Social cash transfer has been widespread during the last 15 years as an innovative tool for poverty alleviation. It was initiated in Latin American countries and replicated by Asian and, subsequently, African countries.

The theoretical underpinning of cash transfer is consumer sovereignty. According to this thesis, cash transfer can enhance the autonomy of the poor, provide them an opportunity for free and optimal choice, and enable them to influence the direction of the market and public services delivery. It can also reduce the transaction cost related to social actions and thus increase their efficiency. The risks considered most important by skeptics about cash transfer are the misuse of the money and dependency, which are derived from an assumption of the irrational behavior of beneficiaries. Other predictable risks that could deter consumer sovereignty are market deficiency, which can generate insufficiency or low-quality supply, and the weakness of governance, which can provoke corruption or defalcation. Latin American and African experiences show that cash transfer has positively affected the welfare of beneficiaries and that expected risks have been manifested on a negligible scale.

For the further development of cash transfer, the following agenda have been identified. First, cash transfer should be integrated into a national solidarity policy. Second, beneficiaries should play a central role in the entire process of the cash transfer program (designing, management, and monitoring). This can restrain the paternalistic domination of beneficiaries by the government or donors and help them fight against social exclusion. Third, the environment for consumer sovereignty should be improved by increasing the supply of goods and services needed by the poor in a competitive market, creating financial institutions accessible by the poor, and providing them the necessary information for optimal decision-making.

Muslims form the largest minority group in the Philippines, comprising 5 percent of the total population. They mainly live in Mindanao Island, Sulu Archipelago, and Palawan, the southern Philippines. The Muslim-populated places comprise one of the most impoverished areas in the entire country today. These areas are marred by prolonged armed conflicts and provide limited job opportunities to them. Consequently, an increasing number of poor Muslim women began to work abroad, especially in the Middle East, as domestic workers. Collaterally, cases of poor working conditions, mistreatment, and occasional human rights violations against them began to be reported.

Many studies have reported on foreign domestic workers in the Middle East. However, most emphasize their vulnerability and criticize the labor systems of migrant-receiving states. They do not analyze why they become vulnerable in the context of both sending and receiving societies.

Therefore, this paper analyzes why foreign domestic workers tend to become vulnerable, with a focus on the case of Muslim Filipina domestic workers in the Gulf States. These workers move through multiple layers of complex disparities between their original societies and the Gulf States, and become vulnerable to poor working conditions. This paper attempts to unfold the layers of complex disparities in which the Muslim Filipina domestic workers are positioned, and explains the resultant characteristics of a vulnerable labor force.

At the same time, the paper describes how actions and behaviors of individual Muslim Filipinas (“agencies”) are constructed by their experiences as domestic workers moving through layers of complex disparities. By examining the process, the paper examines whether the structure of disparities, in turn, is negotiated by the agencies for change or not.

Since the U.S.S.R. invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the country has been deeply involved in conflicts. After the collapse of the Taliban regime in 2001, Afghanistan’s population expected a new, stable country with the assistance of the international community. However, this expectation remains unfulfilled because of worsening security conditions. In addition, many foreign governments have sought to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan because of rising casualties and the growing financial burden. Given this situation, it is certain that Afghanistan will slip back into a situation similar to the one it was in from the 1980s to the 1990s.

According to several socioeconomic indicators, people in Afghanistan still live under severe conditions. In order to improve this situation, the government of Afghanistan has been seeking further assistance from donors. Consequently, the country has received substantial amounts of aid over the past decade. Therefore, we can say that the aid is adequate in terms of the amount. However, it is also true that the aid has not reached those in need.

According to several socioeconomic indicators, people in Afghanistan still live under severe conditions. In order to improve this situation, the government of Afghanistan has been seeking further assistance from donors. Consequently, the country has received substantial amounts of aid over the past decade. Therefore, we can say that the aid is adequate in terms of the amount. However, it is also true that the aid has not reached those in need.

