate change is forcing INGOs to seriously reconsider their disaster and emergency response and be more proactive with asset protection strategies. It is also one of the trends causing lines to blur between INGO approaches to disaster/emergency relief and long-term development. The growing concern about the ecological unsustainability of mainstream economic development policies, how they exacerbate "natural" disasters, and how they contribute to the loss of biodiversity, is compelling INGOs to recognize the strategic importance of natural capital in any poverty analysis or reduction strategy. Such trends means a fuller elaboration of the assets framework and a discussion of its practical applicability is both timely and welcome.

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Caroline Moser
Pamela Sparr

Cutting-Edge Development Issues for INGOs: Applications of an Asset Accumulation Approach

Caroline Moser, James Pickett and Pamela Sparr — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 00:00:00 -0400

INTRODUCTION

What analytical frameworks and operational strategies do international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) use to address poverty in developing countries? Which strategies work best? What are the cutting-edge issues on poverty reduction in development practice and thinking? Are INGOs willing to collaborate in new ways to handle their work in a dramatically changed operating environment?

These were among the questions explored by 40 senior staff members from the headquarters, field offices, and partners of 22 U.S. and U.K. INGOs at a workshop in Washington, D.C. May 30–31, 2007. The workshop, "Toward a New Poverty and Development Agenda: Contributions of the INGO Community," sponsored by the Brookings Institution and the Ford Foundation, was organized by Caroline Moser, Senior Fellow in the Brookings Global Economy and Development Program. The event was designed to discuss findings of a research study of the practices of 22 INGOs (box 1) and to examine the usefulness of Moser's new asset accumulation analytical framework for INGO operating strategies. The workshop was a follow-up to an earlier meeting held at Brookings in 2006 to review and debate the asset accumulation framework and identify its applicability in different development settings (Moser 2006, 2007).

An asset accumulation policy is a new approach to poverty reduction. It focuses directly on creating opportunities for the poor to acquire, keep, and pass on wealth to the next generation. This approach complements other poverty-focused strategies developed over the past decade, particularly sustainable livelihoods and social protection (table 1). Just as poverty reduction strategies are changing, so too is the situation in which INGOs operate. Among the major contextual shifts are the emergence of new donors and funding strategies, a mounting insistence on proof of aid results among donors, an increasingly unpredictable operating environment due to climate change and sociopolitical developments, and a rebalancing of power relations among INGOs in the North and South.

To encourage a wide-ranging dialog about operations in this fluid context, representatives were invited from organizations spanning a broad continuum of INGOs— from relief through development to conservation organizations. The participants came from 13 countries (see appendix). The workshop structure and content took shape during consultations between Pamela Sparr and staff from 21 INGOs. All the INGOs were eager for a chance to get together with colleagues to talk about the complexities of their daily "antipoverty" work, encompassing advocacy and practical implementation. Some of the more innovative ideas explored at the workshop pushed everyone's thinking about the connections between assets and human rights and the convergence of environmental and development concerns.

This Asset Debate Paper presents highlights from plenary presentations and conversations in small, breakout groups. It is not meant to be a comprehensive review of every issue discussed.

To promote debate, conversation was considered confidential. Therefore, comments and presentations during the event are synthesized without attribution. Quotations are included to illustrate the flavor of the discussion and underscore certain points. In a few instances, acknowledging particular intellectual contributions was considered necessary. Material attributed to specific individuals and institutions was reviewed and approved by them.

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Caroline Moser
James Pickett
Pamela Sparr

Reducing Global Poverty : The Case for Asset Accumulation

Caroline Moser — Tue, 01 May 2007 00:00:00 -0400

Brookings Institution Press 2007 305pp.

Defeating global poverty remains one of the most daunting challenges facing the international community. Income- and consumption-based strategies fall short of helping the world's poor climb out of poverty over the long term in the developing world and even in the United States. But asset-based approaches to development, such as small loans or insurance, can promote public policies that lead to increases in the capital assets of the poor—what the Ford Foundation calls "the physical, financial, human, social, and natural resources than can be acquired, developed, improved, and transferred across generations."

