In the name of development? The moral economy of a private sector–NGO partnership in Ethiopia

Abstract

Private actors have, over the past decade, entered the field of development operating in new forms of partnerships with established aid actors. Private actors now constitute a central means and objective of publicly funded development aid, causing a growth in actors operating in the name of development but without being compelled to follow established development discourses or principles. This article explores the formation of one such ‘strategic partnership’ in northern Ethiopia, between a small publicly funded Norwegian NGO and a multinational corporation. The research draws on several fieldworks in Ethiopia, stakeholder interviews, and project observations in 2018 and 2019, complemented with grey literature review. Using the concept of ‘interface’, the article explores the various encounters between actors with different rationales and mandates that prove hard to reconcile in practice; the seemingly altruistic development aid drawing on participatory approaches to target beneficiaries’ needs is at odds with the corporate logic and accountabilities to shareholders and investors. The partnership and project formations are undermined by the practical encounter of these distinct logics, as the private actor gradually withdraws from joint project operations to maintain its corporate reputation. Any notion of participatory planning and local knowledge – here conceived of in terms of moral economy – are omitted from the project formation process, thus, not only undermining a central principle of aid programming, but also making the publicly funded aid project into a proxy for corporate interests.