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Multi-stakeholder Initiatives (MSIs) bring multiple stakeholders (usually government, business, and civil society) to a common platform to dialogue, design, and implement sustainable solutions to identified governance issues. However, what factors are likely to determine the effectiveness of MSIs? The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) is a global MSI, established in 2003, that seeks to improve the management of natural resource wealth in implementing countries through increased transparency. This study examines the Nigerian EITI to explore the factors that influence the organisation and effectiveness of MSIs. We find that the Nigerian EITI (NEITI) falls short of a truly multi-stakeholder initiative and hence is limited in its impact and effectiveness in improving resource wealth management in Nigeria. Four factors deduced from a combination of agency and collective action theories appear to be strong in explaining the shortcomings of the NEITI. These factors are the Nigerian structural environment, the characteristics of the stakeholders to the Nigerian extractives industry, the emergent governance structure of NEITI, and the nature of external influence on NEITI. Evidence gathered from the implementation of NEITI, demonstrates that a combination of these factors has contributed to the difficulty in achieving a truly multi-stakeholder structure and hence the limited impact of the initiative on improving resource wealth management in Nigeria.

As from early 1960s, the question of whether aid works has been a central theme in development economics. The continued effort to analyse the effects of aid only now appears to be nearing consensus. A close examination of the literature suggests that there are certain aspects that are critical to this strand of studies that have not been fully addressed. In this thesis, we make a contribution by throwing light on three such issues that relate to the macroeconomic effectiveness of aid. Aid does not have a direct effect on growth; it operates via transmission mechanisms. Their role has not been given due consideration in the empirical literature. Our first objective is to revisit the question of aid effectiveness while taking into account the important effects through these mechanisms. Using generated regressors, we purge aid effect on these various mediators and obtain a coefficient on aid that gives a measure of the total effect aid has on growth. Our results consistently show that aid has had a positive effect on growth, largely through aid-financed investment and that Africa's poor growth record should not be attributed to aid ineffectiveness. Our second objective relates to the non-linear aspects that would seem to characterise the aid-growth link. This has consistently been represented by an 'aid squared' term and recently been referred to as the aid Laffer effect as proposed by Lensink and White (2001). Using a threshold model, we directly test the assumptions underlying this hypothesis. Contrary to an aid Laffer curve, we find that aid becomes effective beyond a certain critical level and human capital enhances its effects at higher aid levels. Hence, we find no evidence of diminishing returns in aid. Although, marginal impact of aid on growth does become weaker as human capital exceeds some high level. Overall, it seems that an 'aid squared' term is not an appropriate representation of the non-linearity in aid-growth link. Finally, we contribute to the limited literature on aid and welfare of the poor. Our findings consistently show that aid is associated with increases in welfare indicators. We highlight the role of pro-poor public spending as the channel through which aid improves welfare. These indirect effects are captured using residual generated regressors. Quantile regression estimates suggest that aid effects on human development vary across the welfare distribution; effects are more significant in economies located at the lower end of this distribution. Finally, we find that improving welfare may just be another way to promote growth in developing countries.

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The relationship between religion and development is a relatively new research area, complicated by the arguably "secular reductionism" and "materialistic determinism" of mainstream development theory and practice. Against this backdrop, this doctoral study examines the relationship between Islamic and mainstream development discourses, analysing the complex power relations at work within the discursive practices of the development field through a conceptual apparatus comprised of a Foucauldian notion of power and discourse and a Laclauan view of hegemony. The objective of this study is to develop a better understanding of how Islamic development policy making and makers have made meaning of the central issues of development and progress as expressed in the body of theory and practice that makes up the development field. Interestingly, Islamic thinkers were already criticising the Euro-centric nature of the development discourse in the 1950s and 60s. They proposed an Islamisation of knowledge, particularly in the field of economics, as a way of overcoming a perceived Western‘ domination. In pursuit of the question as to how "Islam" relates to the issue of development and progress, this thesis explores the genealogy of the mainstream and the Islamic development discourses, illustrated by a selected case study within the development field in Bangladesh.