In this important volume, Caroline Moser and a group of experts with on-the-ground experience provide an in-depth look at how assets can be used as a powerful tool to improve lives. They present original case studies of asset-building projects around the globe, describing communities in Ecuador, Indonesia, and El Salvador, as well as in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina. Because asset-based approaches focus on long-term solutions and complement other social protection strategies, they may prove the missing link to successfully aiding the world's poor.

Contributors include Lael Brainard (Brookings Institution), Michael R. Carter (University of Wisconsin), Monique Cohen (Microfinance Opportunities), Sarah Cook (Institute of Development Studies, Sussex), Héctor Cordero-Guzmán (Baruch College, CUNY), Lilianne Fan (Oxfam), Pablo Farias (Ford Foundation), Clare Ferguson (formerly Department for International Development), Andrew Felton (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation), Sarah Gammage (Rutgers University), Anirudh Krishna (Duke University), Amy Liu (Brookings Institution), Vijay Mahajan (BASIX, India), Paula Nimpuno-Parente (Ford Foundation, South Africa), Andy Norton (World Bank), Manuel Orozco (Inter-American Dialogue), Victoria Quiroz-Becerra (Baruch College, CUNY), Dennis Rodgers (London School of Economics), Andrés Solimano (United Nations-ECLAC), and Pamela Young (Microfinance Opportunities).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Caroline Moser

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The Millennium Challenge Corporation's Gender Policy

Caroline Moser — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 00:00:00 -0500

Caroline Moser, Brookings Visting Fellow, participated in a panel discussion on the Millennium Challenge Corporation's gender policy. Other panelists included: Frances McNaught, Vice President for Congressional and Public Affairs, Millennium Challenge Corporation; Ambassador John J. Danilovich, CEO, Millennium Challenge Corporation; Virginia Seitz, Director, Social and Gender Assessment, Millennium Challenge Corporation; Sylvia Torres, MCA-Nicaragua Gender Specialist; and Ritu Sharma, Co-Founder and President, Women's Edge Coalition.

A partial transcript follows.

McNaught: Good afternoon. I'm Fran McNaught, Vice President for Congressional and Public Affairs. I'd like to welcome you all to the Millennium Challenge Corporation. We are pleased that we have such a good turnout and so much interest in our gender policy.

We consider our gender policy key to achieving our mission, which is reducing poverty through economic growth, and you're going to hear much this afternoon about the importance of taking gender concerns into consideration in making our programs as effective as possible as we go about our mission.

We have four very distinguished panelists, each with a very impressive resume. But in order to not spend the entire time introducing them instead of letting them talk themselves, I'm just going to give very brief remarks about their credentials, and I'll do it in the order in which they will present.

First, Dr. Ginny Seitz, MCC's Director of Social and Gender Assessment. She will provide an overview of our policy. She's responsible for developing our gender-integration strategy to ensure that gender analysis informs and improves the design and implementation of programs in our partner countries. She also coordinates internal capacity-building in the area of gender and development. Ginny has more than 25 years in research, evaluation, training, program design and management, and has worked in more than 20 countries.

Our second presenter will be Sylvia Torres. She's MCA- Nicaragua's gender specialist and is tasked with implementing our gender policy throughout all of MCA-Nicaragua's program efforts. Certainly she can offer the perspective from the field. Currently a PhD candidate at the University of Pittsburgh, Sylvia has worked on gender equality issues for various international and regional organizations, including UNIFEM, Save the Children, and Grupo Feminista de León, all in her native Nicaragua.

Third, we're pleased that Ritu Sharma, Co-Founder and President of the Women's Edge Coalition, has joined the panel. Ritu will discuss the role of the U.S. NGO community in relation to MCC's gender policy. She is a leading voice on international women's issues and U.S. foreign policy. She's played a pivotal role in ensuring that the interests of poor women worldwide are incorporated into U.S. economic assistance and trade policies and, in some cases, into U.S. law itself.

And Dr. Caroline Moser, our world-renowned scholar and practitioner and author of many publications, including the very influential book, Gender Planning and Development. Caroline is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution and a senior research associate with the Overseas Development Institute. In addition to her work on gender and development, she has expertise in the areas of social policy and development, urban poverty and inequality, social protections and human rights. She will discuss MCC's gender policy within the larger context of international development.

