Multilateral Development Agencies Research Articles

Colonial Roots of Modern Development Discourse

The paper is structured around a thesis that the historical and colonial roots of modern development shape contemporary development themes and discourses, and that these in turn influence the metrics and indicators used to measure development. The article looks into how colonial relations shape contemporary development themes; the historical evolution of the key themes and measurements of development; finally, how various important “developers,” particularly multilateral and bilateral development agencies, use their epistemic privilege to influence the metrics or indicators that we use to measure development, with particular emphasis on the measures of poverty and inequality. The paper uses a historically grounded narrative structure in demonstrating how colonial legacies have continued to influence development discourse and the related metrics and indicators used in development theory and practice. Finally, the author identifies future avenues of research, particularly how metrics or measures might correspondingly shape emerging development themes and discourses.

Shifts to Global Development: Is this a reframing of power, agency, and progress?

AbstractThis special section on global development has been developed from a conference roundtable event run by the Development Geographies Research Group of the Royal Geographical Society. In this special section, we (some of the committee) introduce the four papers and their critical contributions to emerging debates. These extend early work on how the “global” is being made, focusing on the projects of multilateral development agencies and state institutions to examine how (and whether) the rebranding of “international development” as “global development” constitutes a shift in thinking and practice. Together, the papers draw our attention to the considerable opportunities and implications that this reframing offers, while highlighting that critical attention is required as to how that framing is deployed and by whom. They reveal disparity between global development as a much‐needed reframing of power, agency, and progress and global development as produced by mainstream development actors and interventions, necessitating more critical research into how this normative agenda is adopted and enacted in dominant policy and practice.

Towards Building a Functional Whole-of-Government M&E System for Zambia: The Supply Side

Monitoring and Evaluation Systems have been identified the world over as powerful tools for good governance, they provide relevant information about development projects, programmes and policies. For that reason, governments, bilateral and multilateral development agencies, including civil society organisations have adopted M&E systems to better their performance through accountability, feedback loops and continuous learning mechanisms. This study investigated the functional status of Zambia’s public sector M&E system. Using a designated diagnostic checklist and analytical framework, the country’s whole-of-government M&E system was found to be weak in several aspects. Specifically, the study argues that for any M&E system to function satisfactorily, it is required that both its ‘supply-side’ and ‘demand-side’ are well developed and sustained. The diagnostic findings have revealed that Zambia’s whole-of-government M&E system had both its supply-side and demand-side weak. However, the study has not focused on both sides, instead, the supply-side has been fully explored and clear suggestions for improvement are made herein. Consequently, the study has proposed a new model which when implemented would holistically strengthen the Government –wide system for M&E. It remains to the powers that be to adopt and implement the recommended model. Government will need to strengthen and sustain its M&E political championship, restructure all government functions towards a results-based management approach—statistics, information technology, skills, policies, laws, etc to support an M&E regime. Likewise, the issues covered in the proposed model could also be of use to other organisations seeking to strengthen their M&E systems. Particularly, the methodology used to undertake the needs analysis could be of utmost applicability by others before embarking on a fuller process of building and strengthening their systems for M&E. Another study was underway to support the demand-side of Zambia’s M&E system.

Electronic Banking Business in Sub-Saharan Africa: Socio-Economic Impact and the Activities of Fintech Ecosystems

This research centers on assessing the socio-economic impact of electronic banking business in Sub-Saharan Africa, while critically observing the role that emerging FinTech ecosystems play in deepening economic inclusion and access in developing countries. Extensive related literature were consulted which were integrated into this new body of knowledge, which has been one of the recommended areas for future research. Research hypothesis were derived to validate relevant findings. This study aim to provide transparency on whether the development of digital payments business and FinTech ecosystems are having a synergistic positive impact or otherwise, on the economic well-being of developing countries. It will also support potential foreign investors and multilateral development agencies on relevant socio-economic factors to note, while expanding into or supporting development in developing countries. The implication of this is for policyholders, multilateral development organizations, investors, donor agencies and governments to be conscious of the real impact and take perceptual measures where and when the need arises.

