NGOs have played an important role worldwide in the fight to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS through achieving behaviour change. NGOs have often been at the forefront of innovative changes, influencing government and international programming activities. This paper identifies and analyses the evolution of the HIV/AIDS programmes of one NGO in Thailand over a period of ten years. Three generations of programming are identified both through distinct approaches to this area of work and through the changing jargon used to describe the people the programmes are aimed at.

Microcredit has been introduced to rural communities in Bangladesh as a means of economic and social development, but there are increasing doubts about its effectiveness and suggestions that it causes domestic abuse. A review of various studies indicates that microcredit can result in social disruption by exacerbating gender conflict. It is suggested that micro-level study is required before credit is introduced to local communities.

This paper is based on a small micro-level study carried out to assess the impact of recent socio-economic changes in Tajikistan on the livelihoods and well-being of women in Gorno-Badakhshan. It examines the recent involvement of women in trading and informal economic activity with a focus on the trade-offs that women have faced as a result. It argues that the shift towards a market economy in a depressed economic environment has resulted in increasing socio-economic differentiation, insecure livelihoods, and declining social capital. Women's involvement in trading, along with the withdrawal of the state from basic social services, has increased women's workload. Women's participation in the political sphere is declining from an already low base. Increasing material poverty and multiple roles and responsibilities have made it difficult for women to take up opportunities for public participation, even at a local level. The article concludes that there are structural barriers to reducing poverty in Gorno-Badakhshan and raises questions about the possibilities for disadvantaged groups and regions to benefit from a strongly market-based development paradigm.

Learning organisations and their focus on fundamental change have been seen as having considerable potential for making organisations more gender equitable and improving their capacity to undertake development or human rights work that is not gender biased. This article, developed by the Gender at Work Collaborative, explores the usefulness of ideas related to learning organisations in changing institutions for gender equality. While this collection of ideas and practice are seen as helpful, a deconstruction of organisational learning points out some difficulties with this body of work and proposes an enhanced toolbox, which would pay attention to such factors as power relations, the spiritual basis of the work, and the gendered 'deep structure' of organisations.