Search Results (27)

Community-Based Tourism (CBT) refers to forms of tourism owned and managed by local communities, designed to enhance participation, empowerment, and equitable benefit-sharing. This study investigates how climate-induced migration and donor investment disparities shape the uneven development of CBT across Vietnam. The research pursues three aims: (1) to evaluate how macro- and micro-level funding structures influence CBT readiness; (2) to analyze how spatial justice and post-development critique illuminate structural inequalities in tourism investment; and (3) to assess the implications for climate-vulnerable and ethnic minority communities, including their underrepresentation in CBT research and policy discourse. Methodologically, the study undertakes a systematic review of CBT literature (2014–2025), a thematic analysis of donor and government reports (World Bank, ADB, IFAD), and an estimation of regional funding flows using narrative coding and text-based pattern analysis. Findings reveal a persistent geographic and institutional bias toward the Southern Mekong Delta, which benefits from climate-resilience projects and tourism-specific investments, while Northern Highlands regions remain marginalized, receiving only poverty-focused funding. The paper contributes by integrating spatial justice and post-development critique into tourism studies, demonstrating how donor-led “resilience” agendas can inadvertently reinforce spatial inequalities, and offering policy recommendations for more equitable CBT planning, funding, and scholarly attention across Vietnam’s diverse regions. Full article

The transboundary partnership encourages multi-stakeholder efforts to mobilize adaptation funding and services for adaptation governance. However, challenges exist in scope, equality, and transparency when engaging these stakeholders. Few studies have examined the detailed coordination among multi-stakeholders and the performance of their partnerships, creating an opportunity to understand how multi-stakeholders contribute to and manage efforts for future adaptation projects. This study focused on a transboundary action research project on climate adaptation, analyzing the partnership structure, stakeholder arrangements, coordination scenarios, and the role of the partnership within it. It included interviews with project personnel and focus group discussions with community members at the project sites. The results showed that the project emphasized collaboration while maintaining both vertical and horizontal coordination. The donor maintained vertical coordination for monitoring but collaborated on budget adjustments, funding, identifying challenges, and developing strategies to improve the partnership. Partners continued horizontal coordination by sharing responsibilities and taking leadership roles in synthesizing research reports. Additionally, this project facilitated community participation in piloting the adaptation intervention. Although this partnership aimed to establish collaboration, it remains far from effectively liaising with national-level governments to maximize the benefits of adaptation technology. Future research should expand this scope to promote sustainable development. Full article

Geospatial sensing and data-driven technologies (GSDDTs) are playing an increasingly important role in transforming (agro)forestry practices across the Western Balkans 6 region (WB6). This review critically examines the current state of GSDDT application in six WB countries (also known as the WB6 group)—Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo*, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia—with a focus on their contributions to sustainable (agro)forest management. The analysis explores the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), light detection and ranging (LiDAR), geographic information systems (GIS), and satellite imagery in (agro)forest monitoring, biodiversity assessment, landscape restoration, and the promotion of circular economy models. Drawing on 25 identified case studies across WB6—for example, ALFIS, Forest Beyond Borders, ForestConnect, Kuklica Geosite Survey, CREDIT Vibes, and Project O₂ (including drone-assisted reforestation in Kosovo*)—this review highlights both technological advancements and systemic limitations. Key barriers to effective GSDDT deployment across WB6 in the (agro)forestry sector and its cross-border cooperation initiatives include fragmented legal frameworks, limited technical expertise, weak institutional coordination, and reliance on short-term donor funding. In addition to mapping current practices, this paper offers a comparative overview of UAV regulations across the WB6 region and identifies six major challenges influencing the adoption and scaling of GSDDTs. To address these, it proposes targeted policy interventions, such as establishing national LiDAR inventories, harmonizing UAV legislation, developing national GSDDT strategies, and creating dedicated GSDDT units within forestry agencies. This review also underscores how GSDDTs contribute to compliance with seven European Union (EU) acquis chapters, how they support eight Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and their sixteen targets, and how they advance several EU Green Agenda objectives. Strengthening institutional capacities, promoting legal alignment, and enabling cross-border data interoperability are essential for integrating GSDDTs into national (agro)forest policies and research agendas. This review underscores GSDDTs’ untapped potential in forest genetic monitoring and landscape restoration, advocating for their institutional integration as catalysts for evidence-based policy and ecological resilience in WB6 (agro)forestry systems. Full article

