Jul 2026· Devkota Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies· Vol 8, pp. 96-105· 0 citations· 25 references
Abstract
In Nepal, co-operatives have evolved from being just financial entities to becoming lifelines of communities striving for inclusive growth and economic resilience. They especially help people in places such as Butwal Sub-Metropolitan City to come together, pool resources, generate employment and empower women and marginalized groups. But these co-operatives are not easy to keep going. In this study we examine the real dynamics that underpin the sustainability of co-operatives, with particular attention to the roles of board members and local governance. The research is based on in-depth interviews and group discussions with ten selected co-operatives of Butwal. It shows that good leadership, ethical leadership, and supportive policies from local government, make a big difference. When board members are trained, transparent and inclusive, they build trust and ensure stability. Likewise, when local governments actively partner with co-operatives, they help to magnify impact. But poor communication, inadequate training and political interference often get in the way. This suggests investment in leadership development and the formation of genuine partnerships between co-operatives and municipalities can greatly boost the survival and success of these grassroots organizations.
Place leadership theory explains how collaborative leadership among local actors shapes the development of places and the well-being of local populations. Prior research has concentrated primarily on the role of public authorities in places. However, other stakeholders, such as non-profit organizations, also contribute to fulfilling the needs of local populations. This research examines local foundations, a distinct subgroup within the non-profit sector, which are committed to enhancing the quality of life in their operational areas. We build on the theoretical assumption that non-profit organizations provide services when markets and governments fail. Based on interviews with three foundations in the cross-border region of the Upper Rhine (France, Germany, and Switzerland), we investigate the role of foundations in increasing the quality of life in places. To triangulate our findings, we also interview stakeholders from the public and private sectors, target groups, and civil society organizations. Our findings show that foundations exercise place leadership through informal power, knowledge sharing, and flexible networks that foster dialogue and coordination among local stakeholders, including strong ties to public-sector actors. Their endowment-based resources enable independent project implementation and position foundations as genuine place leaders that create public value by filling those gaps left by market and government failures.
Marcel Oster, Lucile Manoury, Georg von Schnurbein et al.· Public Policy and Administra...· 0 citations
This paper examines how co-operatives and the villagisation policy shaped rural development in Tanzania and proposes an implementation model grounded in situational leadership. The objective of the study is to explain why villagisation, despite a sound rural-transformation intent, largely failed, and to derive lessons for the effective implementation of contemporary rural development policy. Using a structured desk review of historical and contemporary secondary sources, the paper synthesises rural-rebalancing experiences from China, the United States of America, and Ghana alongside Tanzania's co-operative movement and villagisation policy. The analysis shows that co-operatives historically served as instruments of rural transformation, poverty reduction, and economic empowerment, but that state intervention and political interference eroded their autonomy and converted them into instruments of state control. Similarly, although villagisation sought to accelerate rural development through centralised settlement, improved service delivery, and collective production, its coercive and uniform implementation disregarded the differing competence, commitment, and readiness of rural communities. Applying Hersey and Blanchard's Situational Leadership Theory, the paper argues that the failure of villagisation was rooted primarily in inflexible, directive leadership that did not adapt to beneficiaries' development levels. The paper proposes an adaptive, four-style implementation model and concludes that effective rural-transformation policy requires leadership that diagnoses and adjusts to the competence and commitment of intended beneficiaries while integrating gender, youth, environmental, and poverty-outreach concerns. The main policy message is that how a rural policy is led matters as much as what the policy intends.
N. Kumburu· Journal of Co-operative and...· 0 citations
Civil society–government collaboration remains contested in public sector management. Existing research has focused largely on partnerships between governments and national-level civil society organizations (
CSO
s), with limited attention to grassroots
CSO
s. This article addresses that gap by examining collaboration between local government authorities and grassroots
CSO
s in rural Tanzania. A qualitative design was used, drawing on in-depth interviews and document review, with data analysed thematically. The findings show that grassroots
CSO
s collaborate with government institutions to address social and development challenges but that collaboration is selective due to historical state–society relations and limited collaborative governance. The study highlights the important yet underexplored role of grassroots
CSO
s in supporting community initiatives and complementing government service delivery. Their effectiveness, however, is constrained by limited financial resources and a restrictive operational environment, undermining the scale and sustainability of interventions.