Electronic banking business in Sub-Saharan Africa: Socio-economic impact and the activities of FinTech ecosystems

This research centers on assessing the socio-economic impact of electronic banking business in Sub-Saharan Africa, while critically observing the role that emerging FinTech ecosystems play in deepening economic inclusion and access in developing countries. Extensive related literature were consulted which were integrated into this new body of knowledge, which has been one of the recommended areas for future research. Research hypothesis were derived to validate relevant findings. This study aim to provide transparency on whether the development of digital payments business and FinTech ecosystems are having a synergistic positive impact or otherwise, on the economic well-being of developing countries. It will also support potential foreign investors and multilateral development agencies on relevant socio-economic factors to note, while expanding into or supporting development in developing countries. The implication of this is for policyholders, multilateral development organizations, investors, donor agencies and governments to be conscious of the real impact and take perceptual measures where and when the need arises.

Aid Management, Trust, and Development Policy Influence: New Evidence from a Survey of Public Sector Officials in Low-Income and Middle-Income Countries

Bilateral and multilateral development agencies spend a great deal of time, money, and effort trying to shape the reform priorities and processes of their counterpart countries. However, the means by which development agencies can achieve these ends are poorly understood. This article draws upon the first-hand experiences and observations of more than 1000 public sector officials from 70 low- and middle-income countries to better understand which external sources of reform advice and assistance are most and least useful to public sector decision-makers—and why. We find that donors more effectively shape reform priorities when they choose to deliver their funding through the public financial management systems of counterpart countries, rather than using channels of aid delivery—in particular, technical assistance programs—that bypass host governments and signal a lack of trust in the motivations and capabilities of the local authorities. This finding holds true even after controlling for institutional quality, or the trustworthiness of public sector institutions, in aid-receiving countries. As such, our results call attention to the fact that development agencies can amplify their policy influence by entrusting their counterpart governments with aid management responsibilities.

Recentring the margins: Theorizing African capitalism after 50 years

This introduction to our special issue addresses scholars’ failure, in recent times, to consider and analyse the forms of capitalism that have developed on the African continent. To redress the balance, it takes up the study of economic arrangements on the continent – property, infrastructure, debt, financialization, regulation – as well as exploring the history and politics of the scholarly field of African economics as an intellectual and institutional project. In the process it considers the advantages (and drawbacks) of seeing Africa as part of the ‘Global South’. Central to the special issue is the question of how to marry an analysis of intimate and smaller-scale economies centred on household, family and (often informal) labour regimes, on the one hand, with a recognition of large-scale processes such as the central banking systems imposed by states, the increasing prevalence of high-tech finance, the emergence of continent-wide regulation, and the influence of multilateral development agencies and the international publishing industry, on the other. How, we ask, can the importance of these institutions, so unlike in size and scale, be reckoned without assuming that the bigger and more powerful ones always prevail?

International Development Cooperation in the Fields of Water and Sanitation: A Comparative Study of the United States and the Spanish Approaches in Latin America and the Caribbean

In the last decade, the access to drinking water and sanitation have been acknowledged as human rights by the international community; they have also been recognized as a crucial goal for achieving sustainable development for all, in the framework of the 2030 Agenda. The need for international cooperation in those fields has gained new attention, and several multilateral actors and development agencies (including USAID and AECID) have consolidated or amplified their support to the WASH sector in developing countries. A comparative analysis of the different ways in which the United States and the Spanish cooperation conceive, design and implement their development programmes in Latin America and the Caribbean can contribute to a better understanding on the strategies to effectively protect and promote those human rights and to achieve SDG 6.