Moser: Thank you. I would like to start my comments by, first of all, congratulating the MCC for their development and adoption of this gender policy and, like others, to acknowledge the critical importance of Ambassador Danilovich and the whole senior management team in achieving this.

I have been asked to comment on the policy in the context of international development. As the last speaker, I will just make three short points.

First of all, I would like to address the policy's underlying approach. In the past 25 years, as many of us know, we've come an incredibly long way in our conceptualization of gender issues. We started with women and development; we moved to gender and development; and now we have gender mainstreaming. And yet, it is clear that we still have a lot of challenges, or we wouldn't need a gender policy. I think we have to start by recognizing that a gender policy, as MCC recognizes, has a role to play; we wouldn't need a policy if there wasn't that need.

Underlying the policy approach has been a shift over the last 20 from what we used to call "welfare" to "equity" to "efficiency" and, most recently, to "empowerment" and even through to rights-based policy. Given the MCC's focus on poverty reduction through economic growth, I would like to endorse the gender policy's adoption of the economic efficiency approach. They have adopted an approach that relates them to, and positions them within, the economic approach of the overall MCC policy. And while, from a gender perspective, this may not go far enough for some, it's a very realistic approach for a policy that needs to be mainstreamed into MCC country practice.

When Karen Mason and her team at the World Bank developed the World Bank's gender strategy a few years ago, she made the same strategic decision. It means that valuable time is not spent justifying the policy approach and that this can be focused on more important issues of implementation.

I think that that's a good decision, and it brings me to my second point: challenges in the implementation of the policy. As my colleagues here have said, we know getting a policy in place is only half the story. It's the implementation in practice that is now the litmus test of its success.

As many of us know only too well, we have a lot of what we call policy evaporation -- when good policy intentions fail to be followed into practice. However, this is a slightly more complex issue.

I recently did some work on gender audits for the U.K. Department of International Development of their program in an African country. I found that, yes, there was evaporation, but there was also "invisiblization", when monitoring and evaluation procedures failed to document what is actually occurring on the ground. So the issue of monitoring and evaluation and getting that right is also important.

And secondly, there is resistance: when effective mechanisms block policy implementation with the opposition essentially based on power relations -- and, as we know, often on gender power relations -- rather than on technocratic or procedural constraints. Now, such resistance can be both internal inside MCC, or it can also be external within the country teams designing the compacts.

I think the other thing that we need to consider in looking at this, which is really interesting, is the terminology the team has chosen to work with. They're talking about "gender integration" rather than "gender mainstreaming." This is very interesting, in terms of the way they go forward. There is so much contention around the whole concept of gender mainstreaming. I think that what we know is the need to be constructive. We need to move forward, whether with gender mainstreaming or gender integration, recognizing that this has two components.

One is to ensure that men and women's concerns are equally integrated into policy and programs. The other is to recognize that there may be a need for specific measures and programs required for women themselves, to empower them, to assure them that they can be integrated into such processes. I see this as a twin-track process and I acknowledge that for the MCC adopting the term, "integration," is useful.

So how can successful implementation be guaranteed? I have four comments that I think pull this together, and they're similar to those of my colleagues.

I think strong leadership is absolutely critical. This must go beyond endorsements of the policy to provide substantial support as the implementation process rolls out.

Secondly, a highly skilled technical capacity is critical. And here I would like to really congratulate MCC on their appointment of Ginny as director of this work. As her bio shows, she not only has a lot of knowledge of gender analysis, but for me what she brings, even more importantly, is a professional background in gender policy and planning -- the whole implementation process, which often gets ignored.

In the past decade, I think we've seen extraordinary steps forward on gender analysis, and that current policy reflects this. But actually how you get it right in the implementation process is essential. If you listened to Ginny talking, she was talking about the institutional processes, the institutional structures that you need to put in place, the operational procedures, the TORs; these boring things that actually have to be in place.

It's much easier -- the gender analysis is the easy bit. It's the planning and implementation that is so difficult. I think you have an extraordinary person in leading this here, somebody who's rolled up her sleeves and has actually worked in the trenches, which is essential for this type of job.

To ensure this goes further, as has already been mentioned, there's been discussion of building up the technical capacity, strengthening the capacity within the MCC staff, both here and in-country, with appropriate entry points.

