Development Assistance Projects Research Articles

Harnessing the Internet of Things for Global Development

This report explores the current use and potential of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies in tackling global development challenges, highlighting a number of specific instances where IoT interventions are helping to solve some of the world’s most pressing issues. It presents summary conclusions on what is required for the IoT to reach billions of people living in the developing world, and also to accelerate income growth and social development as a result. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) such as mobile phones, Internet use and Big Data analytics are pervasively utilized in global development projects (in a field often known as ICT for Development, or ICT4D) to improve outcomes and deliver services. Recently, this field has experienced strong growth. For example, in a recent presentation, Carolyn Woo, CEO of Catholic Relief Services (CRS), identified 157 new development assistance projects, each started by CRS between 2014 and 2015, that incorporate ICTs (primarily mobile telephony). Similarly, at Johns Hopkins University alone, as of May 2015, there were over 140 mHealth (mobile phone-enabled healthcare) projects across the developing world. And an April 2015 review at the World Bank identified at least thirty-two projects that specifically incorporate Big Data analytics. As evidenced by these examples, mobiles are highly integrated in development projects already. Connected sensors and M2M connectivity represent the next frontier in the ICT4D story.

Review for the Korean Health Professionals and International Cooperation Doctors Dispatched to Peru by the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA)

South Korea dispatches Korean nationals to partner developing countries as an Official Development Assistance (ODA) project through the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA). In the health sector, KOICA dispatches international cooperation doctors (ICDs), nurses, physical therapists, radiologic technologists, nutritionists, medical laboratory technologists, occupational therapists, and dental hygienists. A total of 216 ICDs were dispatched over 19 times from 1995 until 2013. There were 19 areas of specialties among the ICDs. The most common specialty was internal medicine (61/216, 28.2%), the second most common specialty was general surgery (43/216, 19.9%), followed by oriental medicine (27/216, 12.5%), pediatrics (17/216, 7.9%), orthopedics (16/216, 7.4%), family medicine (16/216, 7.4%), and odontology (14/216, 6.5%). The ICDs have worked in 21 countries. KOICA dispatched the highest number of ICDs to Asia (97/216, 44.9%), followed by Africa (50/216, 23.1%), Latin America (34/216, 15.7%), the commonwealth of independent states (31/216, 14.4%), and Oceania (4/216, 1.9%). Nobody was dispatched to the Middle East. A total of 134 KOICA health professionals were dispatched to Peru from 1996 until October 1, 2014. Of these, 19.4% (26/134) were ICDs, 44.8% (60/216) were nurses, 20.1% (27/134) were physical therapists, 6.7% (9/134) were radiologic technologists, 2.2% (3/134) were nutritionists, and 6.7% (9/134) were medical laboratory. ICDs' specialties comprised internal medicine (13/26, 50%), family medicine (8/26, 30.8%), pediatrics (2/26, 7.7%), otorhinolaryngology (1/26, 3.8%), orthopedics (1/26, 3.8%), and oriental medicine (1/26, 3.8%). Most of the dispatched health professionals worked at institutions that were supported by KOICA. For this reason, the proportion of health professionals who worked at public health centers (PHCs) was the highest (58.2%, 78/134) when classified by workplace type. Other KOICA health professionals worked at hospitals, governmental organizations (GOs), or schools.

Redevelopment of Inland Water Transport for Post-Conflict Reconstruction in Southern Sudan

Transport infrastructure redevelopment is needed in post-conflict situations to smoothly resettle people displaced by armed conflicts and to handle the increased flow of goods and people. This chapter will propose ways to improve planning methods for transport redevelopment in post-conflict reconstruction. The development assistance project to restore and enhance inland water transport (IWT) in post-conflict Southern Sudan demonstrates that IWT plays a crucial role in reconstruction and that IWT can expand services with a small investment more easily than road transport. This chapter refutes the widespread perception that IWT is a minor mode of transportation because of its disadvantages relative to land transport in terms of time and network scales. It first examines the use of IWT in Europe, the United States, Japan, and Korea, followed by a review of the redevelopment of IWT for disaster management in Japan and the lessons learned from relief and rehabilitation activities following the Kobe earthquake (also known as the Great Hanshin-Awaji earthquake). These lessons are then applied to the rehabilitation of IWT in postconflict Southern Sudan. The chapter further discusses the challenges of capacity development for new government agencies that have been established following conflicts, which often have limited capacities for managing facilities.

