International Aid Architecture Research Articles

Partnerships between philanthrocapitalists and donors: the case of Girl Hub

ABSTRACT Partnerships between traditional aid institutions and private sector actors have become an accepted feature of the international aid architecture. This paper explores the opportunities and challenges presented by such relationships through an analysis of Girl Hub, an operational partnership between Nike’s philanthropic foundation and the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DfID). Despite both parent organisations sharing a commitment to girl empowerment and economic development, Girl Hub failed to achieve its founders' vision. Ultimately, the influence of the philanthropic organisation was mediated by DfID’s accountability demands and culture clashes between individuals involved in the partnership.

Aids and Covid-19, two emblematic diseases of global health

RésuméAlors qu'il existait depuis la fin des années 90, le concept de « Santé mondiale » fait aujourd'hui partie du langage courant des experts de la santé publique internationale, mais comment caractériser cette approche? Parce qu'elles transcendent les frontières, parce qu'elles appellent à des actions collectives et coordonnées au niveau mondial et parce qu'elles nécessitent une approche triplement transversale (multidisciplinaire, multi-acteurs et multisectorielle), les épidémies de sida et de Covid-19 illustrent parfaitement, chacune à sa façon, cette nouvelle approche. On peut considérer que la lutte contre le sida a été, d'une certaine façon, un laboratoire de la santé mondiale. En provoquant, avec d'autres, la réorganisation de l'architecture internationale de l'aide en santé, en stimulant l’émergence de nouveaux acteurs sur la scène internationale, en contribuant à l’éclatement des frontières et des disciplines, le sida a certainement été un accélérateur de cette nouvelle façon de penser les questions de santé. La crise de la Covid-19 transforme l'essai et oblige la communauté internationale à prendre conscience de ce nouvel impératif: nous n'avons pas d'autres choix que la santé mondiale, la coopération et la solidarité à l’échelle de la planète.

BRICS: An Alternative Economic Alliance to Challenge Western Hegemony

This study examines the role of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) as emerging economic power in international development cooperation. The failure on the part of the western powers to accommodate the rising concerns of developing countries contributed to its emergence.Over the last decade, BRICS have increased their financial as well as technical assistance and established distinct ways and means of co-operation with developing countries. BRICS economies are severely influencing global development, especially in Low Income Countries. BRICS are not among the most prosperous countries according to per capita income.Yet they are influencing global economic development to a great extent through their strong economic dynamics as well as territorial and demographic dimensions.Their considerable impact on international aid architecture through principles of mutual respect and non-interference coupled with the creation of New Development Bank can be considered as an important milestone to create a non-polar world. A comparison between the aid diplomacy of BRICS and traditional donors outlines the practical and ideational role that it can play as a grouping, in reforming the global financial system and in the norm-setting processes in world politics. BRICS can be considered as an amalgam of unequal constituents representing diverse regions of contrasting capabilities. Their effectiveness in working as a forum not aligned by a shared ideology, political structure or culture, but through the thread of egalitarian consideration is another area of confrontation. Its effectiveness in generating confidence among other developing and less developed economies of the globe as an alternative to the existing international financial custodians like World Bank and IMF also forms an important area of analysis.

BRICS and Foreign Aid

This paper provides an overview of the small but growing literature on the bilateral foreign aid activities carried out by the five BRICS countries. While these so-called emerging donors are steadily gaining prominence in international development, they are certainly not new to the field, with foreign aid programs dating back as far as the 1950s. The recent increase in both the size and scope of their development activities around the globe is regarded by some as a threat to the international aid architecture dominated by the United States and its allies in Western Europe and Japan. What do we know about the size, scope and institutional design of the BRICS countries’ aid activities? What can we learn about these donors’ aid motives by analyzing the pattern of their aid recipients and focal sectors? Does the existing qualitative and quantitative literature allow us to draw conclusions about the effects of BRICS aid on economic growth, other development outcomes, governance and conflict in recipient countries? Moreover, how will BRICS aid affect the DAC-centered international aid architecture and the way the so-called traditional donors provide aid? While our examination of existing scholarly work allows us to draw some tentative conclusions, it also underscores the considerable variation BRICS donors show in their aid approaches; they rarely act as a group in international development cooperation. We also highlight the major avenues and challenges for future research.

