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Reimagining Civil Society Collaborations in Development: Starting from the South

Margit van Wessel, Tiina Kontinen, Justice Nyigmah Bawole (eds.)

London; New York: Routledge (2023), xv, 348 pp.

"At a time when uneven power dynamics are high on development actors' agenda, this book will be an important contribution to researchers and practitioners working on innovation in development and civil society. While there is much discussion of localization, decolonization and 'shifting power' in ci ... more

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Social Sustainability in Development: Meeting the Challenges of the 21st Century

Patrick Barron, Louise Cord, José Cuesta, Sabina Espinoza, Michael Woolcock

Washington, DC: World Bank (2023), xxxv, 102 pp.

"Social Sustainability in Development: Meeting the Challenges of the 21st Century seeks to advance the concept of social sustainability and sharpen its analytical foundations. The book emphasizes social sustainability’s four key components: social cohesion, inclusion, resilience, and process legit ... more

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Donor Strategies in a time of Paradigm Shift: Mapping of the Donors Active in the Western Balkans

Miroslav Tomic, Mihailo Gajic, Ardiana Gashi

Open Society Foundations, 3rd ed. (2023), 43 pp.

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Analisando as perspectivas climáticas decoloniais: O caso da região da Amazônia Legal brasileira

Pedro Affonso Ivo Franco, Marina Caetanoifa

Stuttgart: Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (ifa) (2023), 79 pp.

"Este estudo é realizado dentro da estrutura do Programa de Pesquisa do ifa „Cultura e Política Externa“, no qual especialistas analisam tópicos atuais das relações culturais internacionais e desenvolvem recomendações para futuras medidas de política cultural externa. Ele discute o poten ... more

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Entwicklungspolitik: Eine Einführung in Zielsetzungen und Ergebnisse

Joachim Betz

Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (bpb), Sonderausg. (2022), xi, 268 pp.

"Entwicklung im Sinne der schrittweisen Entfaltung der eigenen und/oder der gesellschaftlichen Fähigkeiten und Anlagen geschieht vor allem durch eigene Handlungen (Selbsthilfe), kann aber auch gezielt gefördert werden. Was genau die Entwicklung von Volkswirtschaften und Gesellschaften ausmacht, wu ... more

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The Essential Guide to Critical Development Studies

Henry Veltmeyer, Paul Bowles (eds.)

London; New York: Routledge, 2nd ed. (2022), xxix, 412 pp.

"The Essential Guide to Critical Development Studies provides an up-to-date and authoritative introduction to the field, challenging mainstream development discourse and the assumptions that underlie it. Critical development studies lays bare the economic, political, social and environmental crises ... more

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Klüfte überwinden, Machtstrukturen abbauen! Feministische Entwicklungspolitik und die digitale Transformation verknüpfen

Isabel Gahren, Jelena Jovicic, Julian Reiter

Bonn; Eschborn: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) (2022), 43 pp.