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.

Contribution of the Japan International Cooperation Agency health-related projects to health system strengthening

BackgroundThe Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has focused its attention on appraising health development assistance projects and redirecting efforts towards health system strengthening. This study aimed to describe the type of project and targets of interest, and assess the contribution of JICA health-related projects to strengthening health systems worldwide.MethodsWe collected a web-based Project Design Matrix (PDM) of 105 JICA projects implemented between January 2005 and December 2009. We developed an analytical matrix based on the World Health Organization (WHO) health system framework to examine the PDM data and thereby assess the projects’ contributions to health system strengthening.ResultsThe majority of JICA projects had prioritized workforce development, and improvements in governance and service delivery. Conversely, there was little assistance for finance or medical product development. The vast majority (87.6%) of JICA projects addressed public health issues, for example programs to improve maternal and child health, and the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases such as AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Nearly 90% of JICA technical healthcare assistance directly focused on improving governance as the most critical means of accomplishing its goals.ConclusionsOur study confirmed that JICA projects met the goals of bilateral cooperation by developing workforce capacity and governance. Nevertheless, our findings suggest that JICA assistance could be used to support financial aspects of healthcare systems, which is an area of increasing concern. We also showed that the analytical matrix methodology is an effective means of examining the component of health system strengthening to which the activity and output of a project contributes. This may help policy makers and practitioners focus future projects on priority areas.

River Basin Organizations in the Global Water Discourse: An Exploration of Agency and Strategy

This article describes the role of transnational policy entrepreneurs in producing and maintaining the global discourse of river basin organizations--a key element of global water governance. It takes agency approach and draws on three streams of literature--discourse analysis, political ecology, and political economy--to derive strategies that transnational actors may use to advance discourse. To illustrate agency and strategies, it draws from a wide variety in types of RBOs across the globe. It finds that global knowledge networks exhibit the most expansive reach, serving as the oil in the machine of the global RBO discourse. This finding raises important questions around networks in the broader global water governance discourse as well as compelling questions related to governance. KEYWORDS: river basin organizations, discourse, scale, politics, agency, transnational policy entrepreneurs, political ecology, political economy, networks. REFLECTING BROADER TRENDS IN GLOBAL GOVERNANCE AWAY FROM A SYSTEM of decisionmaking and collective action dominated by a few key intergovernmental institutions, global water governance may be seen as increasingly diffuse, heterogeneous, fragmented, and unpredictable. (1) Representing more of a multilevel arrangement that includes local, national, and basin levels, global water governance entails not only governments but also international nongovernmental organizations (ING0s), global knowledge networks, and private sector actors who formulate and implement policy and frame discourse at multiple and interrelated levels. (2) Through the development of knowledge, development assistance projects, global water meetings, and publications, these transnational actors shape global water discourse and governance. Central to global water governance are river basin organizations (RBOs) that are organized at the basin level to serve as forums to link various governance levels, including the local, national, and global. RBOs are on the rise globally today, increasingly promoted by transnational policy actors supporting good governance concepts in developing countries. (3) In the past two decades, both domestic and international RBOs have been established in virtually every region of the world. (4) As primary mechanisms for water governance, RBOs provide forums for critical water management issues, including conflicts around water quantity and quality as well as the use of water for human and environmental needs. (5) Despite the rise of RBOs and their importance to governance, the trajectory that this concept has traveled to reach its position of global prominence and the role of transnational policy actors in advancing and maintaining RBOs is relatively unknown. (6) We address this gap by examining transnational policy entrepreneurs and their strategies in the rise of the modern discourse around RBOs. We see discourse as an ensemble of ideas, concepts and categories through which meaning is given to social and physical phenomena, and which is reproduced through identifiable set of practices. (7) Unraveling the working of a discourse helps us to explore the debate, uncover which and whose agendas are being served, and ultimately offer pathways for strategic positioning of actors in the debates on water governance. Although there is rich literature on discourse theory and its application to the environment, no unified analytical framework exists for examination of the path through which discourses become dominant. (8) An agency approach, representing the ability to exercise authority and influence policy change, (9) suggests explicit attention to policy actors as change agents and their strategies as the means to instigate or block the RBO discourse. Through integration of several literatures, we identify particular strategies of transnational actors in water governance and apply this typology to illustrate how different actors make use of these strategies. …

