Development Aid Policy Research Articles

The EU as a Civil-Military Crisis Manager

It is not entirely unproblematic to speak of the European Union as a crisis manager. One could ask what kind of security-political actor the EU really is. The usual answer to that question is that it is an actor sui generis. The Union is neither a state nor an international organization. It is less than a federation, but more than a confederation.1 It is considered to be the first real postmodern unit in international relations,2 or a complex multilevel system.' Its foreign affairs activities are captured by such different concepts as a civil power, a military power, a normative power, or a security provider model/ Broadly undisputed is its presence in international relations.5 Further, there is agreement over the Union not being a unified but an assembled and, therefore, a cumbersome actor.6This is especially true for the area of foreign, security, and defence policy, where the member-states jealously guard their prerogatives. Nevertheless the EU's security-political development can be seen in a more favourable light when compared with the situation before the introduction of the European security and defence policy (ESDP) in 1999. Since then it has taken a path that has established the Union as a civil-military actor in international crisis management. Due to risks and threats such as state failure, regional instability, organized crime, terrorist activities, and the proliferation of WMD, the EU has had to confront three realities: First, the states of the Union are dependent, more than ever, on internal and international cooperation to ensure their security. second, military means play a subordinate role in dealing with these risks in the medium and long-term. Third, it is becoming more important to connect the different instruments for conflict management in a cross-cutting manner.In this article, the question of how the Union functions as a crisis manager will be examined. In the foreground of this article will be not the activities in the crisis areas or the connected foreign policy interests and missions, but rather the internal management of EU security governance, i.e. the complexity of the internal decision-making process and the nature of civil-military coordination. If the EU is to become an effective civil-military crisis manager, the various actors, means, and capabilities for comprehensive crisis management need a significant degree of coordination within a coherent security governance structure. The central challenge is for the relevant actors to effectively put to use the necessary civil and military means in a coordinated manner, adjusted, throughout the entire process of conflict management, to the current situation.CIVIL-MILITARY CRISIS MANAGEMENT OF THE EUROPEAN UNIONThe Union, and rightly so, sees itself as a special actor in international crisis management, due to its unique variety of diplomatic, trade-political, development-political, judiciary, police, and military instruments. It is broadly uncontested that the crises of the 2ist century have been marked by a high degree of complexity. Their constructive management, therefore, demands an appropriately differentiated political strategy, which also needs wide-ranging instruments for its realization. With the passage of the European security strategy (ESS) in 2003, the Union had an initial strategic document defining the main security-political challenges and threats. This document emphasizes the complex character of future crises and the need for a mix of instruments/ Moreover, the Union has appropriated civil and military means within the ESDP and has agreed on their further expansion by 2008 (civilian headline goal) and 2010 respectively (military headline goal).'' Finally, the Union already has within the first pillar instruments at its disposal such as the rapid reaction mechanism (RRM) or development aid and foreign trade policy, which can be used for acute and structural crisis management. The task still to be completed is interlinking the participating EU actors and the many instruments in such a manner that they serve to effectively deal with a crisis within the framework of a comprehensive strategy of crisis management. …

Global poverty: Development ethics meets global justice

Any plausible conception of what may constitute fair globalization needs to address the processes that produce and reproduce global poverty. In this essay I argue that the ethical aspects of global poverty lead to a redefining of both development and globalization. In addition, as the ‘global’ impinges increasingly on every field of knowledge (and praxis) so too development, philosophy, and ethics and the relations among these fields of knowledge are forced to redefine their scope and subject matter. This, in turn, has consequences for the ways in which globalization is treated and, in particular, for the emergent field of globalization studies. My main point is that the ethical aspects of globalization are interrelated with an ethical perspective on knowledge and policy for poverty reduction, and moral understandings of poverty; perspectives—among others—investigated by the fields of development ethics and global justice. In addition, I suggest that poverty needs to be treated globally and not as a social fact that occurs only in developing countries. This entails a re-engagement with literature and theories within the field of development studies and with poverty research. And as poverty research is dominated by the knowledge and policies of global institutions, this includes critical engagement with such agents' knowledge production. Cross-fertilization between these fields may lead to stronger and constructive theoretical formulations for alternative globalizations, for a better understanding of the paths towards fairer development aid policies and institutions more responsive to global poverty.

Quo vadis Japanese ODA? New developments in Japanese aid policies

Japan positioned itself in a special situation among the aid donor countries. This paper presents the trends in Japanese Official Development Aid policies in the new Millennium, provides an overview and discussion of the characteristics of Japanese ODA, and examines the different views and critiques that have arisen regarding Japan’s development aid policies. The paper’s goal is to highlight and interpret the latest developments and reforms of Japan’s ODA administration and strategies, its strengths and weaknesses, and to understand how ODA is becoming a more strategic, a stronger political, diplomatic and foreign policy tool in the hands of the Japanese government.