And I think here we also have to recognize that we've moved beyond generic gender training. It's not a panacea. What we need is more tailor-made, operationally focused types of capacity strengthening, which is specific, rather than just rolling out a general program. This, to me, is very important.

Finally, I think we need the support of highly skilled, gender-aware women in the South in the MCC-eligible countries. We have one right here; I have one such person sitting right here on the panel.

I think the monitoring of women's organizations in the North is essential, and we've heard about from the role that Women's Edge has played, which has been so critical, but so, too, is the participation of women in the South, whether it's members of women's organizations working as consultants or bureaucrats within government ministries.

I think that this is the most important resource that will ensure success and will ensure country ownership. So, therefore, we have to think very seriously about giving space to these types of social actors and also to the political positions that they hold within their societies.

Gone are the days, thank goodness, when gender and development was considered a Northern construct exported to the South. Women in the South are highly aware of gender issues with their own culturally specific interpretation. Many of them have undertaken graduate work, and they are authorities in their own right. They are inside government; they are outside government. They are playing important roles all over the world.

Thus, to end, I'd like to say that I hope that the MCC does not "invisiblize" this critical resource, but ensures that such women are incorporated into the design and implementation process. Many of these women face a lot of resistance in their own contexts. I think that Nicaragua is a very poor country, but it's a wonderful example of a country that has a very articulate and highly organized civil society and a very strong women's movement. And I think, even then, there's a way to go. But let's consider some of the other countries where you work, where you neither have such a strong civil society, nor do you have a long, historical process of the role of a strong women's movement in pushing the agenda.

It's those women in those countries where I think the MCC can play an important role, as a catalyst -- and we've heard an example from Africa of this already -- to assist in leveraging the gender priorities that they identify.

I wish you lots of luck with this challenging endeavor. I hope the MCC will have a similar event in a few years so we can review the progress with a similar level of transparency as today's event.

Thank you very much.

Applause

McNaught: We are ready now to take questions for the panelists.

Question: I have a follow-up question, a clarification, for Dr. Moser.

You discussed gender mainstreaming or gender integration. Are you really using those concepts simultaneously or with similar meaning? Or -- the reason I raise that question is because there could be some problems with mainstreaming in comparison to trying to integrate into a new policy.

The second question is probably for Dr. Seitz and other members of the panel, and that has to do with the assessment and the evaluation, which is a follow-up to the previous question.

The first response seemed to be more generic in nature, but are there particular plans, say, for example, in Nicaragua, to do some types of specific assessments in-country that would really make it helpful and then might have lessons for Lesotho and other places?

Moser: Thank you very much.

What I was actually saying -- and I probably rattled off rather fast -- is that gender mainstreaming, as a term, has become very contentious, and there is a lot of debate and discussion about what it actually means, and a lot of concern about the, quote, "failure" of gender mainstreaming. I think that it is very adroit of this policy to avoid that term and to use the word "integration."

All I was saying is that in some other work that I've been involved in, we have really tried to unpack what mainstreaming means, and, for me, it is around integration of both men and women's concerns.

But I think there's a second track which we also need to think about, which is that there are contexts where women are so excluded that we need to focus on interventions that specifically address their needs.

I was really saying that I think, by avoiding this word, "mainstreaming," they're getting away from a lot of contentious debate which has gone on around such a term. Really, what they are talking about, as the policy shows very clearly, is integration.

Seitz: For some specific examples, I can point to something that I thought Margaret might have mentioned but she didn't have the mic long enough.

For example, if women in Honduras were to be full beneficiaries of one of the agricultural projects, we knew that best practice was that you needed female extension workers in order to be able to reach these women. And so, when the compact was designed, there was a condition in the compact about the involvement of female extensionists.

And what makes this story very interesting is the learning process that went on from this early example. The implementing entity came back and said, "Well, we developed an ad for female extensionists, and we said we wanted agronomists with 10 years of experience in extension." And, lo and behold, they had only had women involved in this training for 10 years, so obviously they couldn't find women with 10 years of experience.

So there was a negotiation back and forth, and finally a decision was made that they still had to have women involved in the extension activities, and that women who had less experience or who were new graduates in agronomy would be mentored and employed and their skills, as extensionists, developed.