Japanese Citizen Participation in International Development Aid

With data from the 2006 Japanese General Social Survey, this study examines factors associated with citizen participation in international development aid (IDA). In line with the literature on correlates of charitable giving of time and money, it finds that structural positions of individuals, measured by their demographic, socioeconomic and social network characteristics, are associated with the probability of citizen participation in IDA. Moreover, the study shows that variables such as English skills, measured by the ability and opportunity to use English, and the level of endorsement of Official Development Assistance projects significantly and positively predict IDA participation status. Implications of these findings are discussed for future research on charitable giving for international development in Japan and, to a lesser extent, elsewhere.

'Good gender practice' in delivering aid

A group of private sector organisations involved with the delivery of aid to developing countries used International Women's Day on 8 March to highlight the achievement of good gender practice on development assistance projects.

국제협력을 위한 해양안전정보 분야 범용수로데이터모델 적용

국가적으로 개발도상국 국제협력 지원이 추진되고 있으며, 특히 해양안전 분야에서도 교육훈련 및 정보체계 개발지원이 이루어지고 있다. 국제협력 시 적용되는 해양안전 정보시스템은 수원국에서 생산되는 해양안전정보 처리가 가능하여야 하고, 수원국에서 개발된 시스템 간의 정보 교환이 원활해야 한다는 특징이 있다. 따라서 해양안전정보 시스템은 국제수로기구에서 제정한 범용수로데이터모델 기반의 시스템 구축이 반드시 필요하다. 본 연구에서는 국제수로기구에서 개발한 범용수로데이터 모델인 S-100 표준과 범용수로데이터 모델의 운용절차에 대해 분석하였다. 또한 범용수로데이터모델의 해양안전 분야 국제협력 사례로 유출유 대응시스템에 적용하여 전자해도 기반의 유출유 대응시스템을 개발하였으며, 범용수로데이터모델의 해양안전 분야 적용 결과를 고찰 하였다. Official Development Assistance(ODA) Project is initiated to assist a developing country economically and to promote its welfare. Support on training and information system development are the primary elements in the maritime safety field. The maritime safety information system(MSIS) of ODA projects deals with maritime safety information of developing nations and ensures an inter-operability between other systems. Therefore, it is required to develop MSIS based on the Universal Hydrographic Data Model(UHDM) of International Hydrographic Organization(IHO). In this paper, we have analyzed the current status and operational process of UHDM established by IHO. Oil spill response system was selected as an example of MSIS project and, also, considered the application results to the maritime safety field of UHDM.

Examining Sustainability in Development Assistance Projects: How Useful Is Sociological Institution Theory?

Examining Sustainability in Development Assistance Projects: How Useful Is Sociological Institution Theory?

Active Learning to Improve Fifth Grade Mathematics Achievement in Banten

Teaching for active learning is a pedagogical technique that has been actively promoted in Indonesian education through government reform efforts and international development assistance projects for decades. Recently, elementary schools in Banten province received training in active learning instructional strategies from the USAID-funded project, Decentralized Basic Education 2. Post-training evaluations conducted by lecturers from the University of Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa (UNTIRTA: Universitas Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa) suggested that teachers were successfully employing active learning strategies in some subjects, but not mathematics. In order to understand the difficulties teachers were having in teaching for active learning in mathematics, and to assist them in using active learning strategies, a team of lecturers from UNTIRTA designed and carried out an action research project to train teachers in an elementary school in the city of Cilegon to use a technique called Magic Fingers in teaching Grade 5 multiplication. During the course of the project the research team discovered that teachers were having problems transferring knowledge gained from training in one context and subject to other school subjects and contexts. Key Words: Mathematics, Teaching for Active Learning, Indonesia, Banten

