International Development Organizations Research Articles

Accelerating the sustainable development goals through microbiology: some efforts and opportunities.

Modernization has thrown humanity and other forms of life on our planet into a ditch of problems. Poverty, climate change, injustice and environmental degradation are a few of the shared global problems. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are the blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. The SDGs are well structured to address the global challenges we face including poverty, inequalities, hunger, climate change, environmental degradation, peace and justice. Five years into the implementation, the SDGs have been driven mainly by international donors and ‘professional’ international development organizations. The world is left with 10 years to achieve these ambitious goals and targets. Various reviews show that little has been achieved overall, and the SDGs will not be a reality if a new strategy is not in place to bring inclusion. Microbiology, the scientific discipline of microbes, their effects and practical uses has insightful influence on our day-to-day living. We present how microbiology and microbiologists could increase the scorecard and accelerate these global goals. Microbiology has a direct link to achieving SDGs addressing food security, health and wellbeing, clean energy, environmental degradation and climate change. A non-classical growing relationship exists between microbiology and other SDGs such as peace, justice, gender equality, decent work and economic growth. The pledge of ‘Leave No One Behind’ will fast track progress and microbiology is in a better position to make this work.

Can people on low incomes access affordable housing loans in urban Africa and Asia? Examples of innovative housing finance models from Reall’s global network

While delivering decent, affordable housing at scale is essential to global sustainable development, one formidable blockage is a lack of accessible housing finance for end users. People on low incomes have been perceived by lenders as high risk. They are excluded from financial systems and are forced to self-build using informal credit at exorbitant rates. This article engages with this problem, discussing practical examples and potential ways forward. It does so through case studies of models from Reall (a UK-based international development organization and social enterprise that promotes affordable homes) and its partner organizations in India, the Philippines, Nepal, Mozambique and Pakistan. The article evaluates the strengths and limitations of these models, and their potential for scaling up. Reall’s partners demonstrate that decent houses can be delivered at a cost that is accessible for potential low-income homeowners, while proving the viability of lending to borrowers in the bottom of the income pyramid. This is essential for demonstrating the commercial viability and impactful investment opportunity represented by affordable housing in urban Africa and Asia.

Use of concurrent evaluation to improve implementation of a home fortification programme in Bangladesh: a methodological innovation.

This paper focuses on the use of 'concurrent evaluation' to evaluate a nationally scaled-up programme in Bangladesh that was implemented by BRAC (an international development organisation) using Shasthya Shebika (SS) - volunteer community health workers - to promote home fortification with micronutrient powders (MNP) for children under-five. We developed a programme impact pathway to conceptualise the implementation and evaluation strategy and developed a strategic partnership among the key programme stakeholders for better use of evaluation evidence. We developed a multi-method concurrent evaluation strategy to provide insights into the BRAC programme and created provision for course correction to the implementation plan while it was in operation. One hundred sixty-four sub-districts and six urban slums in Bangladesh. Caregivers of children 6-59 months, SS and BRAC's staff members. The evaluation identified low awareness about home fortification among caregivers, inadequate supply and frequent MNP stockouts, and inadequate skills of BRAC's SS to promote MNP at the community level as hindrances to the achievement of programme goals. The partners regularly discussed evaluation results during and after implementation activities to assess progress in programme coverage and any needs for modification. BRAC initiated a series of corrections to the original implementation plan to address these challenges, which improved the design of the MNP programme; this resulted in enhanced programme outcomes. Concurrent evaluation is an innovative approach to evaluate complex real-world programmes. Here it was utilised in implementing a large-scale nutrition programme to measure implementation process and effectiveness.

Kornai goes to Kenya

Janos Kornai developed soft budget constraint logic to explain the socialist world’s dysfunctional economies. We extend his logic to explain dysfunctional land reform in the developing world. International development organizations such as the World Bank provide support for land privatization to developing-country governments, softening their budget constraints. Softer budget constraints encourage developing-country governments to pursue land privatization even when its social value is negative. Kenya’s land reform program illustrates the soft budget constraint syndrome.

Factors associated with home visits by volunteer community health workers to implement a home-fortification intervention in Bangladesh: a multilevel analysis.

