Development Assistance Organizations Research Articles

Social forestry movements and science-policy networks: The politics of the forestry incentives program in Guatemala

In this article I discuss the factors contributing to the drafting and approval of the forestry incentives law (PINPEP) in Guatemala. This is a remarkable law because (a) it is among the few in the country recognizing property rights to land other than private property; (b) it has a stronger focus on subsidies and social benefits than on market mechanisms and; (c) the law is the result of the effort of forestry community organizations. My findings indicate that community organizations can, through their alliances with science-policy networks, participate in law-making and by that, in democratizing environmental governance. My study nuances the role of experts in environmental governance showing that their power and status should be understood as relational and historically contingent. Furthermore, some key and charismatic individuals can act as door openers to link community forestry organizations and science-policy networks. Although the identity of the grassroots organizations that participated in the process of making the law is tied to forestry, these organizations have a long history in the country. This history has been shaped by their experiences in exile and in refugee camps during the civil war as well as by their contact with development assistance organizations.

Social licence to operate through a gender lens: The challenges of including women's interests in development assistance projects

The paper analyses the concept of social licence to operate from a gender perspective. We examine the challenges associated with obtaining a gender-aware social licence for development assistance organizations working in conservative, traditional rural societies. We argue that during project activities, a development cooperation organization should take into account the contextual situation, especially in conservative societies, to ensure that women also benefit from their activities. Focusing on CARE International's JOIN project in Georgia, we identify six challenges that aid agencies face: cultural protocols and gender roles reinforce and exacerbate women's traditional disadvantage; the existing relationships between women and local authorities limits their opportunities; the limited mobility of women creates additional barriers; there is a gender disparity in access to information and resources; women are exploited as a means to access financial resources; and the out-migration of men means that many women are at risk of increasing vulnerability and may not benefit from development assistance projects.

Introduction: Challenges to Democracy as a Way of Life

Introduction:Challenges to Democracy as a Way of Life Zach VanderVeen There is a textbook definition of democratic citizenship and collective action in which politics is a kind of game played by elites (e.g., Wasserman 2010). On this model, which is detailed by thinkers like Schumpeter (1942) and Lippmann ([1922] 1997) and often assumed by political scientists (Fung 2007), citizens must be informed voters, and this exhausts their role in acting collectively. Governments deal with social problems and are only informed by the democratic will of the populus. Asking more from citizens is either unrealistic, due to limitations of ability or time of the average citizen; coercive, since requiring a great deal from citizens may infringe upon their right to privacy; or dangerous, because an engaged citizenry has been associated with mob rule or the tyranny of a minority. Though this image of citizenship is a powerful one, it has faced challenges both practical and theoretical. First, the seeming inability of governments to solve long-standing problems, including economic stability, environmental conservation, the education of youths, the health of citizens, and urban sprawl, has led to a proliferation of grassroots, nongovernmental, and hybrid organizations (Sievers 2006). The explosion of experiments in education—including high-profile organizations like the Knowledge Is Power Program and other initiatives supported by the Bill [End Page 309] and Melinda Gates Foundation as well as community-based approaches, such as integration efforts in Louisville, Kentucky—exemplify this trend in just one area, which has even spread to institutions of higher education (Bloch-Schulman and Jovanovic 2010). Many other examples could be added, including community-based justice movements (Dzur 2008), new media organizations (Benkler 2006), public-private urban development coalitions (Briggs 2008), and development assistance organizations (Ellerman 2005). The model of citizenship described by Schumpeter and Lippmann has come under theoretical scrutiny as well. Deliberative democrats, for example, argue that while fair voting procedures and a balance of power are necessary for achieving democratic legitimacy, they are insufficient. The quality of people's preferences matters, and contemporary media and political machines have had a detrimental effect on public opinion (Adorno and Horkheimer [1944] 2002; Habermas 1996). Furthermore, the "fact of reasonable pluralism" suggests that simply aggregating preferences that express deep value disagreements, rather than working through them in some manner, is likely to lead to political instability (Rawls 1993; for a different take, see McAfee 2004). In a related vein, political scientists like Elinor Ostrom (1990) and Robert Putnam (2000) have drawn attention to civil society and the empirical evidence that the quality of citizens' relationships impacts their ability to determine their collective futures. In short, a growing number of scholars and practitioners are questioning the supremacy of democracy as a form of government and are exploring democracy as a "way of life," as John Dewey (1988), following Jane Addams ([1902] 2002), termed it. According to this distinction, effective problem solving may require responses in policy and law as well as in the norms, relationships, and activities of citizens and other decentralized agents. Addams called for a "social ethic" not simply because she found people to be acting too individualistically but because she thought that, given changed material and social conditions, industrializing nations needed to experiment with new habits or ethoi for which governments could be no substitute. If there are reasons, both theoretical and practical, for rethinking the meaning of democratic citizenship and collective action, it is natural to consider the institutions and relationships that could form a basis for a richer form of democracy, or self-rule. Since different problems will require different solutions, it seems unlikely that one could deduce the necessary [End Page 310] and sufficient conditions of democracy as a way of life. Instead, and especially at this early stage of inquiry, it may prove most useful to examine a few different social problems and the challenges that exist in resolving them. It is for this reason that the authors featured in this special issue of the Journal of Speculative Philosophy were asked to contribute the original pieces found here. In her contribution, Nobel Prize-winner Elinor Ostrom examines some of the difficulties facing those interested in managing natural resources. She...

