Development Assistance Projects Research Articles

Effectiveness of a school-based mental health education program in an impoverished urban area of Peru.

This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a school-based mental health education program in preventing adolescent suicide attempts in an impoverished urban area in Peru, as part of an Official Development Assistance project by the Korea International Cooperation Agency. The PRECEDE-PROCEED model informed the effectiveness study. In this intervention, the participants were first to fifth grade students in public secondary schools. The pre-post intervention survey was conducted with a stratified random sampling method. A sample of 768 and 738 students in experimental and control groups was analyzed comparatively, using chi-squared tests and logistic regression. This study found that the program had a positive effect on adolescent mental health-related risk behaviors and suicide attempts in the experimental group compared to the control group. Thus, the intervention may have helped prevent the increase in mental health-related risk behaviors and suicide attempts. Further, parental affection, when included in the intervention, had a significant effect on suicide attempts. As such, the involvement of parental affection in the intervention might be effective in preventing suicide attempts. To enhance the effectiveness of interventions aiming to prevent adolescent suicide, the participation and attention of parents, as well as adolescents, must be encouraged. Further, to maintain the effectiveness of the intervention and expand coverage to other schools in the neighborhood, a strategy for project sustainability is needed, particularly with regards to capacity-building in schools and communities.

The titanic sunk, so what? On functional management control of development assistance projects: practical observations for improved outcomes

Significant as they are to activating development and addressing some of the most difficult and entrenched problems in developing economies, development assistance projects operate under challenging and rather erratic conditions. Consequently, majority of the challenges and problems that confront them are difficult to anticipate and solve a priori and must be engaged dynamically as and when they arise. Today, with a momentous blend of volatilities, uncertainties, complexities and ambiguities characterizing the environment of developing economies to hasten profound managerial challenges, functional management control, which is critical to identifying and addressing problems and deviations to enable improved performance outcomes, has eluded development assistance projects. This has modeled poor management control into one of its greatest threats to implementation. Grounded in experience from development practice, this position paper moots that poor management control aid double whammies of today’s development assistance projects. Further, it reflects why bureaucracies, understaffing, weak supervision and cultural insensitivity in the conduct of such projects are responsible for this threat and discusses how it could be contained for improved performance outcomes. It concludes with highlights on implications for research and practice.

Urban development falling into the gutter: sanitation planning and ‘anti-politics’ in Myanmar

Urban development, and particularly the improvement of basic services delivery, is still approached in mostly technical terms by international development actors and municipalities of the Global South. Sanitation planning, for instance, remains the realm of engineers despite decades of evidence that conventional approaches focusing on infrastructure upgrading have failed to tackle socio-environmental challenges. Against this background, this paper explores sanitation planning in Mandalay, the second largest city of Myanmar. Here, the Asian Development Bank and a French consulting firm have seized the opportunity created by the country’s recent opening to embark with the municipality on a multi-million dollar scheme: the Mandalay Urban Services Improvement Project (MUSIP). Drawing upon insights from critical development studies, the paper argues that the MUSIP can be interpreted as an ‘anti-politics machine’ that ignored local needs and proposed disputable solutions to local sanitation challenges. The paper further explores how this machine jeopardised urban development in Mandalay more generally, and was eventually challenged by the municipality. The paper concludes that the case is not unique and illustrates how urban development is today being reshaped throughout Myanmar, while it also shows the continued relevance of the ‘anti-politics’ framework to understand contemporary urban development assistance projects.

Translanguaging in English‐Only Schools: From Pedagogy to Stance in the Disruption of Monolingual Policies and Practices

This article presents findings from qualitative research conducted in eight New York City public schools offering English as a new language (also known as English as a second language), in which language education policies were monolingual in English at the start of data collection. These schools participated in an intensive professional development and technical assistance project for which they were required to engage students’ bilingualism as a resource in instruction and implement translanguaging pedagogy, using the entire linguistic repertoire of bilingual children flexibly and strategically in instruction (García, Ibarra Johnson, & Seltzer, 2016). This study documents the efforts of participating schools to make their practices for emergent bilinguals more multilingual. Findings suggest that translanguaging pedagogy initiated broader ideological shifts as educators adopted a translanguaging stance that has proven transformative to the schools as a whole. Specifically, findings reveal changes in how educators thought about emergent bilinguals, their language practices and the place of those practices in instruction, and how this ideological shift engendered significant changes in several schools to their language policies. Moreover, findings show how the introduction of translanguaging pedagogy in participating schools disrupted dominant monolingual approaches in theoretical and practical ways and the impact of doing so on educators and students.

