International Development Organizations Research Articles

Progress of Standardization of Urban Infrastructure in Smart City

After the Smart City initiative was put forward, cities all over the world started the pilot practice of developing Smart Cities. This triggered a series of thoughts: what is a Smart City, how do we determine the scope of work of a Smart City, and how do we formulate a new strategic agenda of the Smart City to make city smarter and more sustainable? The answer lies not only in finding Smart City solutions, but also leads to the research on the definition of Smart City terminology and the determination of corresponding tasks. Stakeholders of Smart City (e.g., policy makers, municipalities, solution providers, industry, and academia) develop technical and management standards for these tasks jointly. This paper reports the standardization planning on Smart City by the international standardization development organizations (SDOs), that is, the standardization framework of Smart City. It also presents one of the important aspects, namely, the progress of standardization activities on urban infrastructure that are being carried out by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) via its Study Group 20, in supporting the adoption of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in Smart City. These standards include the classification of urban infrastructure, the interoperability between urban infrastructure and smart city platforms, and the requirements of detailed infrastructure from the perspective of ICT and the Internet of things (IoT). This paper also provides the use cases of application of some standards in global cities.

Financial inclusion washing

PurposeFinancial inclusion washing has not been considered to be a crime although it should be. This paper aims to present a discussion about financial inclusion washing. It was argued that financial inclusion washing is the deliberate or unintentional use of exaggerated claims or misleading claims to describe an entity’s commitment to increase the level of financial inclusion.Design/methodology/approachThis paper used the conceptual discourse analysis methodology.FindingsThis paper showed that many entities are at risk of practicing financial inclusion washing such as international development organizations, aid organizations, government agencies, central banks, financial institutions, financial inclusion support groups and associations, among others. This paper also highlighted the manifestations, motivations and consequences of financial inclusion washing. This paper also identified ways through which entities can avoid financial inclusion washing.Originality/valueThe literature has not examined how exaggerated claims about financial inclusion efforts mislead people.

Can Capitalism Solve Its Own Rural Problems? Japanese Lessons for the World Bank's Vision of Rural‐Led Development

AbstractRecent research and policy advice by international development organizations have, by their own account, sought to reverse a prior neglect of conditions in agriculture and rural areas. In pursuit of this, they have developed a vision of dynamic but incremental development in rural areas, anchored in a smallholder‐based and economically diversified market economy. This vision, articulated in the World Bank's 2008 World Development Report and continuing to animate research and policy advice today, presents itself as a solution to persistent poverty in the world's least developed countries. This paper adopts a historical sociological lens to use the case of Japan, in the period from the latter half of the nineteenth century to the opening decades of the twentieth, to assess how realistic this vision is. This analysis shows that the lessons of Japan's experience are chastening for this vision of rural development. The mechanisms of growth in Japan were remarkably similar to those advertised by the World Bank's vision. However, its rural economic dynamism was based on deep socioeconomic inequalities and brought improved material conditions and greater economic security to agricultural households only with excruciating slowness, if at all. Rather than demonstrating the potential of incremental, market‐oriented rural development to offer a path towards widespread poverty reduction, Japan instead serves as a warning of this development model's limitations.

Factors leading to child labor exploitation and the involvement of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Addis Abeba, Ethiopia

This study examined factors leading to child labor exploitation and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) involvement in Addis Abeba, Ethiopia. It involved two NGOs in Addis Ababa: Sheger Child and Family Development Society (SCFDS) and Future Hopes International Development Organization (FHIDO). A cross-sectional descriptive research design was used. The findings of this study revealed that sex, age, household size, child relationship with the family, family employment status, marital status, and educational level of the household were significant predictors of child labor abuse in the research areas. The results also showed that both FHIDO and SCFDS provided various services to end child labor abuses in the study areas. Also, the chosen non-governmental organizations provide school materials and supplies and educational and vocational training on child labor exploitation and how to handle it for the children and their parents/guardians. Despite political reasons, the NGOs’ training for households and children was not effective in altering the problem of child labor abuse. Therefore, the researcher recommends that there should be collaborative and strong vocational and educational training that raises awareness in society as a whole of the potential impact of premature child work and that these NGOs should improve their ways of providing their wakefulness creation training for the community.