A journey through ‘infraspace’: The financial architecture of infrastructure

This paper challenges dominant governance paradigms by exploring the world of infrastructure investment, referred to by the industry as the ‘infraspace’. Starting with financial institutions and multilateral development agencies that steer global infrastructure money, it will trace the financial, technical, bureaucratic and aspirational journey of infrastructure and infrastructure planning. Examining the sociofinancial architecture of infrastructure and development pulls into focus the relationship between states, state-owned enterprises and multilateral financial institutions. Rather than focus primarily on the social and cultural consequences of infrastructural change, however, or how the political promise and aspiration of infrastructure measures up to its everyday use, the point of departure for this paper is the social, economic and political relations that produce infrastructure. Such an examination requires a journey beyond the state and through infraspace.

Bypassing Government: Aid Effectiveness and Malawi’s Local Development Fund

Many practical and action-oriented international roadmaps to improve the quality of aid and its delivery and impact on development—including the Paris Declaration, Accra Agenda for Action, and Busan Partnership—emphasize a more active involvement of domestic institutions and procedures. Despite widespread agreement among both donor and recipient countries on this issue, we find that aid often tends to bypass national institutional structures. This practice is sometimes justified on grounds of high levels of political and administrative corruption and weak implementation capacity in recipient country bureaucracies. We examine how and to what extent multilateral and bilateral development agencies bypass national and local government institutions while channeling aid and the impact of such practices on aid effectiveness in Africa. Based on an empirical study of project aid and budget support provided to Malawi by the World Bank, the African Development Bank, and the German Economic Group, we argue that earmarked funding, specialized procurement arrangements, and the proliferation of Project Management Units are among the mechanisms used to circumvent the involvement of national institutions. We conclude that while such practices may achieve short-term gains by displaying successful and visible ‘donorship’, the long-term impact is more uncertain. The bypassing of local institutions results in fragmentation of aid, lack of coordination among aid industry actors, and a general weakening of policy space and domestic capacity to formulate and implement development policy.

The 1968 Tehran master plan and the politics of planning development in Iran (1945–1979)

ABSTRACTThis paper traces the relationship between state development policies and planning Tehran’s urban development from 1945 until the 1979 Islamic Revolution. It shows how the geopolitical context of the Cold War, and the political agendas of multilateral and bilateral development agencies (i.e. the World Bank and the Ford Foundation), together with the specific circumstances of the national modernization of Iran, were decisive in shaping the Iranian planning administration and the emergence of a comprehensive master planning approach. Moreover, this study demonstrates the critical role of the Iranian technocratic elite and professional middle class in establishing planning institutions and advocating for a vision of progress and development. The focus here is on the formation of the ‘Plan Organization’ as the first modern planning institution in Iran, and the ways in which this institution played a key role in shaping Iranian expert culture and urban planning practices. By examining the links between national development policies and urban planning, this paper presents how comprehensive master planning emerged as the preferred model for the planning and development of Iranian cities. The focus here is on the design and implementation of Tehran’s 1968 Comprehensive Master Plan.