Capacity Development as the Model for Development Aid Organizations

ABSTRACTSociological studies of organizational fashions tend to focus on commercial firms. This article looks at the Capacity Development concept that is globally applied as a model in governmentally supported development assistance organizations. The organizations themselves adopt the concept, asserting that an increase in ‘capacities’ in developing countries will contribute to a higher success rate for projects. This article argues that a primary function of concepts such as Capacity Development is to meet the legitimacy requirements of development assistance organizations. The more the effectiveness of these organizations is criticized or challenged, the more they feel the need to defend themselves by developing new — and hopefully more effective — concepts.

Sustaining Community Participation: What Remains After the Money Ends?

SUSTAINING COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION: WHAT REMAINS AFTER THE MONEY ENDS? – A major concern confronting development specialists in the education sector is the sustainability of project activities and outcomes, that is, their ability to persist once external funding ends. The increased attention of international development-assistance organizations to sustainability reflects the greater recent focus on outcome-based funding. The present study investigates differences between six communities in Ghana that varied in their ability to sustain externally initiated community-participation activities beyond the life of the external development-assistance project that promoted those activities. It was hypothesized that high- and low-sustaining communities differ in eight managerial and socio-cultural dimensions suggested by earlier research to be important for sustainability of community-level activities: planning, transparency, leadership, and participation, on one hand, and, on the other, social cohesion, resources, community skills, and valuing of education. Findings indicate that leadership and social cohesion are the two most vital elements in the sustainability of organizational structures intended to promote community participation in the oversight of local schools. Other factors suggested by the model are largely subsumed under leadership, so that the model can be simplified.

Applying innovations and new technologies for international collaborative wheat improvement

Despite the successes of the Green Revolution, about a billion people are still undernourished and food security in the developing world faces new challenges in terms of population growth, reduced water resources, climate change and decreased public sector investment. It is also becoming widely recognized that poverty is a cause of environmental degradation, conflict and civil unrest. Internationally coordinated agricultural research can play a significant role in improving food security by deploying promising new technologies as well as adapting those with well-established impact.In addition to the genetic challenges of crop improvement, agriculturalists must also embrace the problems associated with a highly heterogeneous and unpredictable environment. Not only are new genetic tools becoming more accessible, but a new generation of quantitative tools are available to enable better definition of agro-ecosystems, of cultivar by environment interactions, and of socio-economic issues, while satellite imagery can help predict crop yields on large scales. Identifying areas of low genetic diversity – for example as found in large tracts of South Asia – is an important aspect of reducing vulnerability to disease epidemics. Global strategies for incorporating durable disease resistance genes into a wider genetic background, as well as participatory approaches that deliver a fuller range of options to farmers, are being implemented to increase cultivar diversity.The unpredictable effects of environment on productivity can be buffered somewhat by crop management practices that maintain healthy soils, while reversing the consequences of rapid agricultural intensification on soil degradation. Conservation agriculture is an alternative strategy that is especially pertinent for resource-poor farmers.The potential synergy between genetic improvement and innovative crop management practices has been referred to as the Doubly Green Revolution. The unique benefits and efficiency of the international collaborative platform are indisputable when considering the duplications that otherwise would have been required to achieve the same impacts through unilateral or even bilateral programmes. Furthermore, while the West takes for granted public support for crucial economic and social issues, this is not the case in a number of less-developed countries where the activities of International Agricultural Research Centres (IARCs) and other development assistance organizations can provide continuity in agricultural research and infrastructure.