Career Orientations of Expatriates and Host Country Nationals in IDOs Prior and During Covid-19

International Development Organisations (IDOs) have a humanitarian nature and it is likely that their employees, both expatriates and host country nationals (HCNs), have career orientations that may differ from those in profit-driven organisations. This paper is theoretically based on calling literature to advance our understanding on career orientations of expatriates and host country nationals (HCNs), as this may influence their career trajectories. We explore this in the context of IDOs in Nigeria. Our research has a semi-longitudinal design, using qualitative data to explore changes that may have occurred in IDO workers’ career orientations given the contextual challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic. Our study shows that calling-related career orientations have lost their relevance among both groups of employees amid the Covid-19 pandemic, with implications for their career trajectories. These results also have relevant implications for the management of international careers and assignments in the context of IDOs.

Effectiveness of aid projects in climate technology familiarization in recipient countries

ABSTRACT Due to inequalities of innovation capacity among nations, climate technologies’ minimizing greenhouse gas emissions require deliberate interventions for adoption and diffusion in developing countries. Aid projects of international development organizations have long served the function of system builders for climate technologies through demonstration projects or barrier removal activities. Emerging transition literature has come up with theories of how project-level niche experiments gradually affect landscape settings through bottom-up evolution. The activities of the aid projects on climate technologies match the posited roles of niche experiments nurturing with the co-evolution of technology, user practices and regulatory structures. This paper provides insight into how climate technologies, previously supported by aid projects, played a role in familiarizing these technologies in recipient countries. Familiarization in this paper is defined as the non-prioritization of climate technology in a country’s Technology Needs Assessment (TNA) document. It was found that increasing project duration lowers the chance of technology’s inclusion in TNA, while higher project cost increased the odds of inclusion. Given the time-consuming nature of capacity building over multiple fronts, the effectiveness of future projects depends on donors’ ability to commit aid over multiyear periods to sustain scale-up.

Wider economic benefits of transport corridors: Evidence from international development organizations

This paper collects data on transport corridor projects financed by the Asian Development Bank, Japan International Cooperation Agency, and World Bank and links them to a wider economic benefit—local economic activity. The paper uses the difference-in-differences methodology to link the variation in country and local initial conditions, and project characteristics to local economic activity. Construction of a new (greenfield) corridor is associated with higher growth in economic activity around the corridor than the rehabilitation or expansion of an existing corridor. Private sector involvement in the operation and management of infrastructure is associated with lower growth in economic activity along the corridors. In the short to medium term, corridor investments with a larger geographic scope are associated with increased growth in economic activity along them, while in the long term, there is no significant difference relative to smaller-scope corridor investments. The initial conditions do not seem to influence how corridor investments affect the growth in economic activity.

Gender, Climate Change Adaptation, and Cultural Sustainability: Insights From Bangladesh

The focus of this paper is mainly to investigate climate change adaptation practices and the applicability of a cultural sustainability approach in understanding gender dimension of the residents of the southwest coast of Bangladesh. It is one of the most vulnerable regions in South Asia due to the significant impacts of climate change. The long-term effects of climate change in this region are the increasing salinity in farmlands, heatwaves, and sea-level rise. The southwest coast of Bangladesh is a classic example of “good practice” as well as the center for learning, implementing, and communicating climate change adaptation actions in practice. The reason for this the collective action carried out to initiate and improve adaptation activities by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change of the Government of Bangladesh, as well as several national and international development and non-government organizations (NGOs). Using a systematic review of literature, and field-based case studies, we examined how gender and cultural issues (such as the adaptive capacity of men and women, and the transformation of gendered power relations) have been addressed to successfully implement climate change adaptation initiatives in the context of the nominated study area. Our study results revealed that both male and female participants were strategic and capable of dealing with climate change impacts, although the adaptive capacity of the former group was comparatively sturdier than the later. The extent of cultural sustainability was found to be weaker in the study region compared to many other coastal communities in the country. The efforts made by NGOs in collaboration with the governmental bodies of Bangladesh were found contributory in providing knowledge of climate change along with the techniques to adapt to its consequences for the people of the study region. Similarly, the activities of NGOs were found influential in helping the government to support people in adapting to climate change in terms of the gendered and cultural sustainability perspectives. Our findings contribute to the field of climate change impacts in understanding the complexities of rural development.