This thesis examines how the process of outsourcing of public construction (OPC) projects is influenced by institutions and why. Extant literature focuses on explaining how outsourcing through competition improves efficiency with limited treatment of how institutions actually influence the OPC projects. The thesis develops an analytical framework for process-tracing that integrates institutional and social capital (SC) theories to examine what have hitherto been disparately employed to study their influence in policy reform implementation. By deploying this integrated framework, actors’ decision making in outsourcing process is analysed based on plural rationality at central (CG) and local government (LG) contexts. The thesis argues that actors in OPC simultaneously pursue material gains and SC investments while trying to minimise their transaction costs, in the process engaging in ‘forum shopping’ between formal and informal institutions. Depending on degree of social embeddedness, the process of outsourcing will incline to formality or informality. In the case of Uganda, findings indicate that the informal institutional regime dominates and no major difference in informal practices for both CG and LG levels exist although at CG level it may appear like formal institutions dominate in decision making. The thesis proposes that public policies should take cognisance of informal institutions as well as social structure in their design.

Large quantities of foreign development assistance continue to flow to many developing countries. At the same time, most of the aid-receiving countries have stagnated and become even more aid-dependent. This grim reality provokes vigorous debate on the effectiveness of aid. Despite the voluminous research on aid effectiveness, clear evidence to support the view that development aid stimulates economic growth remains scant. This thesis intends to extend the existing literature on foreign aid and economic growth. First we re-examine results from cross-country studies to provide new insights on the lack of robustness of results from this approach. We further explore and deepen the observation that cross-country results are fragile, particularly when the number of countries in the sample changes. Secondly, we study the impact of district-level aid disbursement on the growth of average night-time light density in Malawi. We use two plausibly exogenous determinants of within-country aid allocation to isolate the causal effects of aid. The results show a robust and quantitatively significant effect of aid flows in stimulating growth of light density. We find a hump-shaped growth response over three years. Finally, the thesis presents a theoretical model that explores how aid affects economic growth and welfare in an economy with subsistence constraints. The main results from this analysis are; (i) productive aid has higher long run growth and welfare effects than pure aid (ii) the rate of convergence depends crucially on how close the initial conditions are to the subsistence level (iii) while growth effects are maximised when all the aid is allocated to productive aid, we find that optimal welfare is reached when some proportion of aid is also allocated to pure transfers.

Le cadre juridique récent sur la responsabilité sociétale des entreprises (RSE) conduit les multinationales à s’intéresser de façon croissante à la mesure de l’impact social de leurs pratiques. A partir de deux études de cas, cette thèse examine l’impact de projets de RSE sur le développement humain, notamment relationnel, des populations concernées. La première partie de la thèse est consacrée à la construction d’un cadre théorique. En faisant apparaître les hypothèses sous-jacentes aux indicateurs de développement, aux visions de la RSE et aux optiques de l’évaluation d’impact, des convergences et incompatibilités entre différentes postures caractéristiques de ces trois objets sont mises en avant. Cela me conduit à privilégier une méthodologie d’analyse fondée sur des méthodes quantitatives non expérimentales et sur des analyses qualitatives, qui mobilisent une approche multidimensionnelle du développement à partir de l’approche des capacités. La seconde partie de la thèse présente des applications empiriques fondées sur les évaluations d’impact de programmes sociétaux menés par Total au Nigeria et d’un projet de recyclage inclusif mené par Danone au Mexique. Les résultats empiriques montrent qu’au-delà de leur impact sur la pauvreté, ces projets ont des effets importants sur le tissu social. Est ainsi démontré l’intérêt de cadres évaluatifs qui font valoir des indicateurs non conventionnels et qui éclairent les chiffres par une compréhension qualitative des processus de changement et des rapports de force. / Given the recent legal framework on corporate social responsibility (CSR), multinational corporations show growing interest in measuring the social impact of their practices. Based on two case studies, this thesis examines the impact which CSR projects have on the affected populations’ human development, including a measure of relational development. The first part of the thesis constructs the theoretical framework. Uncovering the assumptions underlying the three objects of study – development indicators, views on CSR and impact assessment approaches – reveals convergences and incompatibilities between different postures. This framework justifies the choice of a methodology based on the use of non-experimental quantitative methods joined to qualitative analyses, which mobilizes a multidimensional approach to development founded on the capability approach. The second part of the thesis presents two empirical applications based on the impact assessment of Total's societal programs in Nigeria and of a waste pickers inclusion project conducted by Danone in Mexico. The empirical results show that beyond their impact on poverty, these projects have important effects on the social fabric. This provides evidence for the value of evaluative frameworks which use unconventional indicators and which inform quantitative data with a qualitative analysis of the processes of change and the balance of power involved.

