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The development industry is increasingly pushing practitioners to achieve results, and to do better in demonstrating what works, what does not, and explaining why. There is a growing interest in going beyond the measurement of results to being able to understand the basis for success or failure. Consequently, the development of explicit theories of change (ToCs) is starting to be viewed as central to this process, as a key part of what constitutes ‘rigour’ in impact evaluations. Citizen...

Abstract: This study attempts to explore and examining about Indonesia Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) performance through relationship with strategic management theory. We apply strategic management model into our research to explain the relationship of firm performance with firm determinants. Firm strategy, external environment factors and internal resource factors of firm will be used as determinant of firm performance. Samples from Indonesia SME are collected and statistical analysis...

Decentralization has been underway in Indonesia for more than ten years, but recently many have challenged the how effectively decentralization – and even democratization – is being implemented. Deterioration in the quality of public services, the many corruption cases involving local governments, and low economic growth rates in some regions have prompted discourse about whether the country is making a reversal away from decentralization and democratization. We recognize that the move...

Sociologists and anthropologists have had a long interest in studying the ways in which cultures shaped different patterns of health, disease, and mortality. Social scientists have documented low rates of chronic disease and disability in non-Western societies and have suggested that social stability, cultural homogeneity and social cohesion may play a part in explaining these low rates. On the other hand, in studies of Western societies, social scientists have found that disease and...

This report is about how women entrepreneurs can contribute more to the quality and direction of economic and social development in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Economic growth in the Middle East has been remarkable since 2004, mainly because of higher oil prices. Rapid job growth has followed, driven mainly by the private sector. Yet the region still faces two important challenges: the first is to create better jobs for an increasingly educated young workforce; the second...

This chapter aims to shed light on the nature of men’s and women’s enterprises in Africa, to assess the extent to which the constraints and obstacles faced by women and men entrepreneurs may differ, and to address whether the constraints and obstacles entrepreneurs face affect the productivity and performance of men’s and women’s businesses differently.We begin with a brief overview of gender in the economy, followed by a more detailed analysis of available Enterprise Survey data where key...

This report examines the legal, administrative, and regulatory barriers that are preventing women in Kenya from contributing fully to the Kenyan economy. Building on the 2004 Foreign Investment and Advisory Service (FIAS) report, “Improving the Commercial Legal Framework and Removing Administrative and Regulatory Barriers to Investment,” this study looks at the bureaucratic barriers facing women in Kenya through a gender lens. The report makes specific recommendations to address...

SDC has been implementing projects in support to decentralisation and local governance for about 15 years. Today, arounf 2/3 of SDC's country programmes include a support to local governance and/or decentralisation. For this reason, an independent evaluation of  SDC’s achievements on “Decentralisation  and local governance” took place in 2006‐2007. One of the recommendations of this evaluation  was to  carry out  a capitalisation of SDC’s experiences in this field. SDC’s  Governance ...

This report presents findings from the Social Sector Performance Qualitative Study (SSPQS). The SSPQS was designed as a follow-up to the Social Sector Performance Surveys (SSPS), which were public expenditure tracking surveys undertaken in the primary and secondary education and government health and family planning systems between 2004 and 2006. In many respects, the SSPS findings were positive, documenting that systems of health and education service provision were functioning. While there...

In 2001, Indonesia embarked on a decentralization process that has had a dramatic impact on the local political landscape, especially in relation to taxation and administrative processes. Rules and procedures that govern licensing, registration, some taxes and user charges have largely been devolved to local governments. A significant number of new licenses and charges have been created at the local level, and most licenses are issued through a complicated system of procedures and agencies....

Market-oriented policy agendas have enjoyed a remarkable influence in Indonesia for almost four decades. Yet, attempts to impose these agendas in any systematic fashion have proven uncertain and inconclusive. This is not simply a case of successful resistance to reform by entrenched interests. Rather, the deepening of market capitalism and global integration has, in many instances, appeared to consolidate authoritarian politics and predatory economic relationships. Even in the wake of...

This paper brings together gender analysis, small scale enterprise analysis, and gender budget analysis in a development context. The paper demonstrates that gender matters not only to the ownership of an SME, but also to its most likely principal activity, the stock of the assets that it possesses, the labour that it utilizes, the costs that it faces, the revenues that it generates, and the profits that it earns. In particular, lower earnings for female-owned SMEs can be attributed to the...

In mid-1998, a World Bank study grimly noted that "Indonesia is in deep economic crisis. A country that achieved decades of rapid growth, stability, and poverty reduction is now near economic collapse . . . no country in recent history, let alone one the size of Indonesia, has ever suffered such a dramatic reversal of fortune." There is bitter irony in Indonesia's fall from grace. Long hailed as a model of successful economic development, it was widely predicted to escape the fate of...

The IDS Participation and Health and Social Change Groups convened a workshop in October 1999 to share experience with the use of participatory approaches in enhancing accountability in the health sector, and to explore some of these challenges. The articles in this bulletin reflect some of the richness of experience on the ground in building effective participation, as well as some of the many issues that arise in moving towards more active citizen engagement with service provision. They...