"Die vorliegende Publikation ist ein erster Versuch, die Querschnittsthemen digitale Transformation und Geschlechtergerechtigkeit auf der Grundlage der feministischen Entwicklungspolitik Deutschlands zusammenzudenken. Die deutsche feministische Entwicklungspolitik will in einem globalen System, das ... weiterhin von einer ungleichen Verteilung sozialer, wirtschaftlicher und politischer Macht geprägt ist, entscheidende Veränderungen erwirken. Die Herausforderungen und Hindernisse sind jedoch vielfältig: von bewaffneten Konflikten über Klimaextreme, zunehmenden Hunger und Armut bis hin zum weltweiten Erstarken von Anti-Gender-Bewegungen. Die digitale Transformation fügt der Komplexität hier eine weitere Ebene hinzu. Digitale Technologien – von Smartphones, intelligenten Geräten und Software bis hin zu künstlicher Intelligenz (KI), digitalen Plattformen und Blockchain – eröffnen viele Möglichkeiten für Empowerment und sozialen Wandel. Gleichzeitig spiegeln Technologien die physische Welt und ihre Systeme der Marginalisierung und Unterdrückung wie Patriarchat, Rassismus und Kolonialismus wider. Trotz der in ihr verankerten und reproduzierten Ungleichheiten bleibt das Anliegen, die Potenziale der digitalen Transformation zu nutzen, weiterhin ein Handlungsfeld der deutschen Entwicklungszusammenarbeit. Die neue feministische Entwicklungspolitik Deutschlands baut auf dem bisherigen Engagement auf und geht gleichzeitig neue Wege. Sie setzt sich für eine geschlechtergerechte digitale Transformation und digitale Teilhabe für alle ein. Gleichzeitig ist das zukünftige Ziel, alle Formen struktureller und systemischer Ursachen von Ungleichheit zu überwinden, die in der heutigen globalen Gesellschaft tief verwurzelt sind. Insbesondere letzterer Aspekt bedeutet auch, den Status quo der gegenwärtigen digitalen Transformation und digitalen Entwicklungspolitik grundlegend in Frage zu stellen. Die vorliegende Studie verdeutlicht, dass eine feministische Entwicklungspolitik im digitalen Raum vielschichtig ist und umfasst eine Bandbreite sich überschneidender Themen. In erster Linie bedeutet eine feministische Entwicklungspolitik für den digitalen Raum jedoch die Überwindung der anhaltenden digitalen Geschlechterkluft." (Zusammenfassung, Seite 6) more

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Why Some Development Works: Understanding Success

Meera Tiwari

London et al.: Zed Books (2021), 160 pp.

"Right at the beginning of her book, the author makes it clear how complex and difficult it is to track down success factors for functioning development processes. Her research and case studies from Africa, Asia and Latin America, which focus on local processes and selected, in many cases state-run, ... more

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Meta-Review of Evaluations of Development Assistance to Afghanistan, 2008 – 2018

Christoph Zürcher

Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) (2020), 39 pp.

"Overall, one finding stands out: the international community has repeatedly overestimated its own capacity and the capacity of its Afghan partners to bring about rapid social change. What has worked best are modest, locally embedded projects with immediate, tangible benefits. What has rarely worked ... are complex projects aimed at building capacity and changing behaviour. More specifically, interventions in basic health and education, and in improving basic livelihoods, led to results. Interventions in building capacity for the administration, or in sectors such as the rule of law or gender, rarely worked. In reading these 148 reports, one also realizes that the international aid community is often not good at learning. Monitoring and evaluation systems are weak, and have hardly improved since 2002. Back in the early 2000s, many donors pointed out that, in order to achieve meaningful and sustainable development, more time was necessary. Fifteen years later, few sustainable results have been achieved, but many donors continue to suggest that better results will still require more time. Few donors appear to have changed their fundamental strategic approach, despite the fact that their own evaluations strongly suggest that many aid programs are neither e cient nor e ective in the Afghan context. In all fairness, the Afghan context is an incredibly challenging one, as these 148 reports vividly remind us on almost every page. The situation on the ground was and still is characterized by a lack of basic security; Afghan partners in government and in civil society lack basic capacities; many entrenched political actors have little interest in real reforms. Despite these challenging conditions, there was since the early days of the international engagement in Afghanistan tremendous political pressure on development actors to rush in and to provide quick results. An additional layer of complexity was added by the fact that the international engagement was from the beginning both a civilian and a military intervention, and planners in headquarters as well as practitioners on the ground had to learn how to cope with the task of civil-military cooperation. Under such circumstances, designing e ective aid programs is a herculean task." (Introduction, page 8) more

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Synthesis of Evaluations in South Sudan: Lessons Learned for Engagement in Fragile and Conflict-Affected States

Logan Cochrane

Journal of Humanitarian Affairs, volume 2, issue 1 (2020), pp. 21-34

"South Sudan is one the largest recipients of official development assistance. Given the complexity of the operational environment, there is a need to learn from the lessons gained to-date. This article seeks to enable better-informed decision making based on a synthesis from humanitarian and develo ... more

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China’s Foreign Aid: A Primer for Recipient Countries, Donors, and Aid Providers

Leah Lynch, Sharon Andersen, Tianyu Zhu

Center for Global Development (2020), 16 pp.