Brazil's Development Cooperation: Following in China's and India's Footsteps?

The increasing importance of donor countries operating outside of the OECD's Development Assistance Committee (DAC) challenges the existing international aid architecture. In particular, non-DAC donors are suspected to provide aid solely based on self-interest without caring about recipients' need and merit. In this paper, we empirically investigate the aid allocation of one major non-DAC donor, Brazil. We find that Brazil's development cooperation is still predominantly shaped by historic and cultural ties to the Lusophone world and Latin America, while broader political and economic motives play a negligible role. To some extent, Brazil also takes recipients' need and governance into account. This broadly corroborates previous results for China and India, strengthening the conclusion that non-DAC donors are not as different from DAC donors regarding their aid motives as one might suspect. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Understanding the Role of National Development Experts in Development Ethnography

International aid architecture has created a space for development experts to operationalise development policies in various capacity. A growing body of literature highlights the agency of this group through an ethnographic lens for deepening the understanding of development practice. However, this article reveals that there is a gap in the existing literature as the roles of national development experts (NDEs) remain rather unexplored in development. This article aims to bridge this gap by introducing theNDEs as an unexplored actor in development and setting an agenda for further research. Drawing on a Bangladesh case this article argues that not only will the accounts ofNDEs deepen the existing scholarship but also without their reflections we will only have partial development ethnographies.

The sustainability of Latin American CSOs: historical patterns and new funding sources

ABSTRACTAs an increasingly consolidated middle-income region, Latin America’s position within the international aid architecture has shifted. Funding for civil society has decreased as a result of economic growth, crises affecting bilateral donors, and operational and financial restrictions stemming from political polarisation and increasing government hostility in various countries. Based on a current and historical literature review as well as informal consultations with CSO sources, this article summarises the results of a research project focused on civil society’s funding mechanisms in Latin America and accounts for recent CSO efforts to explore novel funding alternatives.

A Critical Note on Poverty Eradication Target of Sustainable Development Goals

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aim big - as one of its target is to eradicate extreme poverty by 2030 for all people everywhere. This paper offers a critical review and outlines some potential challenges in achieving this noble target. In doing so, it offers a critical review of poverty scholarship to assess the notion of extreme poverty adopted in the SDGs. This also takes stock of past global anti-poverty programmes to set an appropriate context for forecasting potential challenges to eradicate poverty everywhere. It is highlighted that i) a number of poor countries will have to perform a magic against their track records, ii) the world needs to be consistently peaceful, iii) significant and equitable reform should take place within world economic structure, iv) quality and international comparability of poverty data in poor countries need to be improved significantly, and v) uncertainty about required investment in poor countries should be addressed rigorously in order for achieving poverty eradication target of the SDGs. These lead to the argument that without strong political commitments by all related stakeholders and an approach to look beyond existing models poverty eradication target may turn out to be another statement of good intentions by the international aid architecture with little meaningful practical relevance. Key words: Poverty, poverty eradication, extreme poverty, sustainable development goals (SDGs), millennium development goals (MDGs), dollarisation of poverty, developing countries

Aid, Social Policy and Development

AbstractThis paper discusses past and current social policy strategies in the international aid architecture as an introduction to the UNU‐WIDER Special Issue. Beginning in the 1990s, aid strategy and policy shifted to put a stronger emphasis on human development. This accelerated with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and will continue under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which have even more ambitious targets. The paper also assesses some of the concerns associated with the ‘Paris‐style’ aid modalities, and discusses major challenges for the future global development agenda. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. © 2015 UNU‐WIDER. Journal of International Development published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

China's Foreign Assistance and Its Implications for the International Aid Architecture

China is now emerging as one of the most important development partners in the world. Based on its double identities as both recipient and donor, China has developed some specialties in terms of international development assistance. What new elements has China brought to the international aid architecture? This essay argues that the Chinese foreign assistance theory has four unique features, namely prioritizing development without setting any precondition; building win-win relationships with recipient countries through promotion of their independent development and national interests; insisting on equality rather than moral preaching, as well as keeping strategic patience while avoiding technical short-sightedness. Despite such specialties, China's foreign assistance is still practiced under international frameworks; the changes it aims to make should not be regarded as a "quiet revolution," but as an amendment to the existing international aid architecture.