Nuanced assessment of livelihood resilience through the intersectional lens of gender and ethnicity: Evidence from small-scale farming communities in the upland regions of Vietnam

International humanitarian and development organizations are increasingly placing emphasis on resilience-building; however, there is not always full consideration of differences in perspectives and outcomes by ethnicity and gender. Based on empirical evidence from ethnic minorities in the Northwest Mountainous Regions (NMRs) of Vietnam, the current work illustrates how perceptions of livelihood resilience in the context of climate change differ between gender and ethnic groups, especially considering the intersections of those factors. To achieve a nuanced analysis, we examined if and how demographic factors differentially associate with the perception of household livelihood resilience. The household livelihood capital scores from 240 household interviews were derived using the Household Livelihood Resilience Approach (HLRA). HLRA measures the subjective resilience at household level using surveys as opposed to the conventional objective approaches using only observable socioeconomic variables and data. We found that ethnicity has a relatively more substantial role than gender in determining the household livelihood capitals supporting livelihood resilience in the study region, but within that, there are also gender differences. Among different ethnic groups, having a wage-paying job, education, agricultural training, social membership, access to road and irrigation systems, and crop diversity are the main factors contributing to better household livelihood capital scores. Women reported generally lower resilience scores than men did but the average scores varied significantly across four ethnic groups. Based on the evidence from the lens of demographic characteristics, we concluded that resilience-building programs should not only draw on objective resilience measurements but also consider varied self-assessments to reflect the fact that communities are heterogeneous. This could help to ensure greater inclusivity to alleviate poverty and increase livelihood resilience in a developing multi-ethnic country like Vietnam.

Impacts of classroom teaching practices on students’ mathematics learning interest, mathematics self-efficacy and mathematics test achievements: a secondary analysis of Shanghai data from the international video study Global Teaching InSights

Teaching effectiveness is a core issue in educational research; however, there is little consensus about the most important results of classroom teaching from an international perspective. The effectiveness of teaching has remained a ‘black box’ for a long time. In the secondary study described in this paper we used empirical data for Shanghai taken from the international Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) study Global Teaching InSights (GTI)—initially the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) Video Study—which was based on videotaped direct observations of classroom teaching. Eighty-five junior high school mathematics teachers and their students in Shanghai were observed to explore the impact of specific teaching practices on students’ interest, self-efficacy, and mathematics achievement scores. The results revealed that social-emotional support and instruction quality were the key dimensions relating to the characteristics and differences of mathematics lessons in Shanghai. While the former had a significantly positive impact on students’ general mathematics self-efficacy, the latter had a significantly positive impact on students’ mathematics interest. Although specific teaching practices had no significant direct impact on students’ mathematics achievement scores, social-emotional support and instruction quality considerably influenced students’ academic performance in an indirect way via general self-efficacy.

An evaluation framework and empirical evidence on the effect of pay-for-results programs on the development of markets for welfare-enhancing agricultural technologies

BackgroundDonors and international development organizations increasingly recognize that private sector investment and creativity are needed to enhance global food security. Pay-for-results schemes are receiving greater attention as a means to catalyze private sector investment in sustainable, inclusive markets for goods and technologies that achieve food security and agriculture development goals. In pay-for-results schemes, the development organization promises prizes to private sector actors for achieving pre-specified goals.MethodWe describe an evaluation framework to help development organizations learn from both successful and failed pay-for-results projects to achieve agriculture and food security outcomes. Applying the evaluation framework, we describe the findings from four pay-for-results projects sponsored by AgResults, a multilateral initiative funded by development organizations from four countries (Australia, Canada, the UK, and the US) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.ResultsThe lessons highlighted from these examples illustrate the importance of structuring the prize to encourage the creation of competitive agricultural markets; aligning the prize structure with the development goal of improving smallholder farmers’ food security; and constructing a theory of change that reflects a thorough understanding of the baseline market, enabling environment, and underlying assumptions about competitors’ response to the prize.ConclusionsOur work has several policy implications:Under certain conditions, pay-for-results mechanisms can help develop competitive, smallholder-inclusive agricultural markets and reduce food insecurity.Prize competitions offering multiyear, proportional prizes are more conducive than grand prizes to fostering the development of competitive agricultural markets.The enabling environment plays a significant role in pay-for-results mechanisms’ success or failure.Private sector-led actions alone may not be sufficient to adequately address the targeted development challenge.