Recent years have witnessed renewed global attention to persistent spatial inequalities and the potential role of politics and power relations in redressing and reinforcing them. This thesis offers a political analysis of the problem of regional inequality in Ghana, with particular attention to the role of inter-elite power relations in underpinning the country’s historical North-South divide. The analysis is based on three main sets of data: the regional distribution of political power during 1993-2008; the regional composition of public expenditure; and elite interviews. The thesis argues that a key factor that explains Ghana’s stark unbalanced regional development has been the continuous exclusion of the historically poorer Northern regions from a fair share of both productive and social sector spending. The socio-economic marginalisation of these regions has been underpinned principally by a weaker influence of Northern elites on resource allocation decisions within a political environment that is driven largely by patron-client relations. Consequently, even policies and programmes designed with the formal objective of targeting the ‘poor’ often end up discriminating against the poorer Northern regions at the level of implementation. However, Northern elites’ lack of ‘agenda-setting powers’ is not a function of their exclusion from government, but rather of their ‘adverse incorporation’ into the polity, whereby they have often been included on relatively unfavourable terms. This explanation differs significantly from much of current mainstream thinking regarding the underlying drivers of persistent unbalanced regional development, including dominant accounts of Ghana’s North-South inequalities. Notably, there has been a tendency of both academics and policy makers to put the blame on certain innate characteristics of the North, such as the region’s fewer production potentials associated with its ‘bad geography’ and Northerners’ proclivity for violent conflicts. Such accounts therefore tend to blame the relative socio-economic backwardness of the Northern regions on the North itself rather than the nature of its incorporation into broader political formations.

La coopération internationale pour la santé a connu, cette dernière décennie, une des périodes les plus dynamiques de son histoire. Les ressources disponibles ont augmenté, une pléthore d’organismes de santé a été créée, et la société civile et le secteur privé ont été mobilisés. Des approches plus participatives ont émergé dans la façon de lever les fonds et de livrer l’assistance. Cependant, l’enthousiasme suscité par ces changements a été accompagné par un malaise croissant, un sentiment que les actions sur le terrain sont « dispersées », faiblement articulées et que les « gaspillages » continuent. Le nombre croissant d’acteurs aurait donc compliqué la gestion de l’aide pour les bénéficiaires, alourdi les coûts de transaction et augmenté les coûts fixes dans l’aide globale. En conséquence, la littérature indique qu’une amélioration de l’efficacité de l’aide internationale passe par une coordination accrue des acteurs de l’aide, notamment les donateurs. Notre thèse vise à montrer que, s’il est fondé de remettre de l’ordre dans l’architecture chaotique de l’aide, notamment celle de la santé, l’entente des donateurs sur des objectifs limités sur la base de critères coût-efficacité est irréaliste. En nous appuyant sur l’abondante littérature consacrée à l’aide, sur les rapports d’évaluation, sur des entretiens qualitatifs et sur une exploitation de données empiriques, nous soulignons pourquoi l’agenda actuel de coordination ne permet pas une réduction de la dispersion de l’aide. / International cooperation in health has experienced over the last decade, one of the most dynamic periods in its history. The resources available have increased, a plethora of health agencies have been established, and civil society and the private sector have been mobilized. More participatory approaches have emerged in how to raise funds and deliver assistance. However, enthusiasm for these changes was accompanied by a growing unease, a feeling that the actions in the field are "scattered", loosely connected and that the "waste" continue. The increasing number of players would thus have complicated the management of aid to recipients, increased the transaction costs and increased fixed costs in total aid. As a result, the literature indicates that improving the efficiency of international assistance has to go through increased coordination of aid actors, including donors. Our thesis aims to show that if it is justified to restore order in the chaotic architecture of aid, including that of health, donor agreement on limited objectives on the basis of cost- effectiveness criterias is unrealistic. Based on the extensive literature on aid, on the evaluation reports, interviews and qualitative operation of empirical data, we emphasize why the current agenda of coordination does not allow a reduction in the dispersion of aid.