BRAC, an international development organization based in Bangladesh, engages community health workers called Shasthya Shebikas (SS) to implement home fortification of foods with micronutrient powders (MNP). We identified factors associated with home visits by SS, at different levels of the BRAC programme-delivery hierarchy, to implement home-fortification interventions. We conducted a cross-sectional survey, semi-structured interviews, and collected programme-related data from sub-districts included in the caregiver survey of BRAC's home-fortification programme and performed multilevel logistic regression modelling to investigate factors associated with home visits by SS. Sixty-eight sub-districts in Bangladesh. Caregivers of children aged 6-59 months (n 1408) and BRAC's SS (n 201). Households with older children (0·55; 0·42, 0·72; P < 0·001) and located >300 m from the SS's house (0·67; 0·50, 0·89; P = 0·006) were less likely to have been visited by the SS, whereas those with caregivers who had ≥5 years of schooling (1·53; 1·10, 2·12; P = 0·011) were more likely to have been visited by the SS (adjusted OR; 95 % CI). Households in the catchment area of older SS aged >50 years (0·44; 0·21, 0·90; P = 0·025) were less likely to have been visited by the SS, whereas those with SS who received incentives of >800 BDT (3·00; 1·58, 5·58; P = 0·001) were more likely to have been visited by the SS (adjusted OR; 95 % CI). The number of home visits is a function of the characteristics of SS, factors that characterize the households they serve and characteristics of their organizational context, particularly to implement home fortification of foods with MNP.

Catch me if you care: International development organizations and national corruption

Many international development organizations (IDOs) have officially mandated anti-corruption criteria for aid selectivity. Substantial debate remains over whether corruption deters aid and whether anti-corruption rules are effectively implemented. We argue that the extent to which both corruption and anti-corruption mandates factor into IDO allocation depends on the composition of the donors. Using existing data on corruption alongside newly collected data on anti-corruption mandates, we demonstrate that organizations composed of corrupt donors are just as likely to adopt, but less likely to enforce, anti-corruption mandates. Organizations composed of less corrupt donors, by contrast, tend to divert aid away from corrupt states, with or without formal anti-corruption rules in place. The findings have implications for the debate over whether international efforts to institutionalize “good governance” standards are sincere or cheap talk, whether multilateral strategies are in fact less politicized than bilateral aid allocation strategies, and whether international organizations should be inclusive, open to membership by many or even all states, including those with dubious track records.

Project design decisions of egalitarian and non-egalitarian international organizations: Evidence from the Global Environment Facility and the World Bank

Foreign aid flows result from agreements reached between states that need resources and other states or international organizations that can provide those resources. Recent literature has argued that different international development organizations bargain with aid-receiving states in particular ways. Specifically, some authors argue that non-egalitarian international development organizations seek to secure more gains when bargaining with economically weak states. Global Environment Facility projects are negotiated by the international agency that will implement the project, allowing us to examine this claim in the context of a set of similar development projects. Correcting and reanalyzing an existing dataset describing the composition of financing in GEF projects, we find no evidence that the financing terms provided by different GEF implementing agencies varies by the type of organization. Both egalitarian and non-egalitarian agencies provide more external funding to poorer countries. We replicate this result using data from development projects financed by the World Bank, the archetypal non-egalitarian international organization. We discuss how our results are consistent with organizational behavior that originates in the interests of an international bureaucracy oriented toward poverty alleviation.

Inclusive Approach to Education for Children With Disabilities

BRAC, a leading international development organization, has been working to ensure the rights of persons with disabilities to education through its inclusive education program. This article discusses the BRAC approach in Bangladesh and aims to identify its strategies that are effective in facilitating inclusion. It employed a qualitative research approach where data were collected from students with disabilities, their parents, and BRAC's teachers and staffs using qualitative data collection techniques. The results show that the disability-inclusive policy and all other activities are strongly monitored by a separate unit under BRAC Education Program (BEP). It mainly focuses on sensitizing its teachers and staff to the issue through training, discussing the issue in all meetings and ensuring effective use of a working manual developed by the unit. Group-based learning and involving them in income generating activities were also effective. The findings of the study would be useful for policy makers and other national and international organizations that are working on the issue.