"Since the 1950s, Chinese foreign aid has been influenced by and linked with China’s investment, trade, and foreign policy objectives. Partly as a result, it has also been fairly opaque. However, as Chinese aid (and loans) have increased in volume and significance, and as China’s economic status ... more

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Approaches to Evaluating Countering Violent Extremism Program Outcomes: A Descriptive Review with Options for Future Study

Gwendolyn Bevis, Lynn Carter, Jacob Patterson-Stein, Jill Tirnauer, C. Christine Fair

USAID;Management Systems International (MSI) (2019), 66 pp.

"This review seeks to inform United States Agency for International Development (USAID) evaluation of countering violent extremism (CVE) programming in Asia and globally by exploring two research questions: 1. Under current conditions, is it possible to develop a model or methodology to test the rel ... more

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Donor Assistance in the Transparency and Accountability Movement

Davin O'Regan

Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace (USIP) (2019), 36 pp.

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Afrika: Eine Einführung in Geschichte, Politik und Gesellschaft

Rainer Tetzlaff

Berlin: Springer VS;Zentralen für Politische Bildung, Sonderausg. (2018), xiv, 356 pp.

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Entwicklungszusammenarbeit 4.0: Digitalisierung und globale Verantwortung

Hartmut Sangmeister, Heike Wagner (eds.)

Baden-Baden: Nomos (2018), 172 pp.

"Die internationale Entwicklungszusammenarbeit kann die Digitalisierung in ihrer Vielfalt nutzen, um ihre Ziele besser und schneller zu erreichen. Mit der Digitalisierung sind aber auch Risiken im Bereich Datenschutz, Arbeitswelt oder Zugang zum Internet verbunden. Wer profitiert von der „digitale ... more

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Theatre, development and global partnership: Critically reflecting on the role of UK Theatre for Development actors

Robert Smith

Manchester: University of Manchester, Doctoral Thesis (2018), 216 pp.

"This thesis explores how and why global Theatre for Development (TfD) partnerships fail to enable greater equity and interconnectedness between Northern and Southern actors. Building global partnerships is at the core of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, Northern developm ... ent actors dominate these relationships. To establish why this is the case, the thesis brings together literature on global development, postcolonialism and TfD to demonstrate the current limitations on establishing equitable partnerships. The thesis draws on primary data collected through semi-structured interviews with UK and Kenyan TfD actors, autoethnographic reflections on TfD practice and participant observation. The study focuses on three key issues that shape partnerships: funding, knowledge and expertise and temporal and spatial dimensions. First, funding for projects is primarily provided by Northern development actors, framing the terms of partnerships and dictating their form, extent and limits. Second, the knowledge and expertise employed in shaping TfD projects is often seen as lying disproportionately with Northern partners, who are thought to bring ‘global’ perspectives to such work. Conversely, partners in the South are seen as possessing ‘local’ knowledge which is deployed primarily to help facilitate and legitimate the interventions of external practitioners. Third, spatial and temporal aspects further impact on partnerships: UK actors are perceived as more mobile and dynamic than their Southern partners, with access to international networks. Southern partners are routinely represented as embedded, statically, in their immediate local contexts. Furthermore, short-term timescales prevent TfD actors from providing the commitment that building more equitable, interconnected partnerships requires. A key finding is that both Northern and Southern actors create and reinforce these ongoing problems in partnerships. However, they are also able to resist and challenge the unequal terms of their relationships. The thesis demonstrates how networks are emerging with the potential for developing more equitable relationships. It reveals the agency of Southern actors to adapt externally funded projects to meet with their own motivations and contexts. The study concludes by suggesting that future TfD partnerships must recognise and facilitate the participative agency of all involved." (Abstract) more

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Measuring Peacebuilding Cost-Effectiveness

Institute for Economics & Peace (2017), 68 pp.

