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The capacity of community-based participatory research in relation to disability and the SDGs

GREENWOOD, Margo
2017

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The 2030 Agenda pledges to foster shared responsibility, recognizes all as crucial enablers of sustainable development, and calls for the mobilization of all available resources. It also commits to multi-stakeholder partnerships and pledges to be open, inclusive, participatory and transparent in its follow-up and review. Community-based participatory research (CBPR) equitably involves community members, organizational representatives and researchers, enabling them to share power and resources through drawing on the unique strengths that each partner brings. It aims to integrate any increased knowledge and understanding into action, policy and social change to improve the health and quality of life of community members. CBPR involves recruiting community or peer researchers, involving them in planning and offering them training to undertake interviews and observations in their context. They are also part of the analysis and dissemination process, and continue to work with local partners on advocacy plans and events after projects and research have finished. People with disabilities are actively part of the research process throughout. Drawing on relevant literature and current CBPR disability research in East and West Africa, this paper puts forward CBPR as a methodology that can enable community members to identify key barriers to achieving the SDGs, and inform how policy and programmes can be altered to best meet the needs of people with disabilities. It demonstrates CBPR in practice and discusses the successes and complexities of implementing this approach in relation to the SDGs. The paper also highlights findings such as the high level of support needed for community research teams as they collect data and formally disseminate it, the honest raw data from peer to peer interaction, a deep level of local ownership at advocacy level, emerging issues surrounding meaningfully involving community researchers in analysis, and power differentials. A key conclusion is that to join partners with diverse expertise requires much planning, diplomacy, and critical, reflexive thought, while emphasising the necessity of generating local ownership of findings and the translation of knowledge into a catalyst for disability-related policy change.

 

Disability & the Global South (DGS), 2017, Vol. 4 No. 1

Reflecting on education for sustainable development through two lenses : ability studies and disability studies

WOLBRING, Gregor
BURKE, Brigid
May 2013

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The call for papers asked to cast “a critical eye on the practice and purpose of sustainability-focused education, and its successes and failures, thus far”. We approach this task in this paper through two lenses that have not yet been very visible in the education for sustainable development (ESD) discourse. One is the lens of disability studies which is the inquiry around the lived reality of disabled people; the other is the lens of ability studies which among others investigates (a) which abilities are seen as essential in a given context; (b) the dynamic of how an ability expectation consensus is reached, if it is reached and (c) the impact of ability expectations. We conclude that (a) no consensus has been reached within ESD discourses as to the process of how to identify essential abilities and as to a list of abilities seen as important and (b) that disabled people are invisible in the formal and informal ESD discourse. We expect the paper to be of interest to disabled people, ESD scholars, teachers of ESD in different educational settings, students of ESD training, NGOs involved in ESD as well as policy makers involved in ESD.

The sustainability analysis process : the case of physical rehabilitation

BLANCHET, Karl
BOGGS, Dorothy
December 2012

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"This guide describes the Sustainability Analysis Process (SAP), a coordinated planning approach that aims to facilitate the development of a common vision of sustainability among various actors in a system. Specifically, it is a participatory process which outlines how to achieve consensus on a common vision, and how to define sustainability indicators that can be used to monitor progress towards this vision within the context of the national rehabilitation system. Ultimately, the SAP outlined in this guide is a practical tool that can help all actors in a system to understand the various components of sustainability and analyse the concept of sustainability in relation to their own system"

Making Kenya ODF

MUSYOKI, Samuel
March 2012

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This community-led total sanitation (CLTS) blog outlines progress on CLTS in Kenya, noting the difference in approach in Ghana and Ethiopia, and highlights the new approaches taken by some disabled people, working towards the goal of making Kenya open defecation free (ODF)

Going to scale with community-led total sanitation : reflections on experience, issues and ways forward

CHAMBERS, Robert
2009

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Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) is a revolutionary approach in which communities are facilitated to conduct their own appraisal and analysis of open defecation and take their own action to become open defecation-free. This report presents CLTS approaches in six countries which differ organisationally with contrasting combinations of NGOs, projects and governments. Practical elements in strategies for going to scale have included: training and facilitating; starting in favourable conditions; conducting campaigns and encouraging competition; recruiting and committing teams and full-time facilitators and trainers; organising workshops and cross-visits; supporting and sponsoring Natural Leaders and community consultants and inspiring and empowering children

 

Practice Paper, Vol 2009, No 1

Community led total sanitation (CLTS) : an evaluation of the WaterAid’s CLTS programme in Nigeria

BURTON, Salma
August 2007

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Since establishing a programme in Nigeria in 1995, WANG and partners have tried several approaches to promoting sanitation which have not yielded sustainable changes. In its attempt to seek a more sustainable methodology, WANG initiated the pilot testing of the Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) approach which aimed to facilitate a participatory process of empowering local communities to improve their sanitation situation. This evaluation report assesses the efficiency, effectiveness and relevance of the CLTS programme, and recommends ways of improving and scaling up the programme in Nigeria. The evaluation provides wide ranging evidence that that CLTS is an effective approach to establishing hygiene and sanitation practice in Nigeria, but the effectiveness varied depending on certain conditions which will need to be taken into consideration when scaling up the initiative

The ethics of research reciprocity : making children’s voices heard in poverty reduction policy-making in Vietnam

LAN, Pham Thi JONES, Nicola
2005

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This paper looks at research and reciprocity between partners and participants in the Young Lives project in Vietnam with particular regard to: the sustainability of relationships with local collaborators and project partners; the challenge of ensuring that research is designed and disseminated in a way that translates into pro-poor and child-focused policy; and the particular challenges of adhering to the principles of research reciprocity when working on a child-focused project

Working with indigenous knowledge : a guide for researchers

GRENIER, Louise
1998

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This book provides an examination of indigenous knowledge and what it can offer a sustainable development strategy, and offers a guide to collecting, using, and assessing indigenous knowledge. Includes a review of case studies in Indonesia, Ecuador, Ethiopia, and Venezuela

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