Development partners and donors increasingly acknowledge the importance of coordinating their activities to achieve the outcome of the official development assistance to developing countries. Although stakeholders have recognized the importance of harmonizing donors and development partners' efforts in the Nigerian health sector, little research has addressed the influence of coordination on the health aid effectiveness. This qualitative case study determined the influence of coordination among the donors and development partners involved in the HIV/AIDS, malaria, and nutrition program on the outcome of these programs in Nigeria. Data were collected through interviews with 22 program officers participating in the health programs and through document review. The document reviewed were reports of coordination efforts, and outcome evaluation reports. Data were managed using NVivo, while coding and themes were adopted for data analysis. Findings revealed the partial coordination efforts in the health system development. Coordination efforts should be at both national and state level to ensure adequate implementation of the health program. Most participants reported a need for the government of the recipient country to strengthen their commitment and own coordination process for development partners to adhere to the guidelines of the coordination platforms. These results could have implications for positive change by identifying the bases to achieve sustainable effectiveness of health aid in Nigeria through development of Country Coordination Mechanism for all health programs to provide guideline of harmonizing activities of development partners.

Liberia, Africa's oldest democracy, has made several efforts in becoming a developed economy and ending poverty, but these efforts have been hampered by lack of appropriate financing mechanisms to achieve this goal. The most recent challenge which was the purpose of this study was to understand how Liberia can finance and achieve the sustainable development goals adopted by the United Nations in September 2015. Despite substantial external aid, Liberia was only able to meet 3 out of the 8 Millennium Development Goals, and more than 60% of the population remain extremely poor. The main research question was to understand what policy shifts are need for Liberia to finance its post-2015 development goals. Using Kingdon's multiple streams theory as the lens, a qualitative case study design was used to analyze literature, public reports, government reports, and the loosely-structured interviews of 15 purposefully-selected participants. The interview data were coded and categorized for thematic analysis. Results reveal that Liberia needs to make a policy shift in key areas including domestic resource mobilization, natural resource governance, combating corruption, strengthening the justice system, strengthening capacity for policy processes, and improving political leadership. The positive social change implication of this study includes recommendations for policymakers, the Ministry of Finance, and the donor community to strengthen domestic resource mobilization and undertake pro-poor tax reforms in order to reduce aid dependence, support Liberia's long-term plan to eradicate extreme poverty and become a middle-income country by 2030.

Donor-accountability demands have increased the importance of indicator-based Monitoring and Evaluation (M & E) for official development assistance (ODA). This unremitting pressure for aid- recipient countries to produce indicators and for donors to judge the success of aid exclusively by indicators is well documented by development scholars and practitioners. The research for this dissertation examined how this pressure reffered to as "indicatorism" influenced and was influenced by the implementation of donor development aid. The donor-funded Kenya Education Sector Support Program (KESSP) served as a case study to address this issue. It investigated the factors that formed "indicatorism" for KESSP; the actual production of indicators for KESSP; the influence of the politics of development aid on M & E; and whether Geographic Information (GI) served as an alternative to indicators in the M & E process. The case study used an archival review of KESSP documentation, detailed observation of KESSP project sites, focus group discussions with KESSP stakeholders at four field sites in Kenya, interviews with donor and government officials, an analysis of KESSP indicators, and an analysis of KESSP's school mapping project (SMP). Through an examination of the historical context preceding KESSP, this dissertation concluded that a sequence of policies fostered a culture of "indicatorism". Donor policies that included structural adjustment and those that promoted global development targets have encouraged both donors and recipient governments to unrelentingly use indicators to judge aid. Within Kenya performance-contracting policies have reinforced this emphasis on indicators. An investigation of how KESSP's indicators were produced revealed that pressures to inflate indicators corrupted KESSP's M & E system. There was strong evidence that national administrative data systems produced exaggerated indicators. However, there was no evidence to suggest that local implementers over-counted core educational statistics intended to produce indicators for KESSP. An investigation of the politics that surrounded KESSP showed that political relations shaped the findings of indicator-based M & E reporting. When relations were strong at the beginning of KESSP, M & E reporting was used to show the success of KESSP. As these relations deteriorated M & E reporting reflected the rifts between donors and the Kenyan government. However, even after donors suspended aid, indicators still framed the discourse about KESSP and free primary education in Kenya. An examination of the use of GI for KESSP's M & E demonstrated that despite its planned use as an integral part of KESSP's M & E, GI was not used to evaluate KESSP. Mapping data about KESSP could have exposed the government to a degree of transparency beyond what reporting aggregate national indicators provided. There are, of course, other explanations why GI was not used. For instance, the rapid creation of new administrative districts could have also made its use infeasible. The absence of transparency in the M & E process could very well be a symptom of the culture of "indicatorism", but this lack of transparency also makes it difficult to rule out alternative explanations about KESSP and its M & E process.