The World Bank and the Asian Development Bank: Should Asia Have Both?

i»?This paper examines the complementary and competitive roles of the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Asia given the backdrop of a changing world in which development priorities and challenges are changing rapidly and the rapid expansion of financial flows to developing countries is challenging the influence of these organizations. The paper highlights changes to the international aid architecture, its increasing fragmentation, the rise of non-traditional donors, and recent efforts at improving aid coordination. With this background, the paper examines the roles of the World Bank and ADB in Asia, provides some comparisons of their performance, notes their overlapping responsibilities, and explains current approaches to coordination and cooperation between them. After examining alternative approaches toward improving the division of labor between the two organizations, the author concludes that the most likely scenario will be one of “muddling through†in which stakeholders are likely to tinker at the margins at sharpening the specialization of each institution rather than push through any radical reallocation of financial and knowledge management responsibilities.

China's Foreign Aid Policy and Architecture

As China's engagement in low‐income countries has deepened, particularly in Africa, so has criticism of China's development programmes and practices. New developments in Africa and the international aid architecture warrant a re‐examination of China's foreign assistance and development architecture, and its capacity in managing this growing engagement. This article outlines the modes of Chinese foreign assistance, the institutional arrangements and the principles that guide it. It argues that, while China's foreign aid has been characterised by several strengths, including its practical orientation, its consistency of principles, and its focus on high‐level exchanges, these same features may also be fault lines for both the future effectiveness of China's aid programmes, and its international reputation as a rising power in development. Evaluation and future reform of China's aid architecture is needed in order to enhance China's aid capacity and effectiveness.

Governance, Representation and International Aid

The growth of the postwar 20th century international aid architecture has generated much debate over the successes and failures of aid, its changing forms and its challenges. This article uses this aid landscape to explore the representational or discursive power and authority of the aid donor over the aid recipient. It suggests that representations about what aid does, its modalities and dispensations reproduce a hegemonic discourse and that representational authority in diagnosing aid’s problems and prescribing solutions resides generally on one side of the aid binary. It thus focuses on the hierarchical or asymmetric relations of power implied by such a binary, on the way development aid in particular has come to shape self-understandings of donors in relation to recipients, and on the discursive labour that enables such a construction. It also explores how the post-Washington consensus on poverty eradication has embedded neoliberal solutions to development. The reproduction of the hegemonic aid discourse is examined in reference to NGOs involved in the dispensing of aid in Southeast Asia by drawing on scholarly literature and field research in Southeast Asia and Washington DC.

Dimensionner l'aide au développement : ce que nous enseigne l'évaluation

Résumé La plupart des discussions sur l’efficacité de l’aide en termes de développement se concentrent généralement sur les flux agrégés d’aide, sans prêter attention aux diverses catégories d’aide ni aux différents mécanismes d’acheminement. Nous affirmons pourtant que la question centrale n’est pas de savoir si l’aide fonctionne, mais bien quel type d’aide fonctionne. L’impact potentiel de l’aide – positif ou négatif – semble résulter principalement des modalités selon lesquelles l’aide est délivrée. Cet article répond à deux questions : quelle forme d’aide fonctionne et comment est-elle acheminée ? Alors que la confiance de la société dans l’aide publique s’étiole et que l’intérêt pour la nouvelle architecture de l’aide s’accroît, ces questions ont une pertinence croissante. Nous abordons trois aspects fondamentaux – et pourtant souvent sous-estimés – qui sont déterminants pour l’efficacité du développement : (a) les complémentarités de ressources entre les différents volets d’un programme ; (b) les effets de substitution entre les différentes activités ; et (c) les effets d’entraînement influençant l’efficacité de l’aide au niveau global. Nous présentons plusieurs exemples empiriques de ces mécanismes, en montrant leur pertinence spécifique pour les nouveaux types de dispositifs institutionnels qui caractérisent les réformes à venir de l’architecture internationale de l’aide (partenariats public/privé, fonds fiduciaires multidonateurs et fonds d’appui à la société civile).