Regional development banks: international legal aspects of activity

The international banking system serves as the institutional basis for the functioning of the global financial markets. Being in the process of continuous development is its characteristic feature. Each international banking institution has its own specificity and structure. The purposes of their creation and the main functions are defined by their statutes, rules, and founding acts. Despite the diversity of the subject maps of the international banking system, they share a common goal – developing cooperation and ensuring the integrity and stabilization of the world economy, regulation of international economic relations, and ensuring the transnational movement of funds. Legal analysis of statutory activities of international regional development banks, and forms of their interaction. The first among the international regional development banks is the European Investment Bank (EIB), which was founded in 1958 by EU Member States. According to the Bank’s Statute, the objectives of the Bank are to develop the common market by investing funds in the development of Member States’ economies. A legal analysis of the EIB’s purpose, function and structure demonstrates that a regional financial institution was established in the European Region, which by its very nature is an international development which serves as a development not only in relation to EU Member States but also to other European countries. Changes in the geopolitical and economic situation in Europe in the late 1980s – early 1990s were one of the reasons for the creation of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, a fundamentally new interstate financial structure that had no analogues concerning either its founders or their goals and methods before. The aim was to create a single lending center for both the public and private sectors of the economy: cooperation between different departments of one international organization should be less complicated than cooperation between two international organizations. Having included the word bank in the Preamble to the Agreement, the Contracting Parties stated that they were establishing a multilateral financial institution that would help to achieve these goals, and create a new and unique structure for cooperation in Europe. With a European Development Bank in the European Region, the EIB, Member States have combined the capabilities and finances of an existing development with a new financial institution, which by its legal nature is a development – EBRD. Membership of two international organizations in an international regional development simultaneously is a new thing in the international banking law. In fact, the European Union is a member of the EBRD three times: EU Member States are members of the European Investment Bank and also members of the EBRD.The creation and operation of European development banks is a sample of interaction forms between international regional development banks, and integration processes observed in the international financial system, within which the international law performers solve current problems, in particular in the political and financial spheres.The article is devoted to the legal analysis of the activities of international regional development banks, forms of their interaction. The purpose, goals, functions, structure of regional development banks are investigated. Forms of their interaction are considered

Investing in the New Blue Economy: The Changing Role of International Development Organizations in Catalyzing Private Sector Investment in Support of Regional Strategic Action Programmes for the Sustainable Development of Coasts and Oceans

Investing in the New Blue Economy: The Changing Role of International Development Organizations in Catalyzing Private Sector Investment in Support of Regional Strategic Action Programmes for the Sustainable Development of Coasts and Oceans

Changing Indigeneity Politics in Indonesia: From Revival to Projects

Through the discourse of indigeneity, rural communities around the world are joining a global network of rural justice seekers. By articulating grievances collectively, they demand state recognition while seeking support from NGOs and international development organisations. In Indonesia, the manifestation of indigenous ‘adat’ politics is no longer confined to the national struggle for the recognition of land rights, but instead, has proliferated into many localised short term ‘adat projects’. This introduction to the TAPJA special issue on adat demonstrates that both the rural poor and local elites can be the initiators or recipients of these adat projects but, at the current juncture, the latter are better positioned to benefit from such projects. The special issue shows that in Indonesia, where adat is often firmly entrenched in the state, the promotion of indigeneity claims can work in contradictory ways. Findings from across the special issue show that adat projects tend to reinforce the power of the state, rather than challenging it.

A global spatial analysis reveals where marine aquaculture can benefit nature and people.

Aquaculture of bivalve shellfish and seaweed represents a global opportunity to simultaneously advance coastal ecosystem recovery and provide substantive benefits to humanity. To identify marine ecoregions with the greatest potential for development of shellfish and seaweed aquaculture to meet this opportunity, we conducted a global spatial analysis using key environmental (e.g., nutrient pollution status), socioeconomic (e.g., governance quality), and human health factors (e.g., wastewater treatment prevalence). We identify a substantial opportunity for strategic sector development, with the highest opportunity marine ecoregions for shellfish aquaculture centered on Oceania, North America, and portions of Asia, and the highest opportunity for seaweed aquaculture distributed throughout Europe, Asia, Oceania, and North and South America. This study provides insights into specific areas where governments, international development organizations, and investors should prioritize new efforts to drive changes in public policy, capacity-building, and business planning to realize the ecosystem and societal benefits of shellfish and seaweed aquaculture.

Gender-Related Challenges in Educational Interventions with Syrian Refugee Parents of Trauma-Affected Children in Turkey.