Summoning earth and fire: The energy development implications of Grameen Shakti (GS) in Bangladesh

Since its establishment in 1996, the nonprofit company Grameen Shakti (GS) has installed almost half a million solar home systems (SHS), 132,000 cookstoves, and 13,300 biogas plants among 3.1 million beneficiaries. They plan to ramp up their expansion so that by 2015, more than 1.5 million SHS are in place along with 100,000 biogas units and 5 million improved cookstoves. This article describes GS’s current activities, the contours of its programs, and likely reasons for its success. It also explores the remaining challenges facing GS and distils common lessons for other energy development assistance projects and programs around the world. After detailing research methods consisting primarily of research interviews and site visits, the article briefly explores the history of GS and summarizes its three most prominent programs. The article then identifies six distinct benefits to their programs—expansion of energy access, less deforestation and fewer greenhouse gas emissions, price savings, direct employment and income generation, improved public health, and better technology—before discussing challenges related to staff retention and organizational growth, living standards, technical obstacles, affordability, tension with other energy programs, political constraints, and awareness and cultural values.

Old Wine in New Bottles? Does Climate Policy Determine Bilateral Development Aid for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency?

Published by Palgrave Macmillan Since the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 bilateral and multilateral donors have stressed that development assistance has increasingly been oriented towards climate-friendly interventions. With respect to energy aid, this should lead to a substantial increase in projects related to renewable energy and energy efficiency. Given a new database of hundreds of thousands of bilateral development assistance projects, we can assess whether such a reorientation has indeed taken place. We find that, contrary to expectations, the share of bilaterally-funded renewable energy and energy efficiency projects did not increase over the period from 1980 to 2008. This share fluctuated greatly, following the price of oil, peaking with the second oil crisis of the early 1980s. The impacts of global climate policy treaties are minor or inexistent. ‘Traditional’ renewable energies such as hydro and geothermal declined, while “new” renewables showed two peaks in the early 1980s and late 1990s. Differences between donor countries are huge. Several countries, including climate sceptics such as the US and Australia, but also the UK and Switzerland, saw a consistent decline. The self-proclaimed climate pioneers such as Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden show peaks related to both the oil crises and international climate policy. Only in Austria, Denmark, Finland and Spain can ‘new’ climate mitigation development assistance be found.

Enhancing International Research and Development-Project Activity on University Campuses

In the interconnected world of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, the ability of higher-education institutions to contribute to and benefit from international research undertakings, sustainable-development-project activity, and capacity-building endeavors requires transnational involvement. While the potential benefits are many, universities in the global North face institutional and financial constraints that limit their involvement in cross-border ventures. The article explores and places in comparative perspective the views of 40 U.S. senior international officers (SIOs) on changes they believe would enhance their university’s involvement in international research and overseas development-assistance projects. One important objective of this report is to generate awareness and further discussion regarding ways in which higher-education administrators can promote institutional involvement in international research and development projects. While a majority of the SIOs at non-Ph.D.-conferring institutions and at universities with enrollments of 15,000 and less believe that improvement in some dimension of their external environment would be most helpful in encouraging greater involvement in international research and development-project activity on their campus, three-fourths or more of their counterparts at Ph.D.-conferring institutions and at universities with enrollments that exceed 15,000 students identified an internal change as most needed. Viewed in totality, these exploratory findings suggest the need for diversified and long-term additionality in both internal and external financial support for campus-based international research, development-project, and capacity-building initiatives. Additional campus-based and external support will enable planned international research and development initiatives in less-connected regions of the world, such as Africa, to go forward.

