Redefining Development - Resolving Complex Challenges in a Global Context

In 2015, Old Fadama, the largest informal community in Accra, was a government 'no-go zone.' Armed guards accompanied a participatory action research team and stakeholders as they began an empirical research project. Their goals: resolve wicked problems, advance collaboration theory, and provide direct services to vulnerable beneficiaries. In three years, they designed a collaboration intervention based on rigorous evidence, Ghana's culture and data from 300 core stakeholders. Sanitation policy change transformed the community, and government began to collaborate freely. By 2022, the intervention was replicated in Accra, Kumasi and eleven rural communities, providing health services to more than 10,000 kayayei (women head porters) and addressing complex challenges for 15,000 direct and hundreds of thousands of indirect beneficiaries. This collaboration intervention improved community participation, changed policy, and redefined development in theory and practice. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

List of contents

1. Introduction 1; 2. Why cross-sector collaboration? 8; 3. The Accra stakeholder platform: designing a cross-sector collaboration intervention 21; 4. Confronting development as usual: process and project results 40; 5. Network analysis: replicating the PAR intervention 54; 6. Conclusion; References.

Summary

The Old Fadama informal community in Accra Ghana was an urban slum, and a government no-go zone in 2015. Participatory researchers worked with local stakeholders to design an evidence-based collaboration intervention based on local culture, redefining development in theory/practice. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Foreword

Focuses on the concept phase of the project to resolve complex challenges in the Old Fadama slum of Accra, Ghana.

Product details

• Authors: Jessica Kritz, Jessica (Georgetown University Kritz
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 31.07.2023
• EAN: 9781009394864
• ISBN: 978-1-0-0939486-4
• No. of pages: 75
• Series: Elements in Public and Nonprofit Administration
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Education > Social education, social work; Social sciences, law, business > Business > General, dictionaries; Ghana, Accra, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Emigration & Immigration, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Poverty & Homelessness, POLITICAL SCIENCE / NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations), POLITICAL SCIENCE / Public Affairs & Administration, POLITICAL SCIENCE / World / African, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Violence in Society, Poverty & unemployment, Migration, immigration & emigration, Public Administration, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), Migration, immigration and emigration, Violence in society, Violence and abuse in society, Poverty and precarity, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Activism & Social Justice