Good governance, development theory, and aid policy: Risks and challenges of e-government in Jordan

Poor governance is among the most important causes of state failure and underdevelopment. Hence innovations and reforms in the governmental and bureaucratic apparatus are an important prerequisite for development. E-government policy initiatives have gained international validity by the donor community as a catalyst for such reforms. To be sure, the characteristics of the state model implicit in e-government applications and the economics of transition from a backward state organization to e-government are equally relevant for the success of the initiative. This study focuses on the analysis and early design of e-government solutions in a less-developed country: Jordan. It shows that implementing a general standardized ICT portfolio to support good governance proves to be a difficult task and that there are a number of risks emerging from development aid policies aimed at good governance. The paper provides suggestive evidence that e-government and the view of the minimal state put forward by international development agencies might not be conducive to rapid late development. The New Institutional Economics provides an illuminating framework for this purpose. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Монгол Улс дахь Япон улсын засгийн газрын хөгжлийн тусламжийн цаашдын бодлого

English title: Futur trends in Japanese Government‘s development aid policy to Mongolia

Changing the Conditions for Development Aid: A New Paradigm?

The publication of the Assessing Aid report of the World Bank in 1998 has stimulated the debate on the future of development aid and aid policies. This collection contains a number of studies that aim to contribute to this debate. In this introduction we put the discussion on the future of development aid into perspective and summarise the main findings of the other contributions in this collection. We focus on two issues: the aid effectiveness debate before and after the Assessing Aid report, and the discussion on policy conditionality and good governance. Our main conclusions are that the evidence on aid effectiveness provided in the World Bank report is less convincing than has been claimed and that the good governance criterion proposed by the World Bank for distributing aid comes down to introducing conditionality in disguise.

Les organisations non gouvernementales et la politique canadienne d'aide au développement

This article analyzes the place of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the realization of Canadian development aid policy. It first proposes an evaluation of the economic importance of NGOs, taking into account the quantitative and qualitative aspects of their participation in Canadian co-operaton. Next, a profile of the institutional evolution of NGOs reveals that these constitute a constantly changing social reality. By focusing on the growing interaction between NGOs and the state, the article attempts, finally, to show that NGOs play a complementary role with respect to Canada's public development aid policy.

The Political Economy of Foreign Aid: A Model of the Market for a Public Good

What determines the type and quantity of overseas aid given by individual donor countries? Answers to this question in the existing literature are polarized into two groups. One of them offers a theoretical treatment based on the theory of public goods which is not consistent with the available data, and the other offers empirical correlations without any explanatory theory. The first group-for example, Pincus and Olson and Zeckhauser-treats aid, like defense, as an "international public good." Small countries, on this approach, are free riders, spending relatively little themselves while deriving benefits from the expenditures of larger countries.' But this approach is not consistent with even a casual scrutiny of the OECD aid community in which, broadly speaking, the smallest countries are the most generous donors.2 The second group-for example, Hoadley and Beenstockdiscover correlations between a country's ratio of aid to GNP and certain independent variables which may be expected to influence it (e.g., that country's GNP, its dependence on foreign trade, its government's position in the ideological spectrum, and the state of the domestic economy).3 However, these findings are not fitted into any theoretical framework, so that it is difficult to work out what they really mean.4 The approach of this paper is to treat foreign aid as a public good for which there is a market, albeit a highly imperfect one because the consumers-donor country taxpayers-are ignorant about the very nature, let alone the price, of the commodity they are buying. On this view, factors on the demand side (i.e., taxpayers' response to their country's aid program) will help to determine the quantity of aid disbursed as well as factors on the supply side such as the donor government's desire to obtain strategic or trading benefits from aid. This view

A Contribution to Assessing Development Aid Policies (with special emphasis on agro-alimentary aspects)

A Contribution to Assessing Development Aid Policies (with special emphasis on agro-alimentary aspects)

Swedish development aid policy: A discussion with reference to Ethiopia

AbstractFormal Ethio‐Swedish development co‐operation began in 1945 with the signing of a technical assistance treaty in vocational and technical education. Since then Swedish aid has been extended to health, nutrition and agriculture, with agricultural aid constituting the largest share since 1967. Swedish agricultural aid could be classified broadly into the comprehensive and the minimum package programmes. This paper discusses the changes in Swedish rural development assistance from the project to the country programming approach as reflected in the comprehensive and minimum package programme.This paper shows that the country programming approach to international development assistance is an important contribution to the strategies of delivering foreign assistance. Since the approach utilizes existing government programmes as the starting point for development assistance, and attempts to integrate aid into the national resource base, it can build confidence and mutual working relationships among donors and aid recipients. Moreover, the approach as utilized by Sweden has a three‐year time‐frame, allowing the transfer of funds within Swedish sponsored programmes. The overall strategy objective supports and broadens existing programmes directed to improving the welfare of the rural poor.