"1) This paper provides a conceptual framework for counting and categorising peacebuilding activities as well as a hard working-definition of the actions that count as peacebuilding. One of the primary inhibiting factors for assessing peacebuilding cost-effectiveness has been the lack of commonly ag ... reed definitions and confusion about what activities constitute peacebuilding. Without this, it is simply not possible to measure and compare the cost-effectiveness of peacebuilding activities. 2) A comprehensive accounting of global peacebuilding expenditures from 2002 to 2013, using the working definition that was developed in partnership with the UN Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO) and Peacebuilding Support Group. This is the first known attempt at comprehensively accounting for peacebuilding activities — without this data it is not possible to empirically assess different peacebuilding strategies and assess the cost-effectiveness of them or individual peacebuilding actions. This data shows that peacebuilding activities are unevenly distributed geographically and thematically and are prioritised to differing extents by international donors. 3) A detailed case study of peacebuilding expenditures is presented to analyse an example of peacebuilding success — Rwanda from the wake of genocide to 2014. This analysis shows US$18.35 billion was committed to peacebuilding expenditures in Rwanda from 1995 to 2014. That means peacebuilding commitments in Rwanda from the international community were at least $27 per capita each year for the past 15 years. This demonstrates that the assistance associated with peacebuilding is not exhausted in the five or even ten years following a conflict, meaning that the success of peacebuilding cannot be judged on whether there has been a relapse into a conflict after such a short period of time has elapsed. If some moderate level of peacebuilding expenditure indeed leads to a reduction in violence, and if Rwanda is illustrative of the levels of peacebuilding required to reduce violent conflict, then the current levels of global peacebuilding expenditure are insufficient to build global peace. 4) A global model of the cost-effectiveness of peacebuilding, based on the case study findings and the data generated from them. Using 20 years of peacebuilding expenditure, Rwanda’s experience as a baseline, and combining this with IEP’s research on the global cost of conflict, the paper presents scenario analysis and a model of peacebuilding cost-effectiveness. It finds that using conservative assumptions, the cost-effectiveness ratio of peacebuilding is 1:16, showing that increased funding for peacebuilding would be hugely beneficial not only to peacebuilding outcomes but in terms of the potential economic returns to the global economy. This means that if countries currently in conflict increased or received levels of peacebuilding funding to appropriate levels estimated by this model, then for every dollar invested now, the cost of conflict would be reduced by $16 over the long run. Projected forward ten years from 2016 this would save US$2.94 trillion in direct and indirect losses from conflict. However, achieving this outcome would require an approximate doubling of peacebuilding toward the 31 most fragile and conflict affected nations of the world. Of course, this does not preclude other important factors for peacebuilding success such as the external influence of other states or the role of political elites, but rather establishes a working framework for resources required for programmatic peacebuilding activities. 5) In order to take this research forward, this paper also provides detailed approaches for a future research agenda to look deeper into the ultimate aim of assessing the cost-effectiveness of particular peacebuilding interventions. Through drawing upon existing impact evaluations on peacebuilding interventions in Liberia, it demonstrates a basic approach to how the cost-effectiveness of specific peacebuilding interventions could be compared within a specific context. However, this approach demonstrates the long-term needs for a fully-fledged research agenda in this area. Impact evaluations are resource intensive and require a very significant upscaling of research. Currently, it is estimated that there are only 61 impact evaluations globally on programmes with peacebuilding outcomes. In other domains such as health or education there are hundreds and thousands of such impact evaluations, which highlights the clear need for more impact evaluations in peacebuilding." (Executive summary) more

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Transparency is More Than Dollars and Cents: An Examination of Informational Needs for Aid Spending in Sierra Leone and Liberia

Aria Grabowski

Oxford: Oxfam (2017), 25 pp.

"This research looks at the information needed by in-country development stakeholders with an emphasis on accountability actors including civil society organizations, charities, government workers, and the media. To collect this information, semi-structured interviews were conducted in Sierra Leone ... more

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Hack the Future of Development Aid

Mariannne Haahr et al.

Copenhagen: DANIDA (2017), 35 pp.

"This study opens by diving into what blockchain is and why it is a new tech tool for development. Thereafter, we explore four ways in which blockchain can be applied to hack the future of development aid and accelerate the Sustainable Development Goals. Hack #1: Innovate (aid) money with cryptocurr ... more

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Intersections Between Public Diplomacy and International Development: Case Studies in Converging Fields

James Pamment (ed.)

Los Angeles: Figueroa Press;USC Center on Public Diplomacy (2016), 178 pp.