Redevelopment of Inland Water Transport for Post-Conflict Reconstruction in Southern Sudan

Transport infrastructure redevelopment is needed in post-conflict situations to smoothly resettle people displaced by armed conflicts and to handle the increased flow of goods and people. This chapter will propose ways to improve planning methods for transport redevelopment in post-conflict reconstruction. The development assistance project to restore and enhance inland water transport (IWT) in post-conflict Southern Sudan demonstrates that IWT plays a crucial role in reconstruction and that IWT can expand services with a small investment more easily than road transport. This chapter refutes the widespread perception that IWT is a minor mode of transportation because of its disadvantages relative to land transport in terms of time and network scales. It first examines the use of IWT in Europe, the United States, Japan, and Korea, followed by a review of the redevelopment of IWT for disaster management in Japan and the lessons learned from relief and rehabilitation activities following the Kobe earthquake (also known as the Great Hanshin-Awaji earthquake). These lessons are then applied to the rehabilitation of IWT in postconflict Southern Sudan. The chapter further discusses the challenges of capacity development for new government agencies that have been established following conflicts, which often have limited capacities for managing facilities.

한국의 국제개발원조 조달시장 진출 정책

This paper analyzes the size of the procurement market in the international official development assistance programs and projects, estimates the current situation of the Korean enterprises’ share of the procurement markets, and discusses strategies and policies for enhancing the level of Korean enterprises’ participation.

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.

How Contract Rights and Public Sector Governance Affect Infrastructure Investment

Contract enforcement risk has become more prevalent in build-operate-transfer (BOT) projects. Recent trends in Southeast Asia have shown that non-enforcement of contract rights by the public sector have common characteristics such as: introduction of competitors into a contractual relationship believed to have been already awarded as a monopoly, opportunistic behavior of a public-sector joint venture partner, and attempts to void or renegotiate a contract on the grounds that it provides excessive profit to the private sector. The Philippines, in particular, traces non-enforcement of contract rights back to weak enforcement of property rights. The author9s recommendations for the Philippines include the establishment of a private-sector investment fund by a multilateral agency, from which amounts could be drawn while disputes between the sovereign and the private sector were under settlement in the International Commerce Court; the formation of a bureau for monitoring official development assistance (ODA) and BOT projects by a multilateral agency; the assumption by equity investors of debt positions in their projects to ensure pari passu status with other lenders in negotiations with the sovereign; and empowerment of the informal sector to promote contract rights enforcement. <b>TOPICS:</b>Project finance, emerging markets, exchanges/markets/clearinghouses

Auction Reforms for Effective Official Development Assistance

Auctions, which are applicable to aid-related procurement systems, have been recently recognized as an important tool for improving economic efficiency. Using data on procurement auctions for Japanese official development assistance projects, the equilibrium bid function is estimated. The data reveals that a 1% increase in the number of bidders decreases the equilibrium bid by about 0.2%. This implies that strengthening competition at procurement auctions lowers contract prices and mitigates the heavy indebtedness of developing countries. Auctions are also instrumental in fostering local business environment and governance. For intensifying bidding competition, it is useful to introduce an electronic bidding system, encourage local firms to jointly bid, and relax excessive qualification requirements.

The Padma Bridge Feasibility Study: Social/Resettlement Impact Assessments

This paper provides an attempt to incorporate the new approach to social and environmental considerations in Japan's overseas development assistance projects. It is based on work carried out in the course of the feasibility study on the construction of the Padma Bridge in the People's Republic of Bangladesh. The framework is intended to provide a comprehensive view of the issues associated with social impact assessment for large infrastructure projects such as the proposed Padma Bridge, yet flexible enough for adaptation to the needs of other similar projects for managing impact assessment. The paper also contains results of the preliminary engineering designs with regard to acquisition of land and other assets, including displacement and relocation of the affected households. An estimated 3, 150 households will be displaced due to the construction of the bridge and associated facilities. In addition, 5, 000 households will be affected by loss of agricultural land. The framework and guidelines established an entitlement matrix designed to cover compensation for lost assets and restore or enhance the livelihoods of all categories of affected people. The impact assessment was integrated into the planning and design processes. As a result, the discussion of the key dimensions of the framework, including the approach and methodology of the study, focused on interpreting the results and eliciting lessons learned during the process.