Rogers Rugeiyamu, A. Nguyahambi, Tatu Lesso· Innovation in the Social Sci...· 0 citations
This article examines the implementation of co-production in strengthening urban village community resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic in Surabaya, Indonesia. Departing from the argument that limited state capacity constrained government responses to complex pandemic pressures, the study positions co-production as a critical governance mechanism through which local communities, public authorities, health workers, security actors, and volunteers jointly contributed to crisis management. Using a qualitative case study approach, the research draws on twenty semi-structured interviews with urban village actors, COVID-19 Task Force members, neighbourhood leaders, and residents, complemented by regulatory documents, government reports, field documentation, media sources, and relevant literature. The study focuses on the Kampung Tangguh Jogo Suroboyo programme as a community-based resilience initiative institutionalised through mayoral regulations and implemented at the neighbourhood level. The findings show that urban village communities were not merely passive recipients of government policy, but active co-producers involved in institutional design, participatory planning, decision-making, communication, capacity-building, implementation, and accountability. The co-production process was supported by several key elements, including legal legitimacy, flexible institutional arrangements, deliberative community meetings, WhatsApp-based coordination, volunteer training, collective leadership, social capital, and locally mobilised resources. The article demonstrates that co-production generated public value by enhancing trust, collective compliance, social solidarity, and adaptive problem-solving during the pandemic. However, it also identifies structural challenges, particularly the gap between delegated community responsibilities and limited financial support from the government. While the local government provided regulatory legitimacy and some operational support, much of the implementation depended on community self-help, voluntary labour, and informal social networks. Theoretically, the study contributes to the co-production and crisis governance literature by offering a contextualised framework for understanding how community-based co-production operates under conditions of uncertainty and constrained state capacity. Practically, it highlights the importance of volunteer empowerment, digital coordination, social capital, and adequate resource allocation for sustaining community resilience beyond emergency periods.
Bagus Nuari Harmawan, Anggie Parawitha Lucca, Indira Arundinasari· Hrvatska i komparativna javn...· 0 citations
This study investigates how community-based governance arrangements support local economic problem-solving across three Thai communities in urban, semi-urban, and rural settings: Pracha Uthit, Na Phue, and Mae Lana. Although recent literature on community-based development, participatory governance, collaborative governance, and community-based tourism emphasizes participation, social capital, and multi-actor collaboration as important enabling conditions, less attention has been paid to how these factors are translated into concrete economic strategies through different local governance arrangements and external support networks. To address this gap, we employed a qualitative comparative case study design based on in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, participant observation, and document analysis. The findings show that participation alone does not explain community economic problem-solving. Instead, local development pathways were shaped by the interaction among local leadership, social capital, resource mobilization, institutional support, accountability arrangements, and external support networks. Pracha Uthit illustrates an employment-oriented urban pathway, Na Phue demonstrates an agriculture-based and committee-driven pathway, and Mae Lana shows a tourism-based cultural–environmental pathway. Our evidence primarily demonstrates reported outcomes, perceived improvements, and observed governance mechanisms rather than statistically measured economic impacts. The study contributes to comparative governance and community-based development literature by showing that similar development principles can generate different pathways when embedded in distinct local contexts. It also shows that external support networks can help address governance gaps left by limited local government capacity, but may introduce administrative burdens, dependency risks, and mismatched priorities. Policies for sustainable local economies should therefore avoid uniform development models and instead support locally grounded, participatory, accountable, and institutionally coordinated approaches.
Mahdee Champeephan, Nantida Jansiri, Sureeporn Sukawonlli et al.· Frontiers in Political Scien...· 0 citations
Regional Commissioners (RCs) occupy a strategically important position between Tanzania’s central government and the authorities responsible for district- and council-level implementation. Yet their contribution to sustainable development has received limited empirical attention. This qualitative case study examines how RCs understand and exercise their authority to coordinate development across sectors and administrative levels, and how leadership competence shapes that role. Data were generated through semi-structured interviews with ten serving and five former RCs, supplemented by documentary review and contextual observation, and analysed thematically. Sustainable development is treated not as a single outcome attributable to an individual office-holder, but as a governance process requiring policy integration, territorial equity, institutional continuity, public accountability and attention to long-term social, economic and environmental consequences. Participants portrayed RCs as brokers of national priorities, convenors of sectoral and security institutions, and influential actors in district-level implementation. They also emphasised that formal authority does not produce effective coordination automatically: its developmental value depends on competence, credibility, sectoral knowledge and the capacity to anticipate interactions among policy fields. Concentrated authority can accelerate implementation, but it may also weaken participation and accountability when directives are insufficiently questioned. The study therefore recommends a transparent competency framework, systematic induction, performance assessment and stronger accountability safeguards for RC appointments. It concludes that RCs can enable sustainable regional development, but their contribution remains institutionally mediated and should not be inferred from authority or short-term output gains alone.
Gabriel Adamson King, L. Massoi· Journal of Research and Acad...· 0 citations
