Studies of resistance often overlook the significance of gender. This article, based on the author's experience as a Project Officer with an NGO that supported the development work of a grassroots organisation, the Gram Vikas Mandali Association Trust, describes the historical context of everyday resistance by village women against the Forest Department in western India. The article concludes with an attempt to understand why women were marginalised in more recent incidents of organised popular resistance, and what this tells us both about the nature of resistance to the state, and the nature of women's involvement in it.

There was a split between North and South over environmental issues at the 1992 Earth Summit. A similar rift may re-emerge as the British Overseas Development Administration opens management of its training programmes to competition in 1993. Emerging institutions offering training on environmental matters in Asia have the advantages of similar natural environments, relevance, and lower costs. As these increasingly realise that ODA funding for third-country training is not tied to British universities, they will compete with UK training institutions. The existing one-way student traffic to UK institutions can benefit from competition. Modern information and communication systems now allow training networks to interlink among institutions in both the North and the South. The UNCED commitment to increased training on environmental issues provides an opportunity for a major new environmental-training project managed by an independent academic/development institute or NGO.

This article makes the case that emergency relief programmes in pastoral areas of Africa do little to relieve the fundamental effect of famine, which is destitution. It argues that traditional mechanisms of coping with drought are often disrupted by food-aid programmes, especially Food-For-Work. Three case studies from Sudan and Kenya are used to support the argument. The article concludes by making policy recommendations for emergency programmes to be more effective in meeting the primary need of pastoralists following severe drought, which is to rebuild herds and therefore their livelihoods.

As part of the global drive to achieve Universal Child Immunisation by 1990 (UCI 90), Somalia launched a national immunisation programme for women and children. While access to it improved, actual demand for immunisation remained low. This article reports the findings of a study to identify the factors influencing acceptance of immunisation in two Somali communities. A retrospective, qualitative approach was adopted to assess individual and community experience both with immunisation and with the immunisation programme. Data were derived from focus group discussions, informal interviews and observation. The research findings provided programme managers and health workers with information for redesigning both the overall approach of the immunisation programme, and the content and style of health messages.

Most UK development NGOs engage in advocacy work at the international level in an attempt to reduce the constraints imposed on grassroots development by global economics and the actions of the official aid agencies. Thus far, their record has been disappointing, and this article explores some of the reasons which lie behind the failure of NGOs to fulfil their potential in this field. Four strategic weaknesses are identified: an overall absence of clear strategy, a failure to build strong alliances, a failure to develop alternatives to current orthodoxies, and the dilemma of relations with donors. Each weakness is analysed with reference to practical examples, and appropriate conclusions drawn.

The article identifies some of the problems encountered in using information technology in developing countries. It is based on field research into the use of computers in health programmes in East Africa and Nepal. The visits were part of an ODA-funded project to design guidelines on the selection, use, and maintenance of computers in a developing country. The article suggests reasons for the problems experienced, and offers some practical solutions.