This paper examines the financial health risks that private sector water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) businesses in rural Vietnam face. It investigates the challenges faced by water operators and sanitation suppliers involved in donor-funded development projects aimed at supporting poor and vulnerable households. Through surveys and focus group discussions with 15 suppliers who worked in public–private partnerships, this research examines the financial risk factors affecting water and sanitation suppliers and their impact on financial viability through two case studies. For water operators, the risks primarily involve infrastructure management, operational costs, and revenue instability. In the sanitation sector, risks center around fluctuating material prices, limited business expansion capital, and household affordability. This study highlights the dual role of government and donor subsidies, which enhance service accessibility but potentially distort market dynamics. It also underscores the need for targeted financial and policy interventions, including better access to microfinance, regulatory improvements, and human resource development. The findings aim to inform strategies for government, donors, and private sector actors in similar WASH development contexts to enhance financial sustainability, ensuring inclusive WASH services in underserved areas. This paper contributes to policy discussions by proposing mechanisms to balance public–private collaboration while fostering market resilience and equitable access to WASH services in emerging economies similar to that of Vietnam. Full article

Corruption in public procurement remains a challenge to good governance, especially in developing nations. Blockchain technology has been espoused as a new paradigm for achieving sustainable public procurement practices for effective service delivery and, by extension, promoting sustainable development. Given the potential of blockchain technology, its implementation has been slow in developing countries. Additionally, there is an inadequate decision support framework to prioritize corruption-prone stages of the public procurement cycle for strategic blockchain integration at the most critical corruption-prone stages of the public procurement cycle given the scarce resources available in developing countries. Therefore, we employed a matured theory that is the principal-agent theory to identify key agency problems related to public procurement in developing countries. An interview with 25 experts and a thorough review of Ghana’s Auditor General produced seven public procurement cycle stages. Further, a survey was designed for experts and stakeholders to prioritize the identified procurement stages under the agency problems through the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). Our results revealed that tender evaluation was the most critical stage susceptible to corruption, followed by contract management and procurement planning in the public procurement stages. Additionally, for the relative importance of the criteria, information asymmetry was ranked first, followed by moral hazard, and then adverse selection. This study offers a targeted framework for blockchain deployment in public procurement from an African country perspective. The outcome of this study provides insights for policymakers and procurement practitioners to know the most critical stages of public procurement stages and leverage blockchain technology given the scarcity of resources in developing countries to aid sustainable public procurement. The proposed blockchain framework can enhance service delivery, citizens’ trust, and international donor confidence in partnership and funding for public procurement projects in developing countries. Full article

This paper examines a donor-funded development project in the rural mountainous districts of Vietnam aimed at improving water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services for vulnerable households, particularly those with disabilities. The study investigates the project’s impact on disability inclusion at the household and community levels and identifies factors that support or hinder progress towards inclusion for people with disabilities. Data from a survey of 600 households and interviews with household members and village chiefs provide insights into the perceptions and attitudes towards persons with disabilities (PWDs), and practices of disability-inclusive WASH. While progress has been made in changing attitudes towards the rights of PWDs, there is still room to improve practices, especially in engaging with PWDs, offering affordable disability-inclusive WASH services, and including them in WASH policy decisions. This paper highlights the need for a comprehensive approach that extends beyond household interventions and emphasizes a shift in mindset towards disability inclusion at all societal levels. Full article

Rehabilitating heritage buildings is a common practice in developed countries. In contrast, developing countries experiencing conflict lack the financial support and qualified experts to restore heritage buildings. This article focuses on the restoration of the al-Khader building in the Gaza Strip, part of a UNESCO project aimed at preserving historical buildings. This study aims to explore the challenges and impacts of the adaptive reuse of the al-Khader building as a children’s library for the local community and to explore the impact of this project on sustainable development and its importance locally, as well as the role of this building restoration and rehabilitation through Quintuple Helix dimensions. Qualitative methodology was used, including field observation and interviews, to present the project stages during restoration in 2016. The interviews were conducted with library users, employees, and visitors to evaluate their experience in 2019. The research revealed that the restoration process faced several challenges, including a lack of experience and professional workers in conservation work. Despite challenges, the building’s transformation positively affected heritage preservation and the local community, aligning with 11 Sustainable Development Goals—directly with 7 goals (SDGs 4, 7, 8, 11, 12, 16, and 17) and indirectly with 4 goals (SDGs 1, 5, 9, and 13). The findings emphasise the role of the library’s rehabilitation in contributing to the success of the Quintuple Helix in economic and civil society systems and the need to enhance the consideration of government, education, and environmental systems. Finally, this project, which external donors funded, increased awareness among local people of the importance of heritage buildings. Unfortunately, due to the ongoing conflict in Gaza, the current status of the building is unknown. This study, therefore, serves as necessary documentation of the building as it was in 2023 and prior. Full article