Theorizing the persistence of local–foreign inequality in international development organizations through the analytic of coloniality

AbstractThis paper theorizes the persistence of inequality between “local” and “foreign” staff in international development organizations. This is a perplexing phenomenon given these organizations' aims of equality and improving lives. The paper draws on qualitative empirical material generated over a three‐month period at an American‐founded development organization in Nairobi, Kenya, including 33 interviews, observation, and organizational documents. Working with the analytic of coloniality, the analysis illustrates how unequal relations persist through the naturalization of racial difference that valorizes Western epistemic perspectives and legitimizes foreign–local difference. The onto‐epistemic grounding of this difference is obscured by organizational discourses of equality, meritocracy, and unity, which enable their persistence. In this paper, I explicate “foreign”–“local” inequality as an effect of the coloniality of development management. By demonstrating how colonial relations of domination enable contemporary inequality, this paper advances an understanding of colonial continuities in development organizations, and contributes to efforts to foreground issues of race in both organizations and international development.

Exploring the inclusion of beneficiary voices in international development fundraising campaign creation

AbstractCharitable fundraising appeals for international development created for potential donors in the Global North are often, if not always, designed without the inclusion of voices and insights from the intended beneficiaries in the Global South. The implications of these appeals, void of beneficiary input, may serve to proliferate poverty porn and racial stereotypes, promote paternalistic and colonial thinking, and strengthen white savior syndrome. This exploratory paper, through a set of interviews and a focus group with fundraising professionals at international development organizations, examines the need for a beneficiary‐centered Code of Ethics. A framework, based on the four major findings, is proposed that begins with beneficiary input and considerations offer charities an inclusive method for the design of future fundraising appeals and a way to fulfill their responsibility in how the beneficiary is depicted and the societal understanding of their situation.

The COVID-19 Pandemic: Female Workers’ Social Sustainability in Global Supply Chains

This review article investigates the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on female workers in the global supply chain context. To this end, we reviewed and critically examined emerging scholarly literature as well as policy documents and reports published by international development organizations concerning female workers’ social sustainability, livelihood, and health and wellbeing issues in global supply chain operations. Thus, this article focuses on female workers’ issues in emerging and developing economies where the ongoing pandemic continues to devastate and create multidimensional social and economic challenges for the wellbeing and social sustainability of female workers. Our analysis suggests that female workers are facing serious socioeconomic challenges that continue to affect their wellbeing, mental health, and livelihoods. Accordingly, it is imperative that international development organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), trade associations, governments, and most importantly the corporate sector not only consider individual responsibility for promoting female workforce social sustainability in global supply chains but also actively collaborate to address pressing social sustainability issues vis à vis female workers. Building on these findings, the implications for future research, practice, and policies are discussed.

Tracing the lineage of international inclusive education practices in Kenya

ABSTRACT The purpose of this article is to trace the academic lineage of models of inclusive education in Kenya, as some large international development organisations look to the region as a guide for disability inclusive education programs and projects. With the current focus on developing sustainable inclusive education systems in low-resourced countries in the global South, it is critical to situate this work within the constellation of inclusive education research that came from scholars, from both the global North and South, collaborating in Kenya. In this article, we highlight Kenya as a leader in inclusive education in low-resourced contexts, and we cite recent policies, laws, and research that make this disability inclusive development work innovative and progressive. Specifically, we describe foundational inclusive education teacher training modules and provide appendices with steps for how we applied this work to schools in rural western Kenya.

Land formalization turned land rush: The case of oil palm in Papua New Guinea

Land formalization for large-scale agricultural development has received renewed interest in academic and policy circles as a mechanism to spur economic development and growth. International development organizations increasingly promote large investments by private investors in the agriculture sector to enable access to capital and technology, and generate employment and productivity. This article uses a case study in Papua New Guinea (PNG), where the government seeks to attract large-scale transnational investments for oil palm production by formalizing large swathes of customary land. Employing a political economy approach to land rights, the case demonstrates how PNG’s recent land formalization policy has been captured by powerful ‘big shots’ and companies, within an environment of weak and changing governance. The article highlights the importance of analyzing contextual factors such as the local political economy to understand the process and outcomes of land formalization attempts. To understand the distributional outcomes of land formalization, this article finds that it is less useful for governments and development agencies to ask if land formalization works, but rather for whom and under what conditions.