Development and Human Rights: Rhetoric and Reality in India by Joel Oestreich

Reviewed by: Development and Human Rights: Rhetoric and Reality in India by Joel Oestreich Dan Chong (bio) Joel Oestreich, Development and Human Rights: Rhetoric and Reality in India (Oxford University Press, 2017) ISBN 9780190637347, 224pages. Nongovernmental and multilateral development agencies have increasingly adopted a rights-based approach (RBA) to development over the past two decades. Has the RBA resulted in concrete changes in these agencies’ strategies and tactics in the field? How do these organizations, which have traditionally been perceived as doing “technical” and politically neutral work, navigate the politics of human rights that are inherent in the RBA? In his thoroughly researched, theoretically grounded, and concisely written book, Joel Oestreich analyzes the work of United Nations specialized agencies in India to provide insight into these questions.1 Oestreich examines how several UN development agencies—including the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), UN Women, and the World Bank—have interpreted and implemented the RBA in their work in India. He finds that there is wide variation both within and among [End Page 233] agencies in their commitment to the RBA and their translation of the RBA into practice. Despite this inconsistency, staff members at UN specialized agencies do increasingly view their mission through the lens of promoting human rights. Furthermore, this commitment to the RBA is not “mere rhetoric,” in the author’s words; it has led UN agencies to make real changes in their work in India. It would be meaningless for UN agencies simply to recast their development programming as the fulfillment of economic and social rights, because the provision of goods and services is what these agencies have always done. However, organizations like the UNDP and UNICEF are beginning to address politically sensitive issues—namely, the enforcement of civil and political rights— that require some confrontation with the Indian government. This is important for Oestreich because, as these agencies encounter resistance from national and local authorities, it demonstrates that their commitment to the RBA is real. Oestreich focuses on five specific civil and political rights that UN agencies have promoted in India: the decentralization of political power; nondiscrimination in the provision of public services; access to justice for marginalized populations; the right to information; and women’s rights.2 As they have begun to actively promote these rights, UN staff members have been forced to adopt new strategies for dealing with the political resistance that they encounter.3 For example, UN staff often “camouflage” their rights-based activities by reframing them in technical, non-controversial terms such as “building local capacity.” They use data on human rights violations from the Indian government or impartial third parties in order to bolster credibility and then promote public education through mass media. They use the good offices of the United Nations to bring conflicting parties together to resolve conflicts, and they tend to advocate for “soft” approaches to accountability, such as grassroots education and local empowerment, rather than “hard” mechanisms of legal enforcement that would invite confrontation.4 The promotion of civil and political rights by UN specialized agencies in India leads to several key conclusions in the book, which have important implications for development and human rights practice, as well as our understanding of the role of the UN in international politics. First, the RBA is an inherently political process, insofar as it challenges structures of power and involves conflicting interests and values. This is important to recognize, because both international development and human rights have frequently been cast by theorists and practitioners as technical, politically neutral activities. Development has been perceived as a nonpolitical process whereby economists and technical experts efficiently maximize growth for the benefit of everyone. The protection of human rights has been perceived as being led by independent jurists advancing nonpolitical legal standards that can be enforced equally on everyone. Neither of these perceptions is entirely accurate. Development and human rights often involve utility trade-offs, political struggles between unequal groups, and inherent conflicts over values. The RBA recognizes that both development and human rights operate in the political realm and requires the empowerment of [End Page 234] marginalized populations to advocate for their own...

Does This Road Go on Forever? Modelling Sustainability of Infrastructure in Developing Countries

There are not enough roads in developing countries but it is not for a lack of spending to address this shortfall. Multilateral and bilateral development agencies have invested billions of dollars to build up new transportation networks because the shortage of road supply constrains trade and economic growth. However, these new roads often do not last as long as initially anticipated so many of the same donors worry that governments will not provide sufficient maintenance of these investments. In turn, economists suggest that weak maintenance performance may be due to low institutional capacity in the recipient country or even a lack of budgetary funds—both easy fixes that warrant an optimal benefit stream according to their economic rate of return in HDM4 models (“ERR”). However, these maintenance reforms have had mixed results which we argue is the result of a deeply entrenched institutional concern that requires intricate analysis and project-tailored reform approaches to remedy. Even then, these reforms may not exhibit incremental benefits for an ERR. In sum, ERR models of roads should include a rigorous political economy analysis as a due diligence prerequisite in order to substantiate any included assumptions of maintenance reforms resulting from a donor project.

Collaborating to develop joint water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and neglected tropical disease (NTD) sector monitoring: an expert consultation.

Joint monitoring between the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and neglected tropical disease (NTD) sectors presents an opportunity for enhanced collaboration and progress towards shared objectives. Taking forward outputs from global WASH and NTD Roundtables, we engaged experts in a consultative process of identifying measurable priority indicators for joint monitoring. We used a Delphi method for conducting expert consultation and developing consensus. Experts were invited to participate through purposive and snowball sampling, and open solicitation at key sector meetings. Participating WASH and NTDs experts represented a diversity of interest groups, including NTD and WASH field staff and government stakeholders from endemic countries, bilateral and multilateral development agencies, non-governmental organizations, and academic institutions. Four rounds of consultation were conducted via online surveys. Between 55 and 69 experts participated in each round of consultation. Seven core measurable indicators emerged as priorities for inclusion in joint monitoring for the NTD sector. Our findings provide insight on the development and implementation of joint monitoring frameworks that can be integrated into existing programme level monitoring.