Ms. Ela Bhatt, founder of the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), said in 1992, “We not only want a piece of the pie, we also want to choose the flavor, and to know how to make it ourselves.” Even today, a woman is often seen as a receiver and not a learner and decision maker. This paper shows how donors ignored their own gender mainstreaming policy in rural development projects in Timor-Leste and analyzes how women farmers can acquire capability in order to solve critical engineering problems caused by authoritarian donors and the government, which cannot challenge the donors’ intentions.

Section I presents my previous field research on the irrigation development projects in Lao PDR, in which some donors promoted women’s participation in Water Users Associations (WUA), recognizing women as stakeholders who provided substantial resources and labor for the development of irrigation systems. It was observed in 1997, two years after the UN Conference on Women was held in Beijing. This was the period when donors began to integrate the gender mainstreaming goals into their policy for assuring gender equality to be promoted in every sector/field.

Section II describes how Timorese women, through the National Congress of Women, raised their concern about the lack of access to trainings, facilities, and the decision-making process regarding farming and natural resource management including irrigation. Section III shows the results of a two-year field research that I conducted together with women farmers on the Caraulun Irrigation Rehabilitation Scheme in Manufahi district. The EC-funded project was coordinated by the World Bank. The research showed that there was no intervention on participation of women, including widows and/or female household heads, into WUA and that their most pressing problem, the irrigation system malfunction, was caused by the donors’ neglect of farmers’ requests and the design’s incompleteness, which was attributable to the donors’ erroneous cost-cutting policy. However, the women struggled to participate in the WUA and the newly elected WUA leadership stood up to raise its voice against the donors and the government.

Over the past decade, much attention has been paid to the problem of failed/fragile states. In most cases, failed/fragile states have been argued from the perspective of developed countries or international society. Many discourses on failed/fragile states have been based on the interests or policy requests of developed countries and international society. This paper reconsiders these mainstream perspectives on failed/fragile states.

For this purpose, first, I will reconsider how developed countries and international society are responsible for state failure in developing countries. A majority of academic works on failed/fragile states explain that the cause of state failure is mainly characterized by local factors. However, these discourses often obscure the role of soldiers, weapons, and funds for civil wars in failed/fragile states, which are all supplied through developed countries and international society. I emphasize that developed countries and international society should be held responsible for civil wars that occur in the world’s poorest countries.

Second, I indicate that the world is becoming increasingly unequal because the gap among countries has widened from 1980 onward, and explain why developed countries and international society consider the world’ s poorest countries as failed/fragile states in the age of globalization. In the process of globalization, developed countries tend to be sensitive to global risk and to regard the world’s poorest countries as the origins of this risk. Generally, these two tendencies are strengthened due to the gap between the developed and poorest countries, which has been increasing over the past 30 years. This is why developed countries and international society consider the world’s poorest countries as failed/fragile states.

Finally, I examine the demand for good governance in failed/fragile states through SSR (Security Sector Reform) as a form of institutional development. Institutional development is usually a lengthy process, and international society does not yet possess adequate knowledge regarding the appropriate sequence of such development and the complex interdependency of institutions in developing countries. Therefore, the impatient demand for good governance is a rather problematic one in failed/fragile states.

This paper aims to illuminate the process of problem finding and problem solving based on storytelling and the role played by a researcher in the process. For this purpose, it first summarizes researches based on storytelling with a focus on the relation between the storyteller and the listener, which is an important aspect in analyzing the process. Second, it introduces two narratives of the urban poor, restructured by the author. The first is about a woman in the Philippines who was a social movement leader during the Marcos era, and is currently a city officer. The other is a story about an issue related to social enterprises in Korea. By considering these cases from the viewpoint described in the first part, the paper presents the following conclusions. The fact that a researcher as a listener is not included directly in the problem contributes significantly to clarifying a storyteller’s intention and conscious; a contradiction and changes of memories in the stories are often used to justify itself, and they become key clues to understanding people’s thoughts and taking steps to deal with the problem in the future; and research and practice can collaborate using storytelling as a catalyst.

