Development Practice

Objectives:

The main objective is to introduce students to the Development Practice arena first and foremost as a field of practice, but also as a research subject and as the object of critical scholarship. The course builds on the students¿ prior knowledge of development scholarship generally (the first semester), and an introductory course in Development at the master's level is a prerequisite.

Content:

The main themes are (1) the project cycle including a) preparedness; b) monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning (MEAL); and c) capacity-building and training; d) funding applications and reporting; (2) Advocacy and policy encompassing mainstreaming and intersectionality of gender, age, disability, rights-based approaches, Protection from sexual exploitation and abuse (PSEA) and safeguarding; (3) Coordination systems (Governance and actors) at global/regional/ national/ local levels including development/humanitarian/ peace organisations (triple nexus); UN systems; Inter-agency standing committee; (4) Buzz concepts (current trends) and "has been" buzz concepts.

On completion of this course the student will be able to

Knowledge

• Appraise the project cycle in a humanitarian or development organisation or service provider and evaluate preparedness in the form of
  • Needs assessment and analysis
  • Strategic planning
  • Resource mobilisation
  • Implementation and monitoring
  • Operational peer-review and evaluation

Skills

• Create effective solutions to real-life challenges experienced by humanitarian and development organisations or service providers
• Analyse how to design an evaluation of an intervention/project at various levels
  • Monitoring
  • Evaluation
  • Accountability including PSEA
  • Learning (log-frames, theories of change, indicators, etc.)
• Assemble and justify dimensions of capacity-building and training relevant to a range of humanitarian or development projects

Competence

• Apply components of policy at different levels (from organisation to national to global) to analyse advocacy and mainstreaming on a range of issues (e.g. climate/greening; gender; human rights, etc.)
• Analyse the complex network of co-ordination systems and actors at different levels
• Be critically aware of current "buzz" concepts/approaches and be able to evaluate their contextual relevance across time and space

The emphasis on specific topics may vary from semester to semester.