Energy related Strategic Environmental Assessment applied by Multilateral Development Agencies — An analysis based on good practice criteria

Multilateral Development Agencies (MDAs) have been emerging as responsible for the widespread of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) application in low and middle income countries. However, the effectiveness of SEA, as practiced by MDAs, has received limited attention in literature so far. This paper aims to analyse the use of SEA by MDAs in the context of loan agreements established between these countries. Based on documentation gathered in public databases, six energy related cases were reviewed in relation to the moment that SEA started, the strategic dimensions of proposed actions, compliance with key aspects of SEA, and also to the quality of SEA reports. Results indicate a number of aspects that should be improved in order to increase SEA effectiveness: SEA is starting after relevant decisions, is applied to actions without clear definition of strategic dimensions and lacks a systematic assessment of alternatives. Regarding the quality of SEA reports, the outcomes reveal a poor quality in baseline description, development and assessment of alternatives and public participation.

Impact of microfinance on the non-monetary aspects of poverty: evidence from Pakistan

To examine the impact of microfinance (MF) on poverty alleviation this research utilized children’s education and housing conditions as the indicators of impact between the established and new clients of MF. Chi square test (χ 2) of significance is used to examine the difference between new and established clients followed by binary logistic regression. It is found that MF plays an important role in poverty reduction (non-financial aspects of poverty) by giving access to better education for their children and improved housing conditions. Established clients (membership with MF for more than 1 year) of MF have better housing conditions and enhanced children’s education than new clients. It contends that with little endeavors, these institutions can perform to eliminate poverty by giving access to various financial and social services. Based on the results, it is recommended, governments, multilateral development agencies should develop policies that perpetuate the MF.

Indonesia's Changing Political Economy: Governing the Roads

Indonesia's Changing Political Economy: Governing Roads. By Jamie Davidson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Hardcover: 292pp. When Joko Widodo, aka Jokowi, announced that he would run for president of Indonesia in 2013, he not only promised to weed out corruption and increase transparency, but also that he would pursue a new style of leadership altogether. Focusing on plight of masses, Jokowi pledged that he would no longer be beholden to Indonesia's entrenched political interests. He also promised a mental and set ambitious targets should he win presidency, including construction of 5,000 kilometres of railways, 2,600 kilometres of roads, 1,000 kilometres of toll roads, 49 dams and 24 seaports. Foreign academics and analysts were ecstatic. we're seeing is extraordinary, enthused Douglas Ramage, a consultant based in Jakarta, in a Wall Street Journal article on 9 October 2013, entitled, Indonesia, a New Breed of Politicians is on Rise. Providing an assessment of Widodo's campaign, Ramage went on to say that compelling logic of popularity is what drives Indonesian politics now, and perception of a candidate as clean, transparent and authentic is what most drives popularity. Other scholars were equally optimistic about Jokowi's capacity to tackle Indonesia's myriad pressing problems. Probably carried away by campaign dynamics, several foreign academics donned t-shirts with Jokowi's portrait, and gushed in op-eds and blogs about how former mayor of city of Solo, through sheer intelligence and imagination, had single-handedly cut through red tape and increased efficiency of municipal government. What all these accounts had in common was an almost messianic hope in capacity and capability of an individual to dismantle Indonesia's kleptocracy and initiate long-awaited policy changes. Jamie Davidson's new book on politics of infrastructure investment in Indonesia throws cold water on such an understanding of Indonesian politics. Davidson shows that while there is wide agreement among scholars and politicians that construction of roads, ports and railways is a prerequisite for economic growth--particularly in developing countries such as Indonesia--there is considerable disagreement over how countries should pursue infrastructure development. While in 1950s and 1960s a prominent role for state was deemed important for infrastructure development, this idea was replaced by a belief in potency of private-public partnerships (PPP). In a PPP, government collaborates with a private sector entity to deliver a public service. Gaining prominence in context of Reagan revolution of 1980s, idea of PPP as key to successful infrastructure development subsequently crept onto agendas and programmes of multilateral development agencies around world, and today constitutes mainstream approach towards infrastructure development. After Soeharto was deposed in 1998, PPPs also became main approach to infrastructure development in Indonesia. In his book, Davidson describes in great detail context in which PPPs are embedded in Indonesia and explains why they have failed to develop country's infrastructure. Concretely, the factors bedeviling private sector participation in infrastructure projects include entrenched rent-seeking networks, conflicts between national and local governments, and struggles over land between government and a newly empowered society (p. 230). Examining politics surrounding construction of turnpikes, Davidson first shows how toll road concessions during New Order were driven primarily by pressures on Soeharto to reward as many pribumi business cronies as possible as a reaction to mounting criticism about his favouritism towards Chinese-Indonesian business community, as well as growing prominence of his children in country's economy. …