Since 2012, more than three million Syrian refugees have fled to Turkey. While these refugees vary in socioeconomic background, it is notable that 50% of Syrian refugee children in Turkey display symptoms of post-traumatic stress and that more than 663,138 of these children between the ages of six and seventeen are not enrolled in school. For those children who are in school, high levels of trauma have significant implications for the education system as trauma alters the brain and affects the way children learn. A Global Voice for Autism is an international non-governmental relief and development organization that exists to equip teachers and families in conflict-affected communities. Its intent is to support the development and success of children with autism and trauma-related behavioral challenges in their classrooms, home, and communities. The instabilities inherent in the Syrian refugee experience pose a number of challenges to the organization’s effective implementation of programming. The experiences of refugees in Turkey are highly gendered. Therefore, a qualitative gender analysis was conducted to address and better understand the challenges faced when carrying out these educational interventions. The article examines domestic violence, sexual violence, and masculinity as gender-driven constructs that influence how refugees experience trauma. In addition, structural issues in existing support systems all present significant challenges to Syrian refugee parents that impede effective program implementation. It is imperative to assess structural issues in existing support services to address these challenges and to successfully carry out meaningful and impactful programming. This Brief Report provides a series of recommendations in order to ameliorate these challenges and increase the efficacy of educational interventions with Syrian refugee parents of trauma-affected and vulnerable children in Turkey. It concludes with a call for policy changes that protect refugees from deportation when accessing support services and a network of services that do not require residency permits. It calls for increased integration of parent trauma support in educational intervention trainings and the creation of safe spaces where mothers and fathers can discuss their own trauma and challenges in the hope of significantly enhancing program efficacy.

Port clusters and economic development of ports.

The paper argues that cooperation between port authorities has not yet led to consolidation processes, unlike what has happened in other segments of the chain. Some examples of consolidation at the port authority level are given. It is emphasized that consolidation of port authorities will become inevitable as the economy grows, as well as environmental and social pressures. Therefore, an important condition for successful cooperation projects is the autonomy of port authorities. The need for freedom of port authorities to determine the economic justification for cooperation and the ability to influence these processes is justified. influence this process. If this is not justified, the likelihood of success becomes much lower. It is emphasized that, in addition to formal mergers and alliances, there are a number of other ways in which port authorities now cooperate with various stakeholders. Such funds include joint investments in connection with inland territories in environmental programs, initiatives in the «circular economy» that result in port authorities working together with their industrial clusters, in particular to provide new economic targets for waste such as wastewater, which were used to cool industrial installations, since they can be used further for urban heating. In addition to regional cooperation, ports are also interacting with the «trans-ocean» facility. The World Ports Sustainability Program is a partnership between IAPH and several international port development organizations and demonstrating global port leadership that promotes UN sustainable development and port capacity building. Mergers and alliances have been shown to be exceptional, which is related to the institutional context within most port authorities.

The Role of NGOs in Touristic Securitization: The Case of La Antigua Guatemala

This article focuses on the role of nonprofit, nongovernmental, international development organizations (NGOs) in touristic securitization, the practice of securing tourists to sustain tourism. Especially in the Global South, NGOs are incorporating tourism into their operations/funding strategies and, thus, becoming touristic securitization stakeholders and actors. Through focusing on Western NGOs in and around Guatemala’s main tourism destination, La Antigua Guatemala, this article investigates how NGOs rely on, contribute to, and/or engage in touristic securitization. While the article demonstrates that NGOs help make Western tourists feel safe enough to travel to Guatemala, as well as help to keep them from harm while visiting, it also shows how touristic securitization is informed by and informing of intersecting inequalities and (re)producing human insecurities, especially for poor, often indigenous, Guatemalans, the very people NGOs aim to help. The article argues that touristic securitization is securing different worlds of (in)security.

Paradoxes and partnerships: a study of knowledge exploration and exploitation in international development programmes

PurposeThis paper aims to look at how organisational partnerships balance knowledge exploration and exploitation in contexts that are rife with paradoxes. It draws on paradox theory to examine the partnership’s response to the explore-exploit relationship.Design/methodology/approachA multiple interpretive case study was used to examine international partnerships in three African countries. These partnerships were between international (Northern-based) non-governmental organisations and local African non-governmental organisations.FindingsThe research finds that within the partnership, knowledge exploration and exploitation exist as a duality rather than a dualism. This is supported by the acceptance and confrontation of paradoxes of performing and belonging. However, macro-level paradoxes of organising linked to power, culture and epistemologies inhibit further effective confrontation of the explore-exploit paradox.Practical implicationsThe findings can help managers working in international development organisations to understand how learning is enabled and constrained in partnership-based programmes.Originality/valueThe study provides a novel contribution to knowledge management by applying the paradox perspective to the explore-exploit relationship. This paper extends previous work by drawing on the levels and repertoires present in the paradox perspective to understand how knowledge exploration and exploitation can be mutually reinforcing and can exist as a duality.