The Performance of Official Development Assistance Projects on Agricultural Technology by the Korean Programs on International Agriculture (KOPIA): An Ex-Post Evaluation of the Projects terminated in 2014 and 2015

The Performance of Official Development Assistance Projects on Agricultural Technology by the Korean Programs on International Agriculture (KOPIA): An Ex-Post Evaluation of the Projects terminated in 2014 and 2015

Application of Contribution Analysis Method in Official Development Assistance Projects: The Case of Azerbaijan

Application of Contribution Analysis Method in Official Development Assistance Projects: The Case of Azerbaijan

Russia as International Donor in 2017

The Russian Federation continued to strengthen its international donor position in 2017. Russia spends more than $1bn annually on international development assistance programs and projects. Building a good-neighbourliness belt around the country as part of its economic support of CIS nations remains top priority for Russia.

Greening the Dark Side of Chocolate: A Qualitative Assessment to Inform Sustainable Supply Chains

SummaryDespite the plethora of discourse about how sustainable development should be pursued, the production of agricultural commodities is held responsible for driving c. 80% of global deforestation. Partially as a response, the private sector has made commitments to eliminate deforestation, but it is not yet clear what factors these commitments should take into account to effectively halt deforestation while also contributing to broader sustainable development. In the context of private sector commitments to zero-deforestation, this study characterizes the perceptions of different types of stakeholders along the cocoa and chocolate supply chain in order to determine the main challenges and solutions to encourage sustainable production. The main purpose is to understand the key factors that could facilitate a transition to a more sustainable supply while harmonizing the multiple actors’ interests. A qualitative thematic analysis of perceptions was conducted based on responses from 59 interviews with different stakeholders along the cocoa and chocolate supply chain in six key producing and consuming countries. Thematic analysis of the responses revealed six main themes: (1) make better use of policies, regulations and markets to help promote sustainability; (2) improve information and data (e.g., impacts of climate change on cocoa) to inform sound interventions; (3) focus on the landscape rather than the farm-level alone and improve integration of supply chain actors; (4) promote better coordination between stakeholders and initiatives (e.g., development assistance projects and corporate sustainability efforts); (5) focus on interdependent relationships between social, environmental and economic dimensions to achieve sustainable development; and (6) engage with the private sector. The study shows the importance of identifying different stakeholder priorities in order to design solutions that accommodate multiple interests. It also emphasizes the need to improve coordination and communication between stakeholders and instruments in order to address the three different dimensions of sustainability in a synergistic manner, considering the interactions from production of raw material to end consumer.

A Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Official Development Assistance Project on Maternal and Child Health in Kwango, DR Congo.

A project on maternal and child health (MCH) was conducted by the Korea International Cooperation Agency to reduce maternal and child mortality rates in Kwango, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The objective of this study was to evaluate the costs and benefits of the MCH project, which was under Official Development Assistance for a period of 3 years from 2014 to 2016. The study conducted a cost-benefit analysis (CBA) using a benefit-cost ratio (BCR). The costs were the total costs incurred in implementing the MCH project. The benefits of the MCH project were estimated as the monetary values of the reduction in maternal mortality rates and the mortality rates of infants and children aged under 5 years. The adjusted costs that converted the time value for 2016 were estimated as USD 1,969,532 as part of the CBA. The benefits of reduced maternal mortality and the mortality of infants and children aged under 5 years were estimated as USD 681,416, USD 4,332,376, and USD 1,710,184, respectively, in monetary terms. The total benefits were estimated as USD 6,723,976 and the BCR was calculated at 3.41. In addition, the benefits were estimated by the different economic assumptions through a sensitivity analysis. The MCH project was economically satisfied under the most conservative assumptions.