The geopolitical economy of social policy in the Philippines: securitisation, emerging powers and multilateral policies

Recent geopolitical and economic changes have altered global social policy formation. The Bretton Woods multilateral development agencies (MDAs) have selectively incorporated ideas emerging from developing country states and decision makers, with a recent increased acceptance of social transfers as part of renewed efforts at poverty alleviation based on social risk management. There has been an instance in the use and promotion of conditional cash transfer (CCT) policies by MDAs. CCTs were a product of the emergence of a neo-structuralist welfare regime (understood as an ideal type) in Latin America – an attempt to reconcile neoliberal strategies of development with aspirations for guaranteed minimum incomes. The Bretton Woods and regional development bank MDAs have facilitated the adoption of CCTs in other developing countries, including the Phillipines. Here, a combination of actions by national political actors and MDAs has resulted in the implementation of a securitised and compliance-focused version of CCTs derived from the Colombian security state. Although poor Philippine households welcome income assistance, CCTs have acted to enforce further state monitoring without altering the national-based political and economic processes that replicate poverty.

Tous homo œconomicus , tous différents. Les origines idéologiques de l'ethno-capitalisme

All Homo Economicus, all different ! The Ideological Origins of Ethno-CapitalismNumerous works have addressed the articulations between multiculturalism and neoliberalism in the Latin-American post-dictatorship context of the 1990s. Fewer are, by contrast, the studies that have focused on the ideological origins of what I would call differentialist Capitalism. My intention here is to fully comprehend how the “cultural” sphere was discovered, before being progressively colonized by the “economic” one. In order to do so, we will have to go back to the end of the 1970s, a period during which emancipatory ideas such as “cultural control” and “ethno-development” were taken over and resignified by the tenants of the neoliberal orthodoxy. An orthodoxy based on an anthropological credo that both reifies cultures and naturalizes the social order and managed to achieve massive hegemony within multilateral development agencies and the south-American elites.

Introduction: Financialisation and Development in Asia under Late Capitalism

Multilateral development agencies have increasingly focused attention on underdeveloped countries in Asia as potential new sites for financial capital. Often referred to as “emerging markets”, these economies are seen as ripe for private sector investment and, at the same time, in need of foreign capital to support rapid industrialisation, modernisation and poverty reduction. For development agencies, this confluence of interests suggests a means for quickly closing the “development gap”, primarily through mobilising techno-managerial modalities designed to reduce barriers to capital entry and other institutional inefficiencies seen as inimical to investment. Thus development agencies now encourage the construction of “enabling environments” to support “market driven development” through processes of “financialisation”. Development, in this sense, is no longer state-led or state-centred, but rather financially driven and privately procured.As we highlight in this special issue, however, financialised modes of development are highly contested and problematic. Indeed, the diffusion into the underdeveloped world of essentially developed world financialisation agendas that seek to instil a broad-based market rationalism that downloads new costs and risks to populations is of significant concern. This Introduction sets in context and introduces a much needed set of articles that bring clarity to financialisation in developing Asia and its implications for development as a process of substantively improving material conditions.