So the lesson for MCC in this was that the goal was to involve women farmers. The best practice that we knew of were female extensionists. But there was a moment to learn that even the reviewing of the terms of reference of the implementer about the qualifications of the extensionists was a place where you had to think about gender. So it was an organizational learning.

And I think those are the kinds of examples that will build our capacity to really implement this policy.

Sharma: I wanted to add two points on monitoring.

I think the fact that this gender policy follows through to monitoring and evaluation is hugely significant, because that has also never happened with the U.S. government, but also because it directs that data collection much be sex-disaggregated.

And, for those of you who've worked in the field, you know that one of our biggest challenges, in many of these economic areas, is that there's no data on women's participation vis-a-vis men.

And so, I think that as the monitoring for the MCC rolls out, it will list the whole field of monitoring and evaluation for gender in general, as it encourages countries to begin collecting data.

The second point on monitoring is that many of the MCC countries -- in particular, we've been doing a lot of work with the women's movement in Sri Lanka -- are setting up an independent monitoring coalition, similar to Nicaragua, where they will be monitoring the MCC project parallel to the official government process. And that, so far, what we've seen in Sri Lanka is a really fruitful collaboration -- independence, but collaboration -- with the MCC on monitoring.

McNaught: Once again, I want to say thank you for joining us today.

And I know it was such an interesting discussion that no one nodded off, but just in case you were a little distracted at some point and didn't get it all, we will have a transcript on our web site by tomorrow. So you can go back over and see what all was said here today.

Our web site is mcc.gov, and we invite you to go there for all kinds of the latest news and information about our work. It's obviously available 24-7.

Again, thank you for joining us today.

Applause

Authors

Caroline Moser

Publication: A Panel Discussion at the MCC

Reducing Urban Violence in Developing Countries

Caroline Moser — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 00:00:00 -0500

Summary

Urban violence is a serious development constraint in developing countries and increasingly dominates the daily lives of citizens across the globe. The accompanying increase in fear and insecurity has led to a wide-scale preoccupation with the phenomenon, but there is little agreement on the underlying causes of such endemic violence or of its costs and consequences. Equally, the capacity of various sector-specific violence reduction interventions to address this pervasive problem is often questioned.

Recently there has been growing acknowledgment that urban residents themselves may be the key to a better understanding of such violence and to identifying appropriate interventions. Participatory urban appraisals offer a practical way for local people to articulate their perceptions of the complexity of everyday violence. Complementing existing knowledge, such assessments assist in developing a more holistic framework that positions violence in terms of three interrelated components; first, the social, economic, political, and institutional categories of violent manifestations; second, the underlying causal factors, not only structural factors but also individual identity and agency; and third, the costs of violence in terms of its impacts on the assets of poor households.

This provides the necessary context for framing an integrated policy, one that reconciles the bottom-up views of local people with the top-down solutions off ered by professionals. A useful matrix distinguishes among seven predominant prevention or reduction policies, ranging from well-known interventions such as criminal justice and public health, through conflict transformation and human rights—more commonly associated with confl ict reduction—to newer more innovative urban solutions such as citizen security, crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED), and the community-driven social capital approach. As governments, the private sector, and civil society alike increasingly prioritize violence reduction, they need to take up the challenge to provide more innovative cross-sector solutions that better address the complexity of the endemic violence, fear, and insecurity that permeates the everyday lives of local populations.

This brief is informed by the findings from participatory urban appraisals of violence undertaken by the author in 1999 in eighteen poor urban communities in Colombia and Guatemala. These provide perception data from an extensive number of local women and men, girls and boys, whose daily lives are influenced by violence, insecurity, and fear. While participatory methodologies are now recognized as an important way of bringing the 'voices of the poor' to policymakers, to date they have focused on the problem of poverty. Thus this study pioneers a new violence-focused research methodology—first as a pilot project by the author in an earlier study of urban violence in Jamaica.