Social cash transfer has been widespread during the last 15 years as an innovative tool for poverty alleviation. It was initiated in Latin American countries and replicated by Asian and, subsequently, African countries.

The theoretical underpinning of cash transfer is consumer sovereignty. According to this thesis, cash transfer can enhance the autonomy of the poor, provide them an opportunity for free and optimal choice, and enable them to influence the direction of the market and public services delivery. It can also reduce the transaction cost related to social actions and thus increase their efficiency. The risks considered most important by skeptics about cash transfer are the misuse of the money and dependency, which are derived from an assumption of the irrational behavior of beneficiaries. Other predictable risks that could deter consumer sovereignty are market deficiency, which can generate insufficiency or low-quality supply, and the weakness of governance, which can provoke corruption or defalcation. Latin American and African experiences show that cash transfer has positively affected the welfare of beneficiaries and that expected risks have been manifested on a negligible scale.

For the further development of cash transfer, the following agenda have been identified. First, cash transfer should be integrated into a national solidarity policy. Second, beneficiaries should play a central role in the entire process of the cash transfer program (designing, management, and monitoring). This can restrain the paternalistic domination of beneficiaries by the government or donors and help them fight against social exclusion. Third, the environment for consumer sovereignty should be improved by increasing the supply of goods and services needed by the poor in a competitive market, creating financial institutions accessible by the poor, and providing them the necessary information for optimal decision-making.

Muslims form the largest minority group in the Philippines, comprising 5 percent of the total population. They mainly live in Mindanao Island, Sulu Archipelago, and Palawan, the southern Philippines. The Muslim-populated places comprise one of the most impoverished areas in the entire country today. These areas are marred by prolonged armed conflicts and provide limited job opportunities to them. Consequently, an increasing number of poor Muslim women began to work abroad, especially in the Middle East, as domestic workers. Collaterally, cases of poor working conditions, mistreatment, and occasional human rights violations against them began to be reported.

Many studies have reported on foreign domestic workers in the Middle East. However, most emphasize their vulnerability and criticize the labor systems of migrant-receiving states. They do not analyze why they become vulnerable in the context of both sending and receiving societies.

Therefore, this paper analyzes why foreign domestic workers tend to become vulnerable, with a focus on the case of Muslim Filipina domestic workers in the Gulf States. These workers move through multiple layers of complex disparities between their original societies and the Gulf States, and become vulnerable to poor working conditions. This paper attempts to unfold the layers of complex disparities in which the Muslim Filipina domestic workers are positioned, and explains the resultant characteristics of a vulnerable labor force.

At the same time, the paper describes how actions and behaviors of individual Muslim Filipinas (“agencies”) are constructed by their experiences as domestic workers moving through layers of complex disparities. By examining the process, the paper examines whether the structure of disparities, in turn, is negotiated by the agencies for change or not.

Since the U.S.S.R. invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the country has been deeply involved in conflicts. After the collapse of the Taliban regime in 2001, Afghanistan’s population expected a new, stable country with the assistance of the international community. However, this expectation remains unfulfilled because of worsening security conditions. In addition, many foreign governments have sought to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan because of rising casualties and the growing financial burden. Given this situation, it is certain that Afghanistan will slip back into a situation similar to the one it was in from the 1980s to the 1990s.

According to several socioeconomic indicators, people in Afghanistan still live under severe conditions. In order to improve this situation, the government of Afghanistan has been seeking further assistance from donors. Consequently, the country has received substantial amounts of aid over the past decade. Therefore, we can say that the aid is adequate in terms of the amount. However, it is also true that the aid has not reached those in need.

According to several socioeconomic indicators, people in Afghanistan still live under severe conditions. In order to improve this situation, the government of Afghanistan has been seeking further assistance from donors. Consequently, the country has received substantial amounts of aid over the past decade. Therefore, we can say that the aid is adequate in terms of the amount. However, it is also true that the aid has not reached those in need.