Disability-inclusive development: a postcolonial analysis in Lao PDR

In the last few years, the international development community has been promoting Disability-Inclusive Development (DID). However, there is no consistent definition of this approach, and it is applied differently by international development and humanitarian organizations. In this article I explore the possibility that Disability-Inclusive Development is creating new forms of colonial power through the work of international organizations in the Global South, and how organizations of persons with disabilities are interpreting this approach. I focus on the case of Lao People’s Democratic Republic to understand how and when Disability-Inclusive Development is embraced or rejected.

What Is the Evidence Base Linking Gender with Access to Forests and Use of Forest Resources for Food Security in Low- and Middle-Income Countries? A Systematic Evidence Map

In nearly all parts of the world, an important part of people’s livelihood is derived from natural resources. Gender is considered one of the most important determinants of access and control over forests. It is thought that women and men within households and communities have different opportunities and different roles and responsibilities in relation to forest use. It is probable that when women have equal access to forests, better food security outcomes can be achieved for individuals and households that are dependent on forests for their livelihoods. A systematic evidence map of the evidence base linking gender with access to forests and use of forest resources for food security was undertaken. Ten bibliographic databases and 22 websites of international development and conservation organisations were searched using keywords suggested by stakeholders. Other articles were found by emailing authors and organisations to send potentially relevant publications. 19,500 articles were retrieved from bibliographic databases and 1281 from other sources. After iterative screening, 77 studies were included: 41 focussed on Africa, 22 on Asia, 12 on Latin America, 2 were global. Most indicators of food security measure access to food, measured by total consumption, expenditure, or income. Studies showed strong gender specialisation: commercial access and utilisation of forests and forest products dominated by men, whereas access for subsistence and household consumption is almost exclusively the task of women. Despite the large number of studies reviewed, limitations of the evidence base, including methodological heterogeneity, a dominance of case studies as the study design, and unequal geographical representation in study locations, make it difficult to generalise about the overall importance of gender and its effect on access to and use of forests for food security in developing countries. The critical gaps in the evidence base include geographical representation in primary research and a greater breadth of study designs to assess gender implications of access to forest resources globally.

Scaling Innovation Hubs: Impact on Knowledge, Innovation and Entrepreneurial Ecosystems in Tanzania

This study has explored the impact of innovation hubs on knowledge, innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems. To gain deeper insights, the study adopted an exploratory case study design along a qualitative approach to conduct an empirical investigation. The study reveals a noticeable contribution of the X-Innovation Hub in empowering youths in aspects of knowledge co-creation and transfer, and promotion of diverse innovations. The findings of the study also disclose that the contribution of the innovation hub in transforming innovations into entrepreneurial opportunities is still unsatisfactory. Furthermore, the findings suggest that not all start-ups emanating from the hub are taking off. This is due to various undermining factors such as financial constraints and unfriendly legal frameworks. For X-Innovation Hub to satisfactorily and sustainably contribute to national innovation systems, deliberate efforts must be made, and strategies put in place by different stakeholders such as the government. Particularly, diversification of funding sources to minimise dependence on international development funding agencies and organisations is important.

Anti-Racism and Anti-Colonialism Praxis in Global Health-Reflection and Action for Practitioners in US Academic Medical Centers.

ABSTRACT.The movement to decolonize global health and address power inequities among its actors is not new. Founded on the work of colonized and marginalized people themselves, initiatives at universities, schools of public health, and international development organizations have emerged to call for anti-racism and anti-colonialism within the field. US Academic Medical Centers (AMCs) have been less vocal in this wider discussion, despite their large engagement in the field through clinical, research, and medical education activities. As global health practitioners currently based at an AMC, we believe that it is important to critically evaluate our practices. We therefore propose three starting questions for our colleagues and students to consider and act upon as they adopt and navigate a praxis in anti-racism and anti-colonialism as foundational principles in global health. These questions call on us to closely examine the legacies of racism and colonialism in global health, the value placed on different ways of knowing in this field, and our motivations for engaging in this work. They are presented as a tool to reexamine global health, challenging the constructed binary of the “global South” and “global North,” and the perceived ideas of poverty and resource scarcity as the natural immutable reality of the global South.