Behind the Pictures – understanding Private Development Initiatives

In 2014 the first PhD study on Private Development studies was published. The thesis provides a detailed insight into the characteristics of PDIs, the driving forces and the individual motives for citizen engagement in PDIs and how the development interventions that PDIs undertake can be characterised and valued with respect to their potential sustainability. The study uses an approach in which qualitative
methods are mixed with quantitative methods. Each of the four chapters presents a story behind the pictures; stories regarding the organisations (foundation and structure), their members (characteristics and motivations), their donors (preferences and giving behaviour) and their interventions (type, sustainability). Together these chapters provide a broad and in-depth insight into PDIs as alternative development actors.