Social capital of cities: Emerging networks of horizontal assistance

After reviewing relevant global trends in city development and situating the work in the theoretical context of social capital literature, this paper reports on an empirical study of technical visits by cities from the developing world to Seattle, Washington. The paper reports on basic descriptive statistics and features of the visits that were in line with the approach to measure ‘structural’ social capital [Uphoff N. Understanding social capital: learning from the analysis and experience of participation. In: Dagupta P, I. Serageldin, editors. Social capital: a multifaceted perspective. Washington, DC: World Bank; 2000. Grootaert C, Van Bastelaer T. Understanding and measuring social capital. A synthesis of findings and recommendations from the social capital initiative. Forum series on the role of institutions in promoting economic growth. Washington, DC: USAID and IRIS; 2002, January 11]. Many areas emerged with potential policy or theoretical interest, for example, the transaction costs of information exchange, the role of mediating institutions, the payoff of facilitation and structured learning for city delegations, and the role of international development assistance organizations like the World Bank in facilitating such exchanges. The authors see the Seattle data as representative, in part, of the burgeoning exchanges between and among cities as they respond to new global pressures. Further study should explore the costs and the impact of the exchanges. Policy measures could guide and improve effectiveness of information flow as a new tool to achieve sustainable urban development.

Dilemmas in the delivery of development assistance

This paper presents a case study in which systems theory is used as a framework for analyzing the experience of international consultants in assisting the education ministry of a developing country in formulating a national education 5-year plan. The study highlights the broader dilemma faced by international consultants who are frequently commissioned by clients who support systematic planning, but whose success depends heavily on the cooperation of stakeholders who are threatened by such planning. The findings of the study directly address the current debate concerning the appropriateness of the values and strategies that international development assistance organizations employ in assisting developing countries in national education planning.

Development and Conflict Prevention: Reflections on Rwanda - An Interview with Professor Peter Uvin