공적개발원조(ODA) 프로젝트사업에서 집단행동의 문제점 : 참여 행위자간 관계분석을 중심으로

공적개발원조(ODA) 프로젝트사업에서 집단행동의 문제점 : 참여 행위자간 관계분석을 중심으로

Public project success as seen in a broad perspective.: Lessons from a meta-evaluation of 20 infrastructure projects in Norway

Infrastructure projects in developed countries are rarely evaluated ex-post. Despite their number and scope, our knowledge about their various impacts is surprisingly limited. The paper argues that such projects must be assessed in a broad perspective that includes both operational, tactical and strategic aspects, and unintended as well as intended effects. A generic six-criteria evaluation framework is suggested, inspired by a framework frequently used to evaluate development assistance projects. It is tested on 20 Norwegian projects from various sectors (transport, defence, ICT, buildings). The results indicate that the majority of projects were successful, especially in operational terms, possibly because they underwent external quality assurance up-front. It is argued that applying this type of standardized framework provides a good basis for comparison and learning across sectors. It is suggested that evaluations should be conducted with the aim of promoting accountability, building knowledge about infrastructure projects, and continuously improve the tools, methods and governance arrangements used in the front-end of project development.

Policy Issues for Contributing ODA to Sustainable Development in Developing Countries: An Analysis of Korea’s ODA and Sri Lankan Practices

In this study we analyze Korea's official development assistance (ODA) projects in Sri Lanka to derive policy issues for sustainable development of developing countries. In a two-step process, we first propose improvements based on the results of ODA projects in Sri Lanka, and second derive policy issues for improvements proposed in the first step through a Delphi analysis of expert surveys. Improvements are summarized in four categories: enhancing environmental policies in developing countries through specialized ODA projects, enhancing public awareness of environmental issues through ODA projects that directly benefit citizens, increasing communication and cooperation between recipient and donor countries through jointly planned ODA projects, and implementing follow- up management of ODA projects. The results of the study not only can contribute to the effective implementation of future ODA projects but also can be used as basic data to examine when establishing national policies.

Training Workshop to Improve Competency of Nursery Teachers in Child Development Assistance Project:

Training Workshop to Improve Competency of Nursery Teachers in Child Development Assistance Project:

Evaluation of an Official Development Assistance (ODA) project: Focus on a forest recreation and eco-tourism site in Indonesia

Evaluation of an Official Development Assistance (ODA) project: Focus on a forest recreation and eco-tourism site in Indonesia

Knowledge Sharing and Creating Process in a Social Development Project: Developing a Model for Intra-Project Knowledge Management

This research investigated the sharing, experimenting and creating process of knowledge in a social development project implemented by Dhaka city, Bangladesh with the assistance of Japanese government. Most of the international cooperation organizations such as the World Bank are interested in inter-project knowledge management but less in intra-project knowledge management. These organizations mainly focus on storing and sharing of knowledge centering on their headquarters, but not reach out to each one of their projects. However, knowledge is presented, shared, experimented, and created in the field of each project. Conducting a fieldwork and using qualitative research methods, the author closely observed the knowledge process of the project and found that the knowledge was created through the interaction of optimizing and satisfying, rationalistic plan and incremental plan, universal knowledge and local knowledge, and learning and reflecting. Based on these findings, this paper presents a model of knowledge management in a social development assistance project, which was named “PAR model”, a spiral process model of three phases of Planning, Acting, and Reflecting.