<p>In this essay I’m asking if the Scandinavian countries Sweden, Denmark and Norway use a third world perspective on gender equality in their development aid politics. A third world perspective on gender equality is a perspective that considers the special experiences and priorities of women in the third world. My point of view is that third world perspectives represent women in the third world better than western perspectives.</p><p>To determine if the countries uses a third world perspective on gender equality or not I have examined the countries aid policies with a third world theory. The material that I have used is policy documents on gender equality from the three countries and my method is discourse analysis.</p><p>My study shows that Sweden Denmark and Norway uses a third world perspective on gender equality to a certain extent. There are some aspects of the third world perspective on gender equality that none of the countries reflect about. Norway is the country with the best result in the study. </p>

<p>This study is based upon the double proposition that a transfer of modern management knowledge is an important component of the development assistance given to Third World countries and that this knowledge has a cultural basis that</p><p>restricts its transferability. The very essence of the cultural basis is thought to consist of culture contingent implicit assumptions about phenomena in the reality. Problems experienced in five cases of transfer of management knowledge are analysed in search for such implicit assumptions questioned. A paradigm comprising fifteen basic assumptions attached to the images of different management relevant phenomena is identified in the analysis carried out. Different corroborating conditions that make experiences from management-inaction corroborate the validity of the basic assumptions are also identified. The recognition of the relationships between basic assumptions and environmental conditions is held to be crucial to the understanding of how and why the cultural basis of modern management knowledge makes its transfer difficult. The identified relationships between basic assumptions and corroborating conditions has implications for two major issues discussed in cross-cultural management research: (i) it supports the convergence hypothesis, and (ii) it can be concluded that the perceived appropriateness of the “modern” delegativeparticipative management style hinges on the “industrialising” of environmental conditions. In addition to the implications for the cross-cultural management discourse, it is found that the perspective developed has implications for the institutionalism approach to management. In particular, it points to the importance of normative messages and collectively shared perceptions as isomorphic forces. It also points to important mechanisms behind institutional variability and change. The relationship between basic assumptions and environmental conditions is central to a strategy for transfer of modern management knowledge that is discussed in the end of the study. The importance of a cognitive transformation is emphasised as a prerequisite for a long-term success of such a transfer.</p>

This study is based upon the double proposition that a transfer of modern management knowledge is an important component of the development assistance given to Third World countries and that this knowledge has a cultural basis that restricts its transferability. The very essence of the cultural basis is thought to consist of culture contingent implicit assumptions about phenomena in the reality. Problems experienced in five cases of transfer of management knowledge are analysed in search for such implicit assumptions questioned. A paradigm comprising fifteen basic assumptions attached to the images of different management relevant phenomena is identified in the analysis carried out. Different corroborating conditions that make experiences from management-inaction corroborate the validity of the basic assumptions are also identified. The recognition of the relationships between basic assumptions and environmental conditions is held to be crucial to the understanding of how and why the cultural basis of modern management knowledge makes its transfer difficult. The identified relationships between basic assumptions and corroborating conditions has implications for two major issues discussed in cross-cultural management research: (i) it supports the convergence hypothesis, and (ii) it can be concluded that the perceived appropriateness of the “modern” delegativeparticipative management style hinges on the “industrialising” of environmental conditions. In addition to the implications for the cross-cultural management discourse, it is found that the perspective developed has implications for the institutionalism approach to management. In particular, it points to the importance of normative messages and collectively shared perceptions as isomorphic forces. It also points to important mechanisms behind institutional variability and change. The relationship between basic assumptions and environmental conditions is central to a strategy for transfer of modern management knowledge that is discussed in the end of the study. The importance of a cognitive transformation is emphasised as a prerequisite for a long-term success of such a transfer.

The purpose of this essay is to examine what power relations are created or allowed by the structures of two very different development aid organizations. One organization is a Peruvian organization called ASDE, that recieves financial support from other organizations with different nationalities. The other is CARE Peru which is a Peruvian department of the international organization CARE International. It has become increasingly important in the global aid business to emphasize a partnership on equal premises and make sure that the donors do not have too much control over the aid given. This ideology does not only apply to the administrative level of aid but can also be applied to the relationship between the organization workers in the project area and the target group participants. The bottom-up structure ideal can be seen both as a goal in itself but also as a means to achieve efficiency and sustainability in the aid given. The two organizations compared are of very different structure, allowing me to examine and compare the power relations that the structures carry within. The empirical data was collected during a three months field study in Peru in the spring semester of 2010. The results of the study show that the two organizations have power relations embedded in the structures over which they in some cases have and in others do not have power. In addition to systems within the global aid business over which the organizations have no power, the power relations between organization employees and target group participants, as well as the level of participation of target group participants, are dependent on the purpose and strategies of the organization. These in turn depend on the structure of the organization. In this way the bigger structures of the organizations affect the level of participation and ownership on a local level. The study shows that it is more probable to achieve an equal relationship between workers and target group being a smaller, locally created organization. However, it also puts light on the difficulties created by global systems of development aid as well as the practical difficulties, when striving towards the ideals of equality, local ownership and participation.

