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Critical success factors for managing post-disaster reconstruction projects: the case of Angola
Get PDFAlthough some studies have been carried out on project management of “typical” construction projects, little work has been done on what makes Post-Disaster Reconstruction Projects (PDRPs) successful. This paper analyses the Critical Success Factors (CSFs) for implementation of PDRPs in Angola. The paper adopted a survey and interviews. Data was collected from project participants within the ministry of planning, provincial government office of planning and local government in Angola. A questionnaire with closed questions was completed by 130 survey respondents. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 7 practitioners selected through purposive sampling. The findings indicate that adequate funding, effective planning, competent project managers, good communication, the active involvement of stakeholders, good written contract, political stability, less bureaucracy in the reconstruction process, economic stability and sufficient resources are the CSFs. The findings further revealed that, there are no differences in the responses between the groups especially between managers and consultants and between contractors and consultants. The findings strongly suggest that CSFs are key resources and skills that determine the successful implementation of a project in terms of its direction and benefits and proposes that stakeholders and project managers should consider these factors for best practices when managing PDRPs. Since PDR is context specific, countries with the same economic status, environment and post-disaster event may benefit from the results. Hence, the study offers new insights to gain an understanding of the CSFs that contribute to best PDR practices
When the guns stopped roaring: Acholi ngec ma gwoko lobo
Get PDFThis article calls attention to the responsibility of universities to transform, through partnership, the community in which they are embedded. The authors suggest that, to find solutions to the various community challenges and achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), universities need to engage in partnerships of knowledge co-creation with the community in ways that value local knowledge and experience. The article elaborates on the efforts of Gulu University Centre for Community Based Participatory Research and Lifelong Learning, located in Northern Uganda, to show the potential of co-constructing knowledge for community transformation. The centre is part of the Knowledge for Change (K4C) global consortium, which is a growing network for community-based research. The authors share three research stories of community-based research that reflect distinct challenges faced in Northern Uganda and effective community-engaged solutions. Through an exploration of the Acholi ontology and epistemology of interconnection, the authors demonstrate that local communities have the knowledge and experience to define and address local problems
A critique of the newly proposed model of decentralisation in Lesotho
Get PDFThe Government of Lesotho has drafted the Local Government Bill 2016. The Bill is supposed to be a reformist piece of legislation to transform not only the model of decentralisation established by the Local Government Act of 1997, but to also undo the colonial legacy of de-concentration. To this end, the government adopted a new decentralisation policy in 2014, which unequivocally provides that the model of decentralisation in Lesotho shall be ‘devolution’. Hence, the 2016 Bill is assessed in this light: whether it implements this policy decision. This paper contends that, while an attempt is made by the Bill to introduce some semblance of autonomy for local authorities, the model of devolution it introduces is in fact very weak and needs significant strengthening if decentralisation is to succeed
"Multi-culti“ vs. ”another cell phone store“ – Changing ethnic, social, and commercial diversities in Berlin-Neukölln.
Get PDFBased on an extensive ethnography of the economic and social life in Berlin-Neukölln, the paper asks how a changing demographic and social structure affects the social life but also the urban renewal on two iconic but contested streets - “the Arab street” Sonnenallee and adjacent Karl-Marx-Straße. The effects of migration - and particularly of the more recent refugee migration - to Berlin are explored through the reshaping and diversification processes of the physical and social spaces of the two streets and their businesses.
In detail, the paper illuminates the changing ordinary everyday interactions and social and spatial practices in and around local shops and gastronomic facilities and argues that it is the interactions in and around certain shops and businesses that contribute to the everyday practice of urban diversity. The paper further reveals that regardless of the place-and community-making of the local store owners and staff therein, the local urban renewal and regeneration actors have a very different understanding of these spaces and their operators and also aim for a different kind of new “diversity”. The paper thus concludes by also showing how these actors frame and depict the increasingly ethnically diverse businesses on the two streets in the course of urban renewal, including a critical discussion of their perceptions and concrete practices as in contrast to the ethnically diverse business peoples’ perceptions and placemaking practices that often also represent homemaking practices
Trojans of ambiguity vs resilient regeneration: visual meaning in cities
Get PDFThis paper presents a theoretical framework that helps identify visual sustainability in urban projects and evaluates its relevance for the use, design and making of public space. It is aimed at showing how the process of urban regeneration is far more nuanced and sophisticated than much of today’s building industry allows for. The first part of the article provides an outline of this framework, by drawing from the notion of ambiguity and discussing regeneration around a concept of trojans of ambiguity: by which we simply mean that modern-day regeneration projects are often a confusion of meaning. The framework is then applied to two case studies: Heygate, and Sidewalk Labs Toronto. The Heygate regeneration produced a negative emotionally charged process and social displacement. By contrast Sidewalk Labs Toronto exemplifies a technologically clean start for regeneration, on a site with little social vitality or history. The starting points for each ultimately point to two very different outcomes. Visual sustainability represents ‘the technology before the technology’ and future research must recognise how human needs, not technology, provide the meaning into ‘how’ we may create a successful, smart, and sustainable urban environment
Identifying success criteria at the post-handover stage for international development projects
Get PDFThe question of how successful a project is beyond the handover stage is still echoing in the literature on project management and more magnified in international development (ID) projects. In addressing the question, this study aims to demonstrate the importance of time frame in assessing project success, particularly identifying the success criteria at the post-handover stages (outcome and impact stages). This study used a qualitative approach that was rooted in interpretivism, allowing the use of constructivist grounded theory method (CGTM) in an ID project as an example. The study identified eight success criteria: Convenience, Development, Documentation, Maintainability, New Capability, Price of Service or Product, Training, and Usability. The study also found that, first, each participant had different emphases on different success criteria; second, most of the identified success criteria were still under the outcome stage; and lastly, usability received the highest responses from the participants as the most concerned criterion at the post-handover stages. This last finding verified the importance of time frame where the other criteria became less important if the outputs were useful to deliver the institutions’ strategic objectives. Future studies that use more sampled participants and different types of institutions are also encouraged