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Asset-Based Approaches to Poverty Reduction in a Globalized Context

Caroline Moser — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 00:00:00 -0500

Introduction

This working paper provides a brief introduction to asset-based approaches to poverty reduction in a globalized context. The aim is to show the added value of asset-based approaches, in terms of both better understanding poverty and developing more appropriate long-term poverty reduction solutions. The paper draws on a number of sources, including: a longitudinal research project on Intergenerational asset accumulation and poverty reduction in Guayaquil 1978–2004; a number of associated background papers; and contributions to the recent Brookings Institution/Ford Foundation Workshop on Asset-based approaches to poverty reduction in a globalized context held in Washington DC on 27–8 June 2006.

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Latin American Urban Violence as a Development Concern: Towards a Framework for Violence Reduction

Caroline Moser and Cathy McIlwaine — Sun, 01 Jan 2006 00:00:00 -0500

Summary

Despite growing recognition of urban violence being a serious development constraint in Latin America, there is contestation concerning its categorization, underlying causes, costs and consequences, and violence-reduction solutions. This article seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the complexity of everyday violence in poor urban communities in terms of both ongoing analytical debates as well as operational solutions. Drawing on the research literature, as well as recent participatory urban appraisals of violence in Colombia and Guatemala, and Central American violence-reduction guidelines, it develops a framework to explain the holistic nature of violence and to provide operationally relevant methodological tools to facilitate crosssectoral violence-reduction interventions.

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Caroline Moser
Cathy McIlwaine

Publication: World Development

City Violence and the Poor

Caroline Moser — Mon, 01 Aug 2005 00:00:00 -0400

Introduction

In many nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America, urban violence has become so ubiquitous that it is now rightly considered to be a major development constraint. Not only does violence affect people's health and wellbeing, but it also has a devastating impact on the social fabric and economic prospects of entire cities.

It is no wonder, therefore, that the range of researchers, policy makers and practitioners focusing on the issue of violence, fear and insecurity has expanded in the past decade beyond the traditional disciplines — criminology, social work and psychology — and today includes economists, sociologists, political scientists, transport planners, architects and community workers.

Along with this change has come a growing recognition that violence is not merely a problem of individual criminal pathology, but a complex, dynamic and multi-layered phenomenon that shapes people's lives in multiple ways. Violence forces girls and young women to drop out of night school to avoid streets that are no longer safe after dark. It erodes the assets and livelihood sources of the poor, compromising their ability to improve their life chances. And it instills fear and insecurity into the daily lives of city residents, undermining social trust and increasing the fragmentation of the urban space and the isolation of its people.

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Caroline Moser

Publication: In Focus

An Introduction to Gender Audit Methodology

Caroline Moser — Sun, 01 May 2005 00:00:00 -0400

Introduction

Evaluation methodology specifically designed to assess the implementation of gender policies, strategies, programmes and projects has developed rapidly during the past decade. This has been of particular importance to the broad range of institutions that have implemented initiatives to achieve the Beijing Platform for Action (PfA) objectives of gender equality and the empowerment of women. These include donor agencies, government departments and civil society organisations.

This working paper outlines the main components of a recently developed gender audit methodology. Its purpose is to provide a background paper for those seeking to undertake gender audits, as well as to show the uses of gender audits within the broader development field of meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The paper was commissioned by the Evaluation Department of the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and is intended for staff working in London-based policy divisions and in field-based offices. Hopefully, it will also be useful beyond DFID, for others in development-focused organisations also grappling with the methodological complexities of auditing or evaluating gender mainstreaming in their organisations.

The working paper consists of the following five sections:

Section 1 introduces the objectives of a gender audit and provides a brief background to the origins of this working paper.

Section 2 introduces gender audits in terms of critical issues relating to definitions and approaches to gender evaluation and gender audits.

Section 3 examines the objectives of gender audits relating to gender equality and gender mainstreaming.

Section 4 focuses on the components of a gender audit, both the coverage and methodology for implementation and the structure and contents of an audit document and related measurement issues.

Section 5 concludes

At the outset, it is important to emphasise that, as a working paper, this is not a set of 'guidelines': this would be a far more extensive project in scope, and require more broad-based comparative experience than is currently available. Nevertheless, it is hoped that it can provide useful guidance for those concerned better to understand the main objectives, methodology and components of gender audits.