The current economic and political crisis has brought about a change in the environment in which non-governmental development organisations (NGDOs) have traditionally operated. This change can be summed up as a reduction in the funds they receive and an increase in the population they must serve. The need then arises to have mechanisms that allow an analysis of the good work performed by the NGDOs. Knowing the efficiency of the NGDOs in the management of their previous projects can contribute towards improving their future achievements. The aim of this research is to establish some objective indicators that allow an evaluation of the efficiency of these organisations. Firstly, a detailed analysis of the regulation of the three agencies is conducted (Spanish-AECID, European-EuropeAid, and American-USAID). This allows us to synthesise the indicators of good performance of the NGDO based on the study of the eligibility criteria of public donors. The research concludes with the study of the efficiency following the Promethee Approach. Our results reveal that 44.6% of the NGDOs (33 out of the 74 studied) operate inefficiently, compared to 29.7%, which are efficient. Full article

With growing global concern for food and water insecurity, an efficient method to monitor irrigation projects is essential, especially in the developing world where irrigation performance is often suboptimal. In Nepal, the irrigated area has not been objectively recorded, although their assessment has substantial implications for national policy, project’s annual budgets, and donor funding. Here, we present the application of Landsat images to measure irrigated areas in Nepal for the past 17 years to contribute to the assessment of the irrigation performance. Landsat 5 TM (2006–2011) and Landsat 8 OLI (2013–2022) images were used to develop a machine learning model, which classifies irrigated and non-irrigated areas in the study areas. The random forest classification achieved an overall accuracy of 82.2% and kappa statistics of 0.72. For the class of irrigation areas, the producer’s accuracy and consumer’s accuracy were 79% and 96%, respectively. Our regionally trained machine learning model outperforms the existing global cropland map, highlighting the need for such models for local irrigation project evaluations. We assess irrigation project performance and its drivers by combining long-term changes in satellite-derived irrigated areas with local data related to irrigation performance, such as annual budget, irrigation service fee, crop yield, precipitation, and main canal discharge. Full article

This is the first evaluation of the Yemen Field Epidemiology Training Program (Y-FETP) to assess if it met its objectives. We collected data using mixed methods including desk review, a focus group discussion with the Y-FETP staff, in-depth interviews with 21 program stakeholders, and an online survey for the program’s graduates. We transcribed/analyzed qualitative data using explanatory quotations and survey data using descriptive methods. The desk review indicated that Y-FETP covers 18 (82%) out of 22 governorates and conducted >171 outbreak investigations, 138 surveillance system analyses/evaluations, 53 planned studies, published >50 articles and had >155 accepted conference abstracts. Qualitative findings showed Y-FETP helped save lives and reduced morbidity/mortality using building capacities in outbreak response; provided evidence-based data for decision-making; and increased awareness about public health issues. An online survey showed that Y-FETP helped 60 to 80% of graduates conduct outbreak investigations, surveillance analysis/evaluation, manage surveillance systems/projects, engage in public health communication (reports/presentation), and use basic statistical methods. However, the evaluation revealed that Y-FETP is primarily funded by donors; thus, it is not sustainable. Other challenges include low graduate retention and limited training in policy development and management. Y-FETP achieved its main objectives of increasing the number of epidemiologists in the workforce, making a positive impact on public health outcomes. Full article

We know little about the general geographic allocation of development projects in post-conflict regions, and specifically of gender-focused projects. In this study, we explore whether donor agencies prefer to work in “safe” places or dare to operate in conflict-affected zones. Using Colombia as a case study, we combine data on battle deaths from the UCDP Georeferenced Event Dataset (1994–2004) with georeferenced information on the location of development projects from the Colombia AIMS dataset (2006–2013) and manually geocode data for German-funded development projects (2012–2018) with gender as a significant objective. Using count models (N = 1120), we find a statistically strong and positive relationship: an increase in battle deaths increases the number of development projects (with and without gender-focus) in a municipality. Interaction models further reveal an amplification of this relationship for regions with a large proportion of female-headed households, as well as a high number of formally employed and literate women. A context-sensitive interpretation of our findings suggests that (1) development projects in general, and German-funded gender-focused projects in particular, dare to operate in post-conflict settings; (2) women may play an active role as community leaders and mobilizers to influence the allocation of development programs to certain regions. Full article