Sharing Values for Changing Practices, a Lever for Sustainable Transformation? The Case of Farmers and Processors in Interaction within Localized Cheese Sectors

International research and development organizations have acknowledged that localized agrifood systems, particularly geographical indications (GIs), are a lever for evolving towards sustainable agriculture. Such a premise is neither spontaneous nor systematic. Research and development organizations show their limit in proposing approaches to overcome this raised issue: The performance-based approach of sustainability, associated with a strict economical understanding of activities, is at stake. We propose the introduction of a values-based approach to the understanding of localized activities and their contribution to sustainability. We base our demonstration on the study of the relationships between stakeholders within GIs on a day-to-day basis: Corsica and Western Pyrenees (WP) are regions where traditional cheeses (respectively GI Brocciu and GI Ossau-Iraty) are produced with ewe milk. We build a typology of relationships between farmers providing the milk and dairies, based on the theory of worlds of worth (from industrial to artisanal). We cross-reference it with values given to milk and cheese. Despite the framing role of GIs, milk is mainly valued according to industrial criteria of quantity and sound farming practices have no weightage. However, artisanal and civic initiatives have emerged using raw milk and fostering more sustainable practices, notably based on organic farming. Though those initiatives are currently marginal, they might be promising seeds of change.

The legitimacy of Dutch do-it-yourself initiatives in Kwale County, Kenya

Established development organisations face a long-standing legitimacy crisis for not living up to the expectations once set. Meanwhile, thousands of small-scale, voluntary development organisations – referred to as Private Development Initiatives (PDIs) – have joined the field of international development. In this article, I examine the legitimacy of their acts from a local government perspective based on an analysis of four dimensions of legitimacy: regulatory, pragmatic, normative and cognitive legitimacy. The study took place in May 2017 in the Kenyan coastal county of Kwale. A range of government officials were interviewed on how they perceive the interventions of international development organisations in general, and Dutch PDIs in particular, and on their cooperation with these development actors. The study shows that, although many of these PDIs operate in areas that fall under the responsibility of the local government, most of them have a rather limited cooperation with the local government, putting their legitimacy in the eyes of local government officials at stake.

INVESTIGATING THE IMPACT OF RADICAL TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION INTO THE NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

Product developers are increasingly often faced with the decision of whether or not to adopt new technologies into their own new product development (NPD) processes. Adopting a resource-based perspective, we posit that the adoption of radical technologies into the NPD process, such as remote collaborative design, virtual reality, and simulation systems, can help improve NPD performance. At the same time, these adoptions are likely to slow down product launch. Just as consumers struggle to integrate radical technologies during the short-term, we propose that new product developers will face a similar learning curve. Therefore, we investigate potential moderators that could help product developers quickly integrate radical technologies and lessen their negative influence on product launch timeliness. A wide-ranging survey of 249 product managers sponsored by an international product development organisation is used in this study. The results reveal that while the adoption of radical technologies benefits NPD performance, the adoption tends to slow down the product launch process. However, cross-functional leadership within the organisation helps to lessen this negative influence on launch timeliness. The results from this study offer product managers practical guidelines for successfully adopting radical technologies into the NPD process and mitigating risks.

The Heritage of the Cold War in Contemporary Curricula and Educational Reforms

Using a theoretical-critical and historical approach, this paper analyses the implications of the Cold War in national curricula and educational reforms of the second half of the 20th century with emphasis on the 21st century. The context of the time after the Second World War and the beginning of the Cold War is shown, as well as the social and political changes that are significant for education and were prompted by the wars. The emergence of the international Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (whose focus is not educational but economic) and the role of behavioural psychology were also analysed, which explained their significance in later educational reforms. The role of the Cold War in reducing socio-humanistic teaching contents and the implementation of natural sciences and mathematics has also been explained. The synthesis of the analysed aspects suggests that the Cold War military and technological race resulted in the implementation of the STEM area, thus the measurability of learning outcomes, which influenced the psychologisation, standardisation, economisation, and globalisation of education. Most of the current (un)successful national educational and curricular reforms were initiated in that direction without respect for the social, cultural, and historical features of individual countries. These changes have left a mark in pedagogy, in which the humanistic approach appears to counteract other approaches. Some educational systems demonstrate a shift from such trends, from the technical-scientific curriculum towards the didactic tradition of Bildung and the philosophy of education. The reasons can be found in the above-average results on international standardised evaluations of those countries that have national curricula, in contrast to what is recommended by the globalisation and standardisation of education as some of the elements of the Cold War heritage.