This article proposes bottom-up learning as a normative framework for international NGOs. It explores the common but often unacknowledged disparity between organisational values and mission versus actual practice. The first section of the paper raises the question of organisational learning disorders followed by an exploration of learning organisations and bottom-up learning in particular. A section briefly summarising positive developments in the field is followed by discussions of organisational barriers and possible mitigation techniques. The paper closes with a challenge for international NGOs to take a closer look at their learning capabilities with a view to improving service to communities in need.

The concept of learning organisations is gaining prominence in the non-profit sector. Most organisations see the concept as a means of attaining organisational change for greater impact on development. While the principles of organisational learning (i.e. team learning, shared vision, common goal, and strategy) seem to have produced impressive results in the private sector and some non-profit organisations, the question is whether these principles can be adopted with similar results in complex bilateral programmes. This article explores this question in relation to a programme between the Dutch and Kenyan governments in Keiyo Marakwet, Kenya. It analyses the process of institutionalising participation as both a learning and a conflict-generating process. In the highly politicised context of bilateral programmes, learning is not necessarily carried forward from one phase to the next due to rapid changes in actors, national politics, diplomatic considerations, and the international development agenda.

The major development agencies have ex cathedra 'Official Views' (with varying degrees of explicitness) on the complex and controversial questions of development. At the same time, knowledge is now more than ever recognised as key to development--in the idea of a 'knowledge bank' or knowledge-based development assistance. The author argues that these two practices are in direct conflict. When an agency attaches its 'brand name' to certain Official Views, then it becomes very difficult for the agency also to be a learning organisation or to foster genuine learning in its clients. A model of a development agency as an open learning organisation, which is in sharp contrast to other organisational models such as the Church or the party, is outlined. That, in turn, allows the agency to take a more autonomycompatible approach to development assistance with the assisted country 'in the driver's seat' of a learning process rather than as the passive recipient of aid-sweetened policies from the agency.

In the late 1970s, feminist social scientists began to challenge some of the assumptions underlying the dominant paradigms on organisations, arguing that they reflect and are structured by the values articulated within the larger institutional arenas in which they are embedded, thus reproducing gender-discriminatory outcomes. This paper unpacks the 'deep structure' of one NGO, Utthan, based in Gujarat, India, to understand the extent to which it is an engendering organisation. It suggests that, while gender-sensitive leadership, training, and resources play a critical role in addressing gender equity in development practice, organisational transformation is a much harder and longer process requiring sustained commitment from the leadership, staff, and funding partners.

Heifer International (HI) has been applying participatory approaches to rural development for nearly 60 years. Organisationally, HI focuses on building the capacity of its country programmes and NGO partners to work independently toward a unifying mission. An open structure allows HI to validate and incorporate the rich and diverse experience of its project holders and country programme offices into organisational planning and daily operations. This article analyses three recent HI initiatives which incorporate deliberate processes to facilitate organisational learning. It outlines different strategies that HI uses to institutionalise learning without imposing limitations on it.

If aid is found to support a war effort, should aid agencies and practitioners continue to give it? The resounding answer given by aid workers all over the world is that the needs of suffering people are too important to ignore and, further, that there can be no justification for not assisting suffering people. But how can one provide aid in the context of conflict without exacerbating the conflict? The Local Capacities for Peace Project (LCPP) was formed in 1994 to learn how aid and conflict interact in order to help aid workers find a way to address human needs without feeding conflict. This paper will discuss how the learning process of the LCPP was designed, the results gained at each step, and how the results were fed back to the participating organisations.

Change is driven not only by good ideas, but also by disagreement and frustration. This article takes the reader through a selective organisational history of the British NGO ActionAid from 1998 to 2001, looking at events and changes that had a bearing on the introduction and initial impact of the agency'snew accountability system. Systematic change appears very unsystematic. Effective transformation took a long time to arrive, and was preceded by a number of failed experiments. It seems that the frustrations of this time were necessary to develop the creativity needed for significant change. The efforts started to bear fruit once the organisation began to realise alignment of mission, structures, procedures, and relationships.

The integration of learning into community development processes and how that learning can stimulate positive change pose challenges that development practitioners have met with mixed success. Who the most effective change agents are, how they can be supported, and how their efforts can be diffused in the community and scaled up are key questions in the community development literature. The authors designed and implemented an action-research project in western Kenya on traditional vegetables, recruiting pupils as co-researchers. The purpose of the research was two-fold. One goal was to explore the feasibility of increasing the intake of traditional vegetables through a school-based horticulture programme. The other was to increase pupils' competence as effective change agents by empowering them in culturally compatible ways. The results offer lessons for practitioners regarding creative means to identify and empower change agents within traditional organisations and encourage innovative creation and diffusion of knowledge.

This paper introduces the major concepts of Outcome Mapping and discusses the International Development Research Centre's experience in developing and implementing Outcome Mapping with Northern and Southern research organisations. It explores how the fundamental principles of Outcome Mapping relate to organisational learning principles and the challenges associated with applying theory to practice. It presents cases where planning, monitoring, and evaluation processes have been used to encourage learning and improvement, and discusses the potential of Outcome Mapping as a tool for evaluative thinking to build learning into development programmes.

This article explores attempts by eight UK-based international NGOs currently engaged in rural development interventions in Ethiopia to employ monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems as a means of strengthening accountability and institutional learning. Premised on the conviction that such NGOs comprise loose coalitions of interest groups at different organisational levels within them, the study explores how respondents in head offices, Addis Ababa, and field offices perceive and practise M&E. It was found that perceptions of M&E vary considerably between hierarchical levels and can have a significant impact on practice. Such perceptions are also framed by individual interests and thus frequently fail to reflect the reality of M&E practice. The story that unfolds offers valuable insights into the current myths and realities of M&E among INGOs.