The Anatomy of China's Influence on the International Development Finance System

The entry of China as an emerging economic power into the development financing scene has raised the question of its impact on international aid architecture. The paper argues that this question cannot be fully understood unless we realize that the origin and on-going evolution of the current rules in international aid regime represent a process of political contestation both on the international level and on the domestic level. They are the outcome of conscious aid policy coordination among DAC donors to avoid crass competition and promote burden sharing. However, undue coordination dominated by hegemonic ideas of what is best aid practice may stifle alternative notions of what development is and how official flows can promote the development. After uncovering the political dynamics of existing rules and standards, the author collected first-hand data through in-depth interview in Beijing to discover that China has no incentives to participate in the current DAC dominated aid policy coordination due to domestic and international political considerations. Furthermore, China has taken a pragmatic approach to international standards and rules on development assistance. On the one hand, China is willing to draw lessons from the international practices to reform its domestic aid governance structure. On the other hand, China has deliberately distinguished itself from the DAC approach by criticizing the appropriateness of the current standards and rules and highlighting its distinctive 'South-South Cooperation' approach. In addition, the author took a step further to uncover how domestic bureaucratic politics creates ambiguous attitude towards international rules due to the vested bureaucratic interests. It concludes that China has enhanced the momentum of creating a space for alternative development ideas and policy options, although such impact is not an outcome of China's conscious efforts but an unintentional impact due to the competition China brings to DAC donors and the alternatives it provides to recipient countries.

Knights in Fragile Armor: The Rise of the “G7+”

Globally, 1-5 billion people live in countries affected by violent conflict. International aid to fragile and conflict-affected states accounts for 30 percent of global official development assistance (ODA) flows. However, no low-income fragile or conflict-affected country has yet to achieve a single Millennium Development Goal (MDG). For the first time, a group of these countries have joined together to discuss their shared development challenges and advocate for better international policies to address their needs. Calling themselves the g7+, this group represents an important new voice in the debate over aid effectiveness and it carries high expectations. This article describes the rise of the g7+ and attempts to answer the question on everyone's mind: Can it deliver? Recent years have witnessed a new criticism of the international aid architecture and its shortcomings in addressing the challenges posed by state fragility. Attention has shifted from hard targets in terms of percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) spent on official development assistance, and even the MDG targets, to the overall effectiveness of international development efforts. Critics have pointed to persistent shortcomings in the way that international assistance is delivered, particularly in problems of will and attention, lack of engagement with national stakeholders, aversion to risk, inflexible and cumbersome financing mechanisms, opaque decisionmaking processes, lack of country ownership, and a distressing lack of coherence and coordination among international actors. The potential for donor assistance to have the unintended effect of undermining, rather than bolstering, state capacity and legitimacy is now widely recognized. International actors have been faulted for applying cookie-cutter approaches to complex problems in vastly diverse environments, even as thinking on the challenges posed by conflict and fragility has evolved. In the past several years, there have been a number of milestones in seeking a structured international response to the failures of development assistance to meet challenges of fragility. Building on the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness- in 2007 the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries endorsed a set of Principles for Good International Engagement in Fragile States and Situations (the Fragile States Principles) to guide aid to fragile states. However, these were top-down reform efforts: despite the good thinking that underpinned the Fragile States Principles, they were created by donors, for donors. Much like the Washington Consensus, which governed development policy in the 1980s, the early discourse on aid effectiveness largely consisted of outsiders diagnosing the problem, prescribing the solution, and assuming responsibility for carrying out the treatment. This started to change at the Third High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, held in Accra, Ghana, in 2008, in which developing countries played a more active role in the preparations, and civil society groups across the developed and developing world were widely consulted. On the fragile-states front, perhaps the most significant development to come out of Accra was the establishment of the International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding. [1] The Dialogue brings donor and recipient countries together to devise a realistic set of peacebuilding and statebuilding objectives to address the root causes of conflict and fragility. Its participants include OECD donors; nontraditional donors (such as Brazil and China); international and regional organizations (including the UN, the World Bank, the African Union, and the African Development Bank); representatives of civil society; and, most importantly, representatives of conflict-affected and fragile states. First proposed at a preparatory meeting in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, in July 2008, the Dialogue was endorsed in Accra in September 2008 and formally launched at the end of that year. …