Comparing South Korea and Germany’s official development assistance projects in climate protection in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Vietnam

Purpose This explorative study aims to compare and analyze the behavior of a traditional and an emerging donor, namely, Germany and South Korea, in the field of climate change-related official development assistance (ODA). It analyzes their ODA projects in 2013 in four Southeast Asian countries severely affected by climate change, namely, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. It also adapts the existing framework to categorize ODA allocation according to receiving countries’ need and merit and donors’ self-interest. Design/methodology/approach The paper first describes both countries’ policies and activities. It then uses a country’s vulnerability to climate change as a measure of its need, its climate change readiness as a measure of its merit and its bilateral trade volume in environmental goods with donor countries as a measure of donors’ self-interest to analyze the allocation of climate-related ODA. Findings Results suggest that Korean ODA in the field of climate protection is driven more by receiving countries’ need and merit, but self-interest seems to be important for both donors. In addition, many projects labeled as adaptation or mitigation projects only have a weak link to these goals. There are limitations to the present paper. First, it could only analyze projects in 2013 because there are no earlier project data available in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Creditor Reporting System. Second, because of the simplifying assumptions of the need–merit–self-interest framework, possible other determinants of aid allocation were deliberately ignored. Finally, this explorative study is restricted to four vulnerable countries in Southeast Asia. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to compare a traditional and an emerging donor’s behavior and to explore the allocation of climate-related ODA using the need–merit–self-interest framework.

Measuring and tracking the flow of climate change adaptation aid to the developing world

The developed world has pledged to mobilize at least US $100 billion per year of ‘new’ and ‘additional’ funds by 2020 to help the developing world respond to climate change. Tracking this finance is particularly problematic for climate change adaptation, as there is no clear definition of what separates adaptation aid from standard development aid. Here we use a historical database of overseas development assistance projects to test the effect of different accounting assumptions on the delivery of adaptation finance to the developing countries of Oceania, using machine algorithms developed from a manual pilot study. The results show that explicit adaptation finance grew to 3%–4% of all development aid to Oceania by the 2008–2012 period, but that total adaptation finance could be as high as 37% of all aid, depending on potentially politically motivated assumptions about what counts as adaptation. There was also an uneven distribution of adaptation aid between countries facing similar challenges like Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia. The analysis indicates that data allowing individual projects to be weighted by their climate change relevance is needed. A robust and mandatory metadata system for all aid projects would allow multilateral aid agencies and independent third parties to perform their own analyses using different assumptions and definitions, and serve as a key check on international climate aid promises.

Development Assistance and Communication: The Case of the Taiwan International Cooperation and Development Fund

This article argues that international development assistance projects are an ideal way for governments to communicate social values to international audiences and also to consolidate support or seek legitimacy from its domestic public. The case study for this article is the Taiwan International Cooperation and Development Fund. The text argues that this organization should sit at the forefront of the Taiwan government's communications strategy because of recent trends in political communications and also circumstances specific to Taiwan's domestic and international political situation. The research found that the ICDF has taken on more political communications responsibilities in recent years as a result of changes in Taiwan's international political circumstances and the evolution of a democratic society at home.

Performance-based development funding using market mechanisms: A public–private partnership social financing model for medical equipment technology in developing countries

This article analyzes the viability of utilizing a new performance-based development financing model related to funding medical equipment technology (MET) transfers to developing countries. In such an innovative model utilizing market-based incentives and public–private partnerships (PPPs or P3), social bond investors fund MET by receiving a social development ‘bond’ in exchange for a predetermined and agreed-upon amount of principal and interest to be paid only if the related MET project is deemed to satisfy certain predetermined, agreed-upon success metrics (as determined by a third party). Thus, the public sector only funds MET projects that are deemed successful based on the agreed success metric by all related stakeholders, with the MET transfer project being funded no matter what the circumstance. This performance-based model can complement existing funding models, which improves the transparency, coordination and efficacy of such MET development assistance projects in developing countries.

One village one product: evaluations and lessons learnt from OVOP aid projects

The One Village One Product project that originated in Japan's Oita Prefecture is just one component of many official Japanese development assistance projects aiming to promote rural development in more than 30 countries. Not all efforts, however, result in the same level of sustainability. Oita Prefecture built its movement on three principles: local yet global, self-reliance and creativity, and human resources development. The projects that satisfy these principles are generally found to be sustainable. These principles can also be applicable to overseas projects.