Acknowledging the overreaching importance of WHO guidelines of frequent handwashing with soap and water in battling COVID-19, this paper unravels the state of water supply in Indian cities and examines the challenges of conventional water policy and governance assumptions amid the COVID-19 crisis in India. Urban citizens, especially living in the slums, very often need to rush to access the water sources, making social distancing practically impossible. Apart from increasing public investment, this paper argues for rethinking the existing framework of water supply through institutional reforms focusing on decentralisation, community participation, and adoption of integrated water resource management policies.

This paper examines the impacts of COVID-19 on MFI operations and the response measures taken by MFIs in Ghana. Data from interviews shows that MFIs are faced with operational difficulties as a result of the crisis: inability to disburse new loans and collect loan repayments which is leading to increase in portfolios at risk, increased operational costs, and bottlenecks with non-financial service delivery. Reduction in lending and rescheduling of outstanding loan repayments, adoption of flexible working arrangements, and use of digital technologies are key response measures taken by the MFIs although the scale of implementation differed considerably by contextual factors.

This study focuses on the implications of various work environments on women's empowerment based on a survey of women employed in various occupations in a remote urban area. The results reveal that women employed in employer's enterprise outside the employer's dwelling are more likely to make or influence financial and non-financial decisions within the household. These women are also more likely to influence social decisions outside the household. Women engaged with home-based traditional industries are less likely to influence decisions. Women associated with SHG, trust, voluntary organisations, or federations more likely to make or influence decisions. Access to alternative employment has a positive association with decision-making. Women employed in employer's enterprise outside the employer's dwelling and women not having any specific workplace are more likely to consider a different profession for their daughters.

This paper explores the financial inclusion prospects of mobile money by drawing on the experiences of rural households in the Sunyani West District of Ghana. By employing a qualitative approach, we argue that the suitability of mobile money to financial inclusion in rural areas has a checquered outlook. This is because although the platform ensures ease, nearness, and speedy transaction, digital illiteracy, irregular service delivery, and poor network connectivity question the goodness of fit between mobile money and the rural environment. While mobile money provided transfer and savings services, the persistence of these constraints negatively influenced these financial inclusion potentials.

Despite a growing body of research on the benefits of cash transfers in reducing poverty, limited knowledge exists of beneficiaries' usage of social assistance to pursue livelihood activities in urban areas. This qualitative narrative enquiry provides empirical evidence that when cash transfers are combined with a wide range of livelihood activities, then material and psychosocial as well as personal, household, and business outcomes are improved. Evidence from Soweto, South Africa, provides policy and programmatic solutions for low- and middle-income countries which can inform post-covid responses to mitigate health and livelihood shocks and the deepening of poverty levels.

The mediation of development agencies is a growing concern for the Global South. Further research is needed to explore the manner in which authorised notions of development cascade down to the more discrete levels of society and alter understandings of heritage. This paper presents everyday narratives of craftswomen working in an export production village, discussing how development brings significant social, cultural, material, and economic changes. Highlighting the paradox of development – that it can intensify the very marginalisation it seeks to overcome – the paper suggests the need for careful integration of heritage within development activities.

This paper presents the experiences of two household sanitation subsidy initiatives piloted by SNV and WaterSHED targeting poor households in rural Cambodia. Each initiative offered eligible households a subsidy to help manage the upfront costs of constructing new pour-flush latrines. Subsidy uptake by households was limited by affordability of the required household contribution, insufficient time for households to mobilise funds, and unavailability of land. However, when taken up, the subsidies also often mobilised significant household investment. Overall, these experiences point to the need to understand how poor households respond to subsidy opportunities and to adapt subsidy mechanisms accordingly.

Despite a robust legacy of scholarship that has critiqued participation in development, the relationship between participation and empowerment remains unclear. Adelanto is a small non governmental organisation in Chiapas, Mexico, engaged in radical participatory community development. Using an ethnographic approach, we examined Adelanto’s politicised participatory approach, analysing assumptions that attempt to link radical participation with empowerment. Our findings illustrate Adelanto’s commitment to a participatory approach defined by solidarity as critical to their success in advancing participant self-mobilisation. These results represent new insight into linkages between participation, empowerment, and emancipation by demonstrating the centrality of downward accountability within localised development praxis.

This paper applies the market map tool to the Nepalese biomass improved cookstove (ICS) sector highlighting existing weaknesses in government policy and biomass cookstove market chains to provide recommendations to better address the social, economic, and cultural needs of users. This addresses the problem of low adoption rates of biomass ICS in Nepal. Our research objectives set out to explore the effectiveness of market maps designed for East Africa’s ICS sector (Stevens et al. [2019]. “Market Mapping for Improved Cookstoves: Barriers and Opportunities in East Africa.” Development in Practice) in Nepal, co-develop a revised market map for Nepal’s biomass ICS sector, conduct a parallel process for institutional-scale biomass ICS and draw on the co-produced market map to inform policy and regulatory frameworks relating to biomass-fuelled ICS. The methodological approach involved reviewing cookstove-related policy documents and regulatory frameworks, undertaking 31 semi-structured interviews, analysing findings from an Institutional Top-Loading Down-Draft (TLUD) Natural Draft Gasifier Pilot study and co-developing the final market map in collaboration with key ICS stakeholders. The results indicate that although government policy actively promotes biomass ICS, this often results in cookstove “stacking” rather than the sustained and exclusive use of clean cooking solutions necessary to promote health benefits. Attention is also focused on the underdeveloped nature of the institutional cookstove market. Our conclusions highlight the usefulness of market maps with a monitoring and evaluation element for identifying barriers to clean cooking uptake and facilitating product improvement by integrating end-user feedback.