Agency and Accountability in Multilateral Development Finance: An Agenda for Change

Recent development challenges highlight a pressing need to re-evaluate whether the post-World War II behemoths of multilateral development finance are up to the tasks being demanded of them today. The institutions that dominate the current order, the United Nations (“UN”) and the World Bank, are undergoing a crisis of confidence as the world’s development aid donors engage in an ongoing quest to find alternatives to them. This quest takes the form of setting up numerous funds narrowly tailored to finance specific, narrowly-defined needs. Examples of these funds include the Global Environment Trust Fund (GEF) and the Global Fund to Fight HIV Aids, Malaria and Tuberculosis. The Climate Change Fund, proposed in the December 2009 Copenhagen Accord (and recently renamed the Green Climate Fund), is poised to follow this approach. This ad hoc special purpose fund approach lacks a coherent, unifying vision of how to meet today’s development challenges. The funds that have been created fill a need but suffer from several deficits, ranging from governance gaps and lacunae in accountability, to high transaction costs and uncertain status in the international political and legal order. These deficits generate new risks and costs for the international aid architecture. In this Article, I argue that the time has come to re-design the interrelationship between these special-purpose funds and the UN and the World Bank so that these funds can operate in sync with these institutions rather than as bypasses of them.

Agency and Accountability in Multilateral Development Finance: An Agenda for Change

Recent development challenges highlight a pressing need to re-evaluate whether the post-World War II behemoths of multilateral development finance are up to the tasks being demanded of them today. The institutions that dominate the current order, the United Nations (“UN”) and the World Bank, are undergoing a crisis of confidence as the world’s development aid donors engage in an ongoing quest to find alternatives to them. This quest takes the form of setting up numerous funds narrowly tailored to finance specific, narrowly-defined needs. Examples of these funds include the Global Environment Trust Fund (GEF) and the Global Fund to Fight HIV Aids, Malaria and Tuberculosis. The Climate Change Fund, proposed in the December 2009 Copenhagen Accord (and recently renamed the Green Climate Fund), is poised to follow this approach. This ad hoc special purpose fund approach lacks a coherent, unifying vision of how to meet today’s development challenges. The funds that have been created fill a need but suffer from several deficits, ranging from governance gaps and lacunae in accountability, to high transaction costs and uncertain status in the international political and legal order. These deficits generate new risks and costs for the international aid architecture. In this Article, I argue that the time has come to re-design the interrelationship between these special purpose funds and the UN and the World Bank so that these funds can operate in sync with these institutions rather than as bypasses of them.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation: Business Versus Bureaucracy in International Development

New forms of aid, including “philanthrocapitalism” such as The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, are rapidly altering the international aid architecture for health. These organisations have financial power, actively shape agendas and influence policy. The rise of non-traditional donor organisations creates opportunities and has implications for Australia as it scales-up its aid program. AusAID could collaborate, complement, compete with, or copy these organisations. Arguably the biggest strategic implication is that they expand AusAID’s programming choices. This increased flexibility could be used to leverage and accelerate further reforms in the UN and elsewhere. But choice is a two way street. Developing countries may prefer large, grant financing from non-traditional aid organisations and choose to bypass traditional multilateral and bilateral development agencies.

China, Africa and the Global Aid Architecture

This paper analyzes China’s growing foreign aid and export credit program as an element of the changing international aid architecture. The international aid architecture is defined as the institutions, norms, and practices that govern the transfer of concessional resources for development. It comprises four major areas: (1) Institutions and actors; (2) Volumes and composition; (4) Instruments and modalities; and (4) Rules and standards. The section on rules and standards includes five areas: transparency; tied aid and export credits; environmental and social protections; corruption and governance; and the management of debt. China’s approach to aid and export credits is outlined, with a focus on four distinct instruments: concessional loans; preferential export buyer’s credits; mixed credits; and natural resource-backed lines of credit. It is compared with the norms and practices of the current aid architecture. Three areas were selected for greater investigation: tied aid and export credits; debt management; and conditionality relating to environmental, social, and governance standards. A final section notes areas where the Chinese have cooperated with other donors, and areas where African countries might seek to strengthen their capacity to engage fruitfully with this important rising partner.