Dead Aid

Dead Aid PDF

Author: Dambisa Moyo

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2009-03-17

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 0374139563

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Debunking the current model of international aid promoted by both Hollywood celebrities and policy makers, Moyo offers a bold new road map for financing development of the world's poorest countries.

The Delusion of Knowledge Transfer

The Delusion of Knowledge Transfer PDF

Author: Susanne Koch

Publisher: African Books Collective

Published: 2016-12-13

Total Pages: 398

ISBN-13: 1928331408

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With the rise of the knowledge for development paradigm, expert advice has become a prime instrument of foreign aid. At the same time, it has been object of repeated criticism: the chronic failure of technical assistance a notion under which advice is commonly subsumed has been documented in a host of studies. Nonetheless, international organisations continue to send advisors, promising to increase the effectiveness of expert support if their technocratic recommendations are taken up. This book reveals fundamental problems of expert advice in the context of aid that concern issues of power and legitimacy rather than merely flaws of implementation. Based on empirical evidence from South Africa and Tanzania, the authors show that aid-related advisory processes are inevitably obstructed by colliding interests, political pressures and hierarchical relations that impede knowledge transfer and mutual learning. As a result, recipient governments find themselves caught in a perpetual cycle of dependency, continuously advised by experts who convey the shifting paradigms and agendas of their respective donor governments. For young democracies, the persistent presence of external actors is hazardous: ultimately, it poses a threat to the legitimacy of their governments if their policy-making becomes more responsive to foreign demands than to the preferences and needs of their citizens.

United States Assistance Policy in Africa

United States Assistance Policy in Africa PDF

Author: Shai A. Divon

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-06

Total Pages: 487

ISBN-13: 1317237234

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From the end of WWII to the end of the Obama administration, development assistance in Africa has been viewed as an essential instrument of US foreign policy. Although many would characterise it as a form of aid aimed at enhancing the lives of those in the developing world, it can also be viewed as a tool for advancing US national security objectives. Using a theoretical framework based on 'power', United States Assistance Policy in Africa examines the American assistance discourse, its formation and justification in relation to historical contexts, and its operation on the African continent. Beginning with a problematisation of development as a concept that structures hierarchies between groups of people, the book highlights how cultural, political and economic conceptions influence the American assistance discourse. The book further highlights the relationship between American national security and its assistance policy in Africa during the Cold War, the post-Cold War, and the post-9/11 contexts. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of Development Studies, Political Science and International Relations with particular interest in US foreign policy, USAID and/or African Studies.

The Future Of Western Development Assistance

The Future Of Western Development Assistance PDF

Author: Elliott R Morss

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-07-09

Total Pages: 89

ISBN-13: 1000301729

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Since the inception of Western development assistance, significant changes in the makeup of donors, recipients, development goals, and strategies have taken place. However, major donor institutions have not yet weighed the impact of these changes on their operations and objectives in anticipation of the future global environment. Discussing trends that will profoundly affect development assistance strategy, the authors raise such questions as: Will the demand for Western technical assistance drop sharply over the next decade? Was the Latin American debt crisis precipitated by the loan practices of international commercial banks? Should aid to Africa be shifted from investment in rural desert areas to investment in urban planning and infrastructure? Also examined are such concerns as the outside management of agricultural research; the U.S. focus on purchasing political allegiance with its aid programs, thus creating dependent nations; the threat to East Asian economic growth posed by the micro-electronics revolution; and the growing conflict between western aid and trade objectives. The authors' purpose is not to provide definitive prescriptions for future development programs, but rather to focus the attention of policymakers on important, but often neglected, issues.

The Delusion of Knowledge Transfer

The Delusion of Knowledge Transfer PDF

Author: Peter Weingart

Publisher:

Published: 2020-10-09

Total Pages: 396

ISBN-13: 9781013286667

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With the rise of the 'knowledge for development' paradigm, expert advice has become a prime instrument of foreign aid. At the same time, it has been object of repeated criticism: the chronic failure of 'technical assistance' - a notion under which advice is commonly subsumed - has been documented in a host of studies. Nonetheless, international organisations continue to send advisors, promising to increase the 'effectiveness' of expert support if their technocratic recommendations are taken up. This book reveals fundamental problems of expert advice in the context of aid that concern issues of power and legitimacy rather than merely flaws of implementation. Based on empirical evidence from South Africa and Tanzania, the authors show that aid-related advisory processes are inevitably obstructed by colliding interests, political pressures and hierarchical relations that impede knowledge transfer and mutual learning. As a result, recipient governments find themselves caught in a perpetual cycle of dependency, continuously advised by experts who convey the shifting paradigms and agendas of their respective donor governments. For young democracies, the persistent presence of external actors is hazardous: ultimately, it poses a threat to the legitimacy of their governments if their policy-making becomes more responsive to foreign demands than to the preferences and needs of their citizens. This work was published by Saint Philip Street Press pursuant to a Creative Commons license permitting commercial use. All rights not granted by the work's license are retained by the author or authors.

The Bureaucratic Struggle For Control Of U.s. Foreign Aid

The Bureaucratic Struggle For Control Of U.s. Foreign Aid PDF

Author: Caleb Rossiter

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-07-11

Total Pages: 188

ISBN-13: 1000315010

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This study of executive-branch decision making explores the conflict between the diplomatic and developmental mandates of U.S. foreign-aid programs on two levels. First, a given amount of programming funded for a country must be divided among various activities, some of which are directed toward long-term development while others encourage short-term diplomatic cooperation with U.S. initiatives. Second, individual federal agencies favor certain types of aid and are engaged in a constant struggle to preserve and expand their favored programs at the expense of others. Dr. Rossiter examines this conflict in a case study of the State Department's use of foreign-aid programs to induce the "frontline" states of southern Africa to cooperate with President Carter's initiative to resolve the civil war in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe. According to Dr. Rossiter, the Agency for International Development (AID) lost control over foreign aid in the region to the State Department because the constituency for development objectives was relatively weak, both inside and outside the U.S. government. He concludes by discussing the implications of AID's unsuccessful attempt to free itself from the State Department's control during the reorganization of the foreign-aid bureaucracy under President Carter.