Not quite what’s on paper? Comparison between theoretical and actual information-sharing networks in the Ugandan rural water service sector
Get PDFUnder Uganda’s decentralised system, rural water service delivery remains to some extent problematic. Several studies attribute the possible causes of deficiencies in the water sector to governance issues. This article applies social network analysis to map upward and downward water-related information flows between the actors of local government from village to district level. Comparing the actual information-sharing network with what’s on paper reveals a less reciprocal and more centralised network than that theoretically envisaged. Some actors, such as the district water officer, are more central than expected in terms of sending and receiving information, while others seem to underperform. Our findings show, however, that it is not the political–administrative information exchange which is the biggest obstacle, but rather information flows between higher (district and sub-county) and lower (parish and village) levels of the local governance structure. Adding water users to the analysis reveals the village chairperson as the most crucial broker of information upward to duty bearers at district level. The limited role of water user committees also becomes apparent. The authors conclude that information communication technology holds potential to overcome some of the bottlenecks (eg distance) hindering the flow of water-related information between actors at different levels
The tree of community knowledge and engagement
Get PDFDeep-seated educational discourses have blamed low-income communities for their youth’s lack of high school completion. These deficit discourses reflect top–down knowledge hierarchies and a lack of knowledge democracy in education (de Sousa Santos 2007; Hall & Tandon 2017; Visvanathan 2009), and they are in need of critical and diverse knowledge reckoning by low-income communities themselves. This article relays how a community-university participatory action research (PAR) partnership became a dynamic site of knowledge democracy from which to counter and transform deficit-based knowledge systems imposed on economically disadvantaged communities. Steeped in the generative enactments of PAR, storytelling, ecological metaphor, strength-based approaches and the arts, this article explores a low-income/social housing community’s knowledge practices that are energising and growing its community power to support the success of their youth in school. These seven knowledge practices are narrated through the ecological metaphor of trees, specifically via a co-constructed PAR team narrative called the Tree of Community Knowledge and Engagement.
In the telling and retelling of this counternarrative-in-the-making, this article embodies knowledge democracy. Here, community members’ energising knowledge practices are recognised as invaluable forms of everyday educational knowing and leadership for their youth. This article further explores three broad ways of knowing that reside within and across community members’ seven knowledge practices: lived knowing, interconnected knowing and participatory/power-in-relation knowing. The three community ways of knowing illustrate how the community is growing its power to support youth’s success via a transformative educational worldview, from which other schools and universities could learn and, indeed, thrive
Epistemic injustices and participatory research: A research agenda at the crossroads of university and community
Get PDFThis article presents an innovative framework to evaluate participatory research. The framework, comprising both a methodology and a self-assessment tool, was developed through a participatory approach to knowledge production and mobilisation. This process took place over the last two years as we, a multidisciplinary team made up of researchers and community-based organisation members from the Groupe de recherche et de formation sur la pauvreté au Québec, were building a scientific program on social injustices and participatory research.
We argue that participatory research can help provide a university-community co-constructed response to epistemic injustices embedded within the processes of knowledge production. From our perspective, the mobilisation of knowledge from the university and the community, initiated at the earliest stages of the creation of a research team, is part of a critical approach to the academic production of knowledge. It also constitutes a laboratory for observing, understanding and attempting to reduce epistemic injustices through building bridges between team members.
The article focuses on two dimensions of the framework mentioned above: (1) The methodology we established to build co-learning spaces at the crossroads of university and community-based organisations (recruitment of a coordinator to organise and facilitate the workshops, informal and friendly meetings, regular clarification of the process and rules of operation, time for everyone to express themselves, informal preparatory meetings for those who wanted them, financial compensation where required, etc.); and (2) A self-assessment tool available in open access that we built during the process to help academics and their partners engage in a reflexive evaluation of participatory research processes from the point of view of epistemic injustices. Throughout we pay particular attention to challenges inherent in our research program and our responses, and finish with some concluding thoughts on key issues that emerged over the course of two years’ research
Designing communities in peace: Participatory action-research approaches embedded in regional education in Colombia
Get PDFGaitania is a rural town located in the Andes mountain range, very close to where the Colombian armed conflict with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas began in the mid-1960s. In this context, a situated research and education project was conducted with state, civil and community organisations, including the Agency for the Reincorporation and Normalization of the Colombian Government, coffee producer associations in the south of Tolima, the Nasa Wes’x indigenous community and 150 ex-combatants, as well as teachers and students from the Design Program of the University of Ibagué, Colombia. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how creative (design) work can be organically transformed from the instrumental to one that supports autonomous creative ways of learning.
This project established collective reflection–action processes that worked in conjunction with four critical learning objectives, as specified by the Bachelor Design Program. Workshops were conducted for the co-creation of a collective brand of coffee that brought together victims and victimisers in a joint process of reconciliation and memory sharing. Through generation of a special coffee brand called The Third Agreement – which is now being commercialised – memory of the territory’s autonomous peace processes and the community’s self-validation efforts were recovered and developed. Critical skills were also developed in students and communities so that they could understand the implications of producing a design that would capture the market, while also recognising the importance of building transition paths for participants, especially in the contexts of war and peace. The students’ reflections led to the construction of new praxis distinctions, such as plandisposición (planning-disposition),escuchacción (active-action-listening), honest-synthesis and sentipensar-actuar (feeling-thinking-acting), which indicate critical awareness of how design can open possibilities for creating futures in which many worlds co-exist
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