This study is motivated by the needs to critically reflect upon development aid. Foreign aid work has since the 1950s expanded to become a large and complex enterprise, where every country is either an aid donor or aid recipient, or being both. Foreign aid has always been viewed as a moral issue and the benefits have been contested and challenged. There are few voices that are questioning the provision of emergency aid, however, development aid have had its critics since the modern idea was raised of providing aid continuously. The question is whether it could ever produce the desired effect. It has also been criticized because of the way that decisions about who to give it to are influenced by political, strategic and commercial interests of donors. The purpose of this essay was to review the ideas that international aid workers have of development aid. This essay is based on qualitative data, where I have interviewed seven respondents about their experiences of working with international development aid. The empirical data has been interpreted using development theories specifically theories of social capital and human resources, rationality and the ideas of empowerment. The conclusions of this essay shows that it is very complex to talk about any obvious results of development aid, though it all depends on the significance of development. What where noticeable in this essay where that hardly anyone of respondents was committed to national aid work of any kind before they took the assignment. Since they got home, most of the respondents were devoted to national aid work. In order to generate help to self-help, the result shows that essential for development aid is cooperation.

This thesis tries to provide a modest contribution to the critical studies on the history of development by exploring Cold War development practices. It questions the role of these practices in constructing a new regime that was conducive to govern the relationship between the West and the Third World after the Second World War. It suggests that development practices were composed of techniques and rationalities that were designed to solve the urgent problem of governing populations without using sheer force and sovereign power tools where these methods were not practical in the context of decolonization and Cold War. For this kind of inquiry, this thesis takes into account power relations embedded in the development practices and, by utilizing Michel Foucault&rsquo / s theories, perceives these practices as an essential way of disseminating biopolitical methods to the Third World. Role of the development discourse in governing populations is analyzed with relation to the notion of governmentality, which refers to modes of thought and the techniques of accomplishing rule in a discourse. In line with this theoretical framework, the first part of this thesis explores three schools of thought -modernization, dependency and world system- in order to explain the ways of producing thought and knowledge pertaining to development and the involvement of power relations in this process. Additionally, analyzing development aid and development planning which were the techniques to institutionalize development practices in the Third World countries and to render them technical that were managed only by experts without muddling with politics constitute the second part of this thesis .

Poor sanitation is a huge problem in third world countries today; every year 1,5 million children die due to diarrheal diseases caused by poor sanitation. International policies such as The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which will be replaced by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in September 2015, have been set by the international community as tools to decrease the poverty in the world today, and problems that emerged from it such as poor sanitation. Participatory methods are emphasise to receive the goals as well as new working methods to shift the development paradigm from marked oriented towards sustainable development, which means that also the Earth’s well-being must be included in the SDGs. Ecological sanitation (Eco-san) is a system that reuses the human waste back to grooving activities, and can improve the situation in all three areas of sustainable development, i.e. economical, environmental and social development with it’s reusing approach. Participation in implementation of Eco-san system is important for enabling sustainable projects as well as receive better acceptance for the reuse approach. The research presented in this thesis had the aim to improve the sanitation situation by introducing and implementing Eco-san in a rural area in the Northern part of Tanzania by using an action oriented research approach. The participants together with the researcher developed the project to further see the interpretations of Eco-san and possibilities to implement Eco-san in the area as well as if the action research was a convenient way to introduce such a project. The study was conducted in two cycles were critical theory and diffusion of innovation were used as analysis tools for the introduction and implementation of the toilets. The findings from the first cycle showed that the participants were willing to learn about Eco-san by observing the idea through a demonstration toilet. Therefore the second cycle lead to implementation of Eco-san in a school of the area. These toilets are today in use and managed by the students at the school. Participating approach has therefore been a successful working method were the participants gained the knowledge they needed to develop and improve their situation. This can further be argued as a valuable approach for other development projects and to meet the upcoming SDGs. However, further action and education to other village members outside the school and up scaling possibilities in the community are needed.