Endogenous development places the major importance in working with local communities on using people's own resources, strategies, and initiatives as the basis for their development. It considers not only the material, but also the socio-cultural and the spiritual resources of people, in order to broaden the options when formulating appropriate development paths, without romanticizing people's traditional worldviews and practices. This book provides ideas, guidelines, and examples of how to put endogenous development into practice. It also shows how field staff can be helped to learn, and how training or learning activities can best be organized, to support endogenous development.

Western ideas, worldviews, actors, tools, models, and frameworks have long dominated development theory and practice in Africa. The resulting development interventions are too rarely locally rooted, locally driven, or resonant with local context. At the same time, theories and practices from developing countries rarely travel to the Western agencies dominating development, undermining the possibility of a beneficial synergy that could be obtained from the best of both worlds. There are many reasons why the experiences of locally driven development are not communicated back to global development actors, including, but not limited to, the marginal role of Southern voices in global forums. This volume gives a platform to authentic African voices and non-African collaborators, to explore what endogenous development means, how it can be implemented, and how an endogenous development approach can shape local, national and global policies. This book was originally published as a special issue of Development in Practice.

Knowledge has become a buzzword of the age. In the North, people talk of the knowledge-based economy; in the South, the World Bank now defines itself as a knowledge institution. But the question is: whose knowledge? This collection of general reflections and practical experiences illustrates the inappropriateness of a Western model in many local settings, and the positive value of non-Western systems of knowledge, values and ways of doing things. It shows how traditional knowledge is being recognised in the botanical and agricultural sectors - local medicinal herbs, local seed varieties and animal breeds, local methods of pest control. The projects illustrate the notion of endogenous development, or development from within. They show how development can be based on locally available natural resources and local knowledge, values and leadership institutions; how development options can be locally determined; and how to retain the benefits of development within local areas and communities. Endogenous development is not a total solution, but complementary to ongoing modern technological and global economic processes. But the remarkable experiments described do show the rich benef

The beginning of the twenty first century has been characterized by the expansion of economics, politics and institutional relations. this book illustrates the local answer to the challenge of increasing competition.

Western ideas, worldviews, actors, tools, models, and frameworks have long dominated development theory and practice in Africa. The resulting development interventions are too rarely locally rooted, locally driven, or resonant with local context. At the same time, theories and practices from developing countries rarely travel to the Western agencies dominating development, undermining the possibility of a beneficial synergy that could be obtained from the best of both worlds. There are many reasons why the experiences of locally driven development are not communicated back to global development actors, including, but not limited to, the marginal role of Southern voices in global forums. This volume gives a platform to authentic African voices and non-African collaborators, to explore what endogenous development means, how it can be implemented, and how an endogenous development approach can shape local, national and global policies. This book was originally published as a special issue of Development in Practice.