Public-private partnerships (PPPs) may facilitate the implementation of fit-for-purpose land administration (FFPLA); however, the approach can be compromised when funding for land registration is insufficient or donor projects end. This paper aims to introduce a new form of PPP to the literature on FFPLA, further extending the discourse and options available on PPPs for FFPLA. A background review finds that whilst PPPs have had long standing application in land administration, there is room to explore approaches that seek increased involvement of non-conventional land sector actors. A case study methodology is applied to analyse recent developments of FFPLA in Côte d’Ivoire that includes a partnership between the government and a consortium of private sector companies. Results describe the novelty, challenges, opportunities, and success factors for the approach, when compared to existing forms of PPPs. It is found that the innovative partnership approach may create novel avenues for financing FFPLA in developing countries and for more active forms of participation of the private sector in improved land tenure governance. The model potentially creates sustainable buy-in from private sector corporations, who whilst not conventionally closely undertaking land administration efforts, rely intrinsically on it to achieve corporate social responsibility objectives. Full article

The principle of sustainable development is an obligation placed on all entities involved in the implementation and delivery of the structural funds made available not only by the European Commission but also by grant donors from all over the world. For this reason, when applying for a grant, proposals need to demonstrate the positive or neutral impact of the project on sustainable development. To be able to select projects that will ensure sustainability, we need to ensure the effective evaluation of the proposals. The process of their evaluation should be objective, unbiased and transparent. However, current processes have several limitations. The process by which grants are awarded and proposals evaluated has come under increasing scrutiny, with a particular focus on the selection of reviewers, fallibility of their assessments, the randomness of assessments and the low level of common agreement. In our studies, we demonstrated how some of those limitations may be overcome. Our topic of interest is the work of reviewers/experts who evaluate scientific grant proposals. We analyse data coming from two prominent scientific national grant foundations, which differ in terms of expert’s selection procedure. We discuss the problems associated with both procedures (rating style of the reviewers, lack of calibration and serial position effect) and present potential solutions to prevent them. We conclude that, to increase the unbiasedness and fairness of the evaluation process, reviewers’ work should be analysed. We also suggest that, within a certain panel, all grant proposals should be evaluated by the same set of reviewers, which would help to eliminate the distorting influence of the selection of a very severe or very lenient expert. Such effective assessment and moderation of the process would help ensure the quality and sustainability of evaluations. Full article

Project management is an autonomous discipline that is applied to a huge diversity of activity sectors and that has evolved enormously over the last decades. International Development Cooperation has incorporated some of this discipline’s tools into its professional practice, but many gaps remain. This article analyzes donor agencies’ project management approaches in their funding mechanisms for projects implemented by non-governmental organizations. As case study, we look at the Spanish decentralized donor agencies (Spanish autonomous communities). The analysis uses the PM² project management methodology of the European Commission, as comparison framework, to assess and systematize the documentation, requirements, and project management tools that non-governmental organizations need to use and fulfill as a condition to access these donors’ project funding mechanisms. The analysis shows coincidence across donors in the priority given to project management areas linked to the iron triangle (scope, cost, and time) while other areas are mainly left unattended. The analysis also identifies industry-specific elements of interest (such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals) that need to be incorporated into project management practice in this field. The use of PM² as benchmark provides a clear vision of the project management areas that donors could address to better support their non-governmental organization-implemented projects. Full article

The notion of accountability in nonprofits suggests that these organisations should disclose financial and non-financial practices following a holistic model. In practice, the interest of both managers and researchers has focused primarily on donors and financial disclosures, for funding and methodological reasons respectively. From the perspective of impact investment, all of them, government, beneficiaries, private donors, managers and volunteers are expected to make their decisions based on non-financial information as investors expecting social returns. However, to what extent does project information that demonstrates that the non-profit organisation has achieved its social mission actually matter? The main objective of this paper is to analyse whether the donations received by non-governmental organisations NGOs are related to the information disclosed on the projects undertaken. We perform our analysis separately for individual, private and public donors. Our results show that public donors are more interested in financial disclosures, private donors find information about outcomes and impacts to be most useful and individual donors do not tend to use non-financial information when it comes to making decisions about whether to donate or not. Full article