This article is written from the perspective of a health activist engaged in research on women's health. It lays out a methodological framework for studying issues concerning women's health, and goes on to describe a range of tools for collecting qualitative and quantitative information from the field. The article ends with a call for activist involvement in research to generate information that genuinely reflects women's needs and concerns, and could facilitate women's informed involvement in changing the circumstances that contribute to their poor health status.

Many NGOs are moving beyond conventional project work, with its emphasis on 'doing', and are attempting to enhance their impact through 'influencing'. There are four interconnected approaches: Project Replication, Grassroots Mobilisation, Influencing Policy Reform, and International Advocacy. Each calls for a more strategic relationship between NGOs and governments. For NGOs to move to an effective 'influencing' mode, new skills and a new relationship between Northern and Southern NGOs are required. The Technological Age, with its emphasis on physical projects, must give way to an Information Age, whose 'software' comprises access to official information, decision makers, and networks; and access to skills in communication, lobbying, and research. Northern NGOs must recognise that these requirements are becoming more important to their Southern counterparts than funds. If they do not, they will find their relationships becoming out of date, and their former counterparts will seek more appropriate allies — for example, among pressure groups in the North.

Despite their increasing numbers and size, the impact of non-governmental organisations' activity on development is usually localised and often transitory. In consequence, NGOs need to analyse the strategies by which they may be able to ‘cale up˚s their contribution to development. This article summarises the proceedings of a recent Workshop at the University of Manchester, England, which explored such strategies through a large number of case-studies. While it is not feasible to produce prescriptions from these materials, a number of lessons and key issues can be identified, and are highlighted in the article. ¹ This summary is taken from the Workshop Proceedings which will be published in full by Earthscan, under the title NGOs and Development: Strategic Choices for the Voluntary Sector, in November 1992.

Mozambique during the 1980s and 1990s has provided a challenging context for non-governmental organisations seeking to collaborate with its government in national development. One British NGO, Save the Children Fund, has set out to work in partnership with the government on a range of programmes at central level and in Zambezia province. Longer-term and emergency inputs form part of a conscious strategy aimed at securing sustainability. Institutional and practical constraints, however, make the achievement of this goal difficult, particularly in relief and rehabilitation projects. Changes in donor policies and in the Mozambican government's own evolving political priorities make it imperative to review this strategy on a regular basis. Lessons are drawn from Save the Children Fund's practical experience of development in Mozambique during the last eight years.

This article describes the need for non-governmental development organisations (NGDOs) to examine and so enhance their role if they are to take an active part in the shaping of a structurally different society. It is argued that mainstream NGDOs belong to a broader alternative movement which is involved in the search for equitable and sustainable forms of social organisation. In understanding development as a process of empowerment, NGDOs are bound to encounter both internal and external resistance. However, to be effective and to have credibility, it is argued that Northern NGDOs must challenge inequality in their own societies, as well as internationally and through the work they support in developing countries.

Evaluation is now recognised as an essential component in planning and implementing projects, and is one important means by which recipients can participate in the design process. In Vietnam, the liberalisation of the economic and social life of the country in the last few years has allowed Oxfam the scope to consider long-term development plans. As a first stage, a review of the impact of an Oxfam project on the community was undertaken, paying particular attention to the situation of women. Parts of the findings are explored in this article, to show that one infrastructural input, in this case a pumping station, will have a broad range of consequences for the community concerned. Contrary to expectations, increased production is tending to encourage co-operation between men and women, out of shared interest in strengthening the stability of the household, now recognised (in place of the collective) as the prime economic unit in Vietnam.

The Peace Agreement signed recently between the Government and FMLN guerrillas in El Salvador marks the end of a decade of civil war. As both sides of the conflict and the international donor community begin to add up the financial costs of reconstruction, the human, social and psychological costs are carried mainly by the poor of El Salvador. Social organisations and NGOs who became strategists of survival now face the challenge of transforming their accumulated experience into alternative proposals for the building of a more just society and a prosperous nation. This article explores the practical complexities of transition from war to peace; and from emergency aid to sustainable development based on the participation of communities, social organisations, NGOs, and international agencies; and the challenges of building on their experience.

This article describes the evolution of WaterAid's programme of work in Nepal, based on the author's experiences while working as WaterAid's Representative Engineer in Nepal from 1987 to 1991. It examines how WaterAid's philosophy of working in partnership with local organisations was actually put into practice. Various problems and constraints are identified and discussed, and certain points are highlighted which may be of general interest to other external support agencies working in similar ways in other countries and sectors. The overall conclusion is that this programme represents a viable methodology for an international NGO to achieve useful results in supporting local NGOs working in development.

The work of international non-profitmaking non-governmental development organisations (NGOs) challenges them to adopt a decentralised structure. We know little, however, about how this decentralisation is organised, and even less about its impacts on NGO performance. Based on studies in southern Africa, this article identifies the gains and losses associated with the choice to decentralise. It goes on to pose questions about decentralisation as a critical variable for the organisational design of NGOs which need to be answered by more systematic comparative study.

It is now two years since the Government of President Fernando Collor de Mello took office in Brazil. This article assesses its effectiveness in implementing its environmental policies and resolving social conflicts in the Amazon in the run-up to the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development. It examines some of the political and economic problems which have beset the new environmental programme, and gives an account of the response of Brazilian NGOs to some of the Government's main initiatives.