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Based on experience in Peru and Guatemala, this brief presents the "balanced counseling strategy", an approach to improving the quality of reproductive health services and in particular, provider-client interaction. This strategy structures interaction between service provider and client to focus on the client's needs, support the client's choice of appropriate methods, and improve information provision on the methods. It consists of a decision tree, used in combination with job aids or visual memory aids. This brief outlines the origin and rationale for developing the strategy, details its adaptation for use in other contexts and lists several findings and lessons learned

This book describes the approach of COMPAS, a network of partners that supports 'development from within', based on local knowledge and practices. The body of the book consists of case studies which illustrate how development can be based on locally available resources, knowledge, values and leadership institutions; how there can be genuinely local determination of development options; and how the benefits of development within local areas and communities can be fostered

This book reviews recent experiences in strengthening local institutions, governmental and non-governmental alike, in six countries on five continents. It examines various aspects of the tensions between international initiatives to save lives or to reconstruct the fabric of societies, and the parallel and sometimes competing international commitment to "capacitation" - to building longer term skills locally. The last chapter reviews the case studies and attempts to draw out the learning in terms of conceptual, operational, political and motivational issues