Development assistance organizations are paying greater attention to the causes of conflict, asserting a link between poverty and violence and affirming the potential of designing more conflict prevention sensitive development policies and programs. The Liu Centre for the Study of Global Issues at the University of British Columbia and the Canadian International Development Agency recently hosted the Vancouver Roundtable on Development, Conflict and Peace building: Responding to the Challenge, on February 14-15, 2002, where invited experts explored the possibilities of linking development and conflict prevention more effectively. Noted for his extensive field experience in following up the OECD-DAC Guidelines on Conflict, Peace and Development in 1999, as well as recent articles in 2001 and 2002 and a book in 1998 on the role of the international development agencies in Rwanda, invited Roundtable participant Professor Peter Uvin of Tufts University agreed to be interviewed by IIR Liu Centre post-doctoral fellow Erin Baines to elaborate his framework for taking action, presented at the Vancouver Roundtable. Given that each conflict situation is different, too unique, too idiosyncratic to generalize across cases, as you wrote in Reflections of Good Donor Practice, can we expect from a Canadian strategic response to the issue of development and conflict prevention? There are seven features that characterize a good policy on development and conflict prevention. These seven features are relevant for non-conflict prevention related development work as well. They hold for all development work, suggesting that there is nothing unique about conflict prevention work. Now it would be interesting to tease out would be specific only to development trying to prevent conflict, as opposed to development just doing development. But do such situations exist? I do not believe you can come to very meaningful and strong predictors about violent conflict or you can do to prevent violent conflict. All you can do is ask the right questions and set up mechanisms and lenses that allow you to constantly be aware and adapt. Some of these seven features are widely accepted, while some are widely non-accepted, or non-practiced. First, you have to be prevention-oriented as a matter of total routine; it ought to be so ordinary that you do not need to talk about it any more. For example, it is now expected that, if you were to do anything in development and you totally disregard gender issues or poverty issues, people will ask you ... what decade are you coming from? This ought to be the case with conflict. This is both a relatively easy one, for it requires little money and time, and a very hard one, for it is at this level that much resistance exists. Second, you have to be knowledge based; you will never be able to deal intelligently with conflict dynamics without good knowledge. I think that is widely accepted. The question is whose knowledge counts, which is a very important and totally undervalued matter. We have to put vastly more resources into local knowledge generation. But I think that is the case also for non-conflict development work. You have to always invest in local knowledge creation to ensure that there are strong and existing dynamics for intellectual reflection and speaking out about conflict issues once they force themselves onto the agenda. This is one thing that foreign aid can do better than others, to create the kind of spaces for people to do this, because in [cases of violence] these spaces often do not exist or are weak. So that is something that could be done better.... Third, we ought to be more flexible in financial mechanisms and administrative mechanisms, capable of making short-term change with a long-term perspective. We typically do not have much of a long-term perspective. At the same time, we aren't very good at the short term either, wherein overnight or in the course of a week we can dramatically change course. …

Assessing Directions for Educational Development Assistance.

As the 21st century begins, three factors are intersecting in ways that are changing the face of international development assistance and, in turn, the agenda of international development agencies working in the area of education. These changes include: (1) shifts in the age distribution of the population, (2) devolution of more authority and responsibility to lower levels of the education system, and (3) intensified competition for resources. This paper examines how the convergence of these trends is reshaping the way development assistance organizations will operate in the next decade, identifies development priorities of the next decade, and proposes a model of the factors that international agencies need to consider in assessing their own work priorities over that time.

United States Development Assistance Policy: The Domestic Politics of Foreign Economic Aid

Economist Vernon Ruttan offers a review of US development assistance policy from the end of World War II to 1995. His emphasis is on the structures and programmes that proliferated in this period and were designed to provide underdeveloped countries with technical and economic assistance. Ruttan follows the development of the US Agency for International Development, quasigovernmental agencies, and private voluntary organizations. He also examines US policy toward the World Bank, United Nations agencies and other international development assistance organizations. Ruttan's interest is not to measure the impact of US assistance programmes, but to examine the domestic political forces that have directed US development assistance policy. By means of this review, he shows how political interests often detrimentally influenced development efforts. Ruttan concludes that the US development assistance programme is in disarray and that there is a real need for its deep re-evaluation and restructuring. The last two chapters of the book review past reform efforts and outline Ruttan's own recommendations. This book should serve as a reference both for specialists and for those wanting a deeper understanding of development issues.

The making of the global environmental facility: An actor's perspective

Global environmental problems have become a key concern of the international environmental policy agenda in the 1990s. The role of international development assistance organizations is crucial in helping developing countries respond to the new environmental challenges. This article reviews the recent environmental policy development, in particular the Global Environment Facility, in the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Environment Programme. It discusses the dynamics of the policy-making process from an actor's perspective. It emphasizes how various social groups influence the policy-making process. It also analyses the roles played by governmental agencies and non-governmental organizations in policy development. In addition, a discussion of the response of the Chinese government to the Global Environment Facility is presented.

The role of technology in enhancing low resource agriculture in Africa

Traditional forms of farming, herding, and fishing are remarkably adapted to African conditions but these traditional approaches are being overtaken by modern pressures, particularly population growth. According to a report published by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), a nonpartisan analytical support agency of the U. S. Congress, one promising way to help African farmers and herders would be for development assistance organizations to focus more attention on the various forms of low-resource agriculture that predominate in Africa.