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Publication: Overseas Development Institute

Change, Violence and Insecurity in Non-Conflict Situations

Caroline Moser and Dennis Rodgers — Tue, 01 Mar 2005 00:00:00 -0500

Executive Summary

Conflict and war have long been accepted as significant constraints to development. In the past decade, however, violence in 'non-conflict' situations has been increasingly recognised as a core security and development priority. This issue is particularly critical in contexts of rapid social change, and often most evident in 'failing' or 'crisis' states. This working paper explores the relationship between change and violence, and seeks to identify the key cutting edge issues of rural-urban change, which are underlying causes or trigger factors of increasing violence and insecurity, or indeed consequences of the phenomenon itself.

From the complex diversity of rural-urban change issues throughout the world, four dimensions in particular are identified as crucial in terms of their impact on people's well-being, security and livelihoods across rural and urban areas:

Livelihoods, labour markets and natural resources
Social structures and relations
Political institutions

Spatial organisation

This paper examines the relationship between levels of violence and insecurity in each of these four dimensions of change, with examples from Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and the former Soviet Union. This includes inter-linkages within as well as among different dimensions of change. It should be noted that there is no a priori association between violence and change; when a link is made, this is often related to poorly managed or planned-for change, rather than change per se. This desk review is intended to highlight issues considered to be of particular relevance regarding the potential change-violence nexus and which can contribute to the current security and development agenda.

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Caroline Moser
Dennis Rodgers

Publication: Overseas Development Institute

Urban Violence and Insecurity: An Introductory Roadmap

Caroline Moser — Fri, 01 Oct 2004 00:00:00 -0400

Introduction

In 1992, while I was living once again in the suburbios (low-income settlements) in Guayaquil, Ecuador, local community members explained to me how serious a problem local violence had become in their daily lives. Violent robbery on buses was so ubiquitous that, over a six-month period, one in five women had been attacked by young men armed with knives, machetes or hand guns. The streets were no longer safe after dark, so girls and young women were dropping out of night school, exacerbating their social isolation. The cost of upgrading housing had expanded to include security grilles on windows, and doors designed to deter burglars.
Certainly, there had always been known ladrones (robbers). These had been pointed out to me when I first lived there in 1978 — mainly young men, often also marijaneros (marijuana smokers). But in those days, they never burgled in their own neighbourhood. Although houses with their split cane walls were vulnerable to break-ins, local community social capital was strong enough to hound out wellknown criminals if they got too close for comfort. Of course, there was always violence inside the household, particularly men beating up their wives and partners, especially when they were drunk. But this was accompanied by silent fear that prevented women from addressing the problem either individually or collectively.

Over the 15-year period, however, the nature of the violence had changed considerably. So 1992 was my real introduction to urban violence as a development constraint that eroded the assets of the poor and affected their livelihoods and well-being. Like many others writing in this volume, my background is not in criminology, social work or psychology — three of the disciplines traditionally most associated with violence as an issue of individual criminal pathology. Rather, I am an urban anthropologist. In the past decade, as lethal violence and its associated fear and insecurity have been recognized increasingly as a critical problem in urban areas, so the range of researchers, policy makers and practitioners focusing on this issue has expanded. Today, economists, political scientists, transport planners, architects and NGO community workers, among others, all grapple with the ubiquitous presence of urban violence in their work in cities.

Despite the growing attention to urban violence, we are faced with an important contradiction. On the one hand, we are still on a slow learning curve. This is reflected in the fact that this is the first volume of Environment and Urbanization devoted solely to this issue — although there have been notable self-standing articles in earlier issues.(2) On the other hand, as we seek to comprehend the complex, multi-layered nature of violence, the phenomenon itself is not static. Along with newer preoccupations, such as globalization, post 9/11 fears and insecurities, international migration and "failing" states, not to mention long-term difficulties of exclusion, poverty and inequality, the face of urban violence itself is also rapidly, dramatically changing.

This issue of Environment and Urbanization seeks to understand better the phenomenon of urban violence and insecurity, to document the causes, costs and consequences, and to highlight community- based innovative solutions to the problem. This introduction, therefore, has the challenge of simultaneously reconciling these two aspects — it needs to provide a basic roadmap of urban violence as a background to the papers in this volume — while also highlighting some of the concerns raised in the articles themselves. These include new insights into long-known violence-related problems, as well as newer "cutting-edge" issues.

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Authors

Caroline Moser

Publication: Environment and Urbanization