Ms. Ela Bhatt, founder of the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), said in 1992, “We not only want a piece of the pie, we also want to choose the flavor, and to know how to make it ourselves.” Even today, a woman is often seen as a receiver and not a learner and decision maker. This paper shows how donors ignored their own gender mainstreaming policy in rural development projects in Timor-Leste and analyzes how women farmers can acquire capability in order to solve critical engineering problems caused by authoritarian donors and the government, which cannot challenge the donors’ intentions.

Section I presents my previous field research on the irrigation development projects in Lao PDR, in which some donors promoted women’s participation in Water Users Associations (WUA), recognizing women as stakeholders who provided substantial resources and labor for the development of irrigation systems. It was observed in 1997, two years after the UN Conference on Women was held in Beijing. This was the period when donors began to integrate the gender mainstreaming goals into their policy for assuring gender equality to be promoted in every sector/field.

Section II describes how Timorese women, through the National Congress of Women, raised their concern about the lack of access to trainings, facilities, and the decision-making process regarding farming and natural resource management including irrigation. Section III shows the results of a two-year field research that I conducted together with women farmers on the Caraulun Irrigation Rehabilitation Scheme in Manufahi district. The EC-funded project was coordinated by the World Bank. The research showed that there was no intervention on participation of women, including widows and/or female household heads, into WUA and that their most pressing problem, the irrigation system malfunction, was caused by the donors’ neglect of farmers’ requests and the design’s incompleteness, which was attributable to the donors’ erroneous cost-cutting policy. However, the women struggled to participate in the WUA and the newly elected WUA leadership stood up to raise its voice against the donors and the government.

Over the past decade, much attention has been paid to the problem of failed/fragile states. In most cases, failed/fragile states have been argued from the perspective of developed countries or international society. Many discourses on failed/fragile states have been based on the interests or policy requests of developed countries and international society. This paper reconsiders these mainstream perspectives on failed/fragile states.

For this purpose, first, I will reconsider how developed countries and international society are responsible for state failure in developing countries. A majority of academic works on failed/fragile states explain that the cause of state failure is mainly characterized by local factors. However, these discourses often obscure the role of soldiers, weapons, and funds for civil wars in failed/fragile states, which are all supplied through developed countries and international society. I emphasize that developed countries and international society should be held responsible for civil wars that occur in the world’s poorest countries.

Second, I indicate that the world is becoming increasingly unequal because the gap among countries has widened from 1980 onward, and explain why developed countries and international society consider the world’ s poorest countries as failed/fragile states in the age of globalization. In the process of globalization, developed countries tend to be sensitive to global risk and to regard the world’s poorest countries as the origins of this risk. Generally, these two tendencies are strengthened due to the gap between the developed and poorest countries, which has been increasing over the past 30 years. This is why developed countries and international society consider the world’s poorest countries as failed/fragile states.

Finally, I examine the demand for good governance in failed/fragile states through SSR (Security Sector Reform) as a form of institutional development. Institutional development is usually a lengthy process, and international society does not yet possess adequate knowledge regarding the appropriate sequence of such development and the complex interdependency of institutions in developing countries. Therefore, the impatient demand for good governance is a rather problematic one in failed/fragile states.

This paper aims to illuminate the process of problem finding and problem solving based on storytelling and the role played by a researcher in the process. For this purpose, it first summarizes researches based on storytelling with a focus on the relation between the storyteller and the listener, which is an important aspect in analyzing the process. Second, it introduces two narratives of the urban poor, restructured by the author. The first is about a woman in the Philippines who was a social movement leader during the Marcos era, and is currently a city officer. The other is a story about an issue related to social enterprises in Korea. By considering these cases from the viewpoint described in the first part, the paper presents the following conclusions. The fact that a researcher as a listener is not included directly in the problem contributes significantly to clarifying a storyteller’s intention and conscious; a contradiction and changes of memories in the stories are often used to justify itself, and they become key clues to understanding people’s thoughts and taking steps to deal with the problem in the future; and research and practice can collaborate using storytelling as a catalyst.