Most studies on Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan have focused on foreign perspectives thus giving little attention to the perspective of local Afghans to understand its aftermath and consequences. Based on empirical work and information drawn from semi-structured interviews with experts who have worked with military and civilian development agencies as well as government liaison officers, this study explores the intended and unintended outcomes of PRTs across the country. The findings were interpreted with the help of a theoretical framework based on PRT objectives such as security implementation, reconstruction, and development as well as extending the authority of central government and building local institutions. The findings show that there were various factors ignored which impacted the success of the Afghan state-building operation. The lack of local knowledge regarding political, cultural, and religious aspects, relying on warlords, putting the local institutions in wrong hands, lack of local consent, inadequate and unprofessional disbursement of development aid, putting the military in charge of everything, undermining the human development aspects as well as the long-term presence of foreign militaries in the country were some of the major factors which lead the PRTs to have unsuccessful and counterproductive outcomes. In addition, the aid disbursed by the military has not only diverted the military from its main task but also led to a high level of corruption, high expenditure, lowest possible quality, risking the safety of civilians, NGOs as well as development in the country. Furthermore, the discussion and analysis of the findings show that the use of the military might have played a much greater role in the failure of the overall state-building campaign as the role of diplomatic and development agencies was undermined.

The aim of this thesis called 'Problems and perspectives of development aid: donors and developing countries' are main questions of development aid in general. Basic ideas of the whole concept are defined in the first chapter. The history of development aid and international theories' perspectives of development aid are mentioned here. The second chapter consists of classifications and characteristics of developing countries together with their capacities for integration. The donors are presented in the third chapter. The main part of the thesis is the fourth chapter in which the problems of development aid are analysed on the grounds of contemporary field literature. At the beginning of the fourth chapter the qualitative problems of development aid are analysed together with the donors' motivations for its distribution. The best possible form of development aid is discussed later on - whether it is better to provide developing countries with loans or non-repayable grants. Moreover, the coordination problems within the development aid are discussed as well as possible alternatives to development aid - such as trade. The thesis pays also attention to negative consequences of development aid. Possible solutions to the problems mentioned are sketched within each sub-chapter.

In an analysis of the development of the Czech foreign aid policy, I use the advocacy coalition framework (ACF) to examine what policy change towards aid effectiveness has occurred from the mid-1990's to the present. Using this explanatory framework, I suggest that the changes towards aid effectiveness, which have occurred during this period, are minor rather than major ones. I argue that during this time the Czech foreign aid policy has been dominated by a belief system of the majority coalition that represents a realistic approach to foreign aid policy based on self-interested interests such as mutual interests, commercial motives or political and strategic interests. By the application of the ACF, I attempt to explain the policy process and the reasons why a major policy change has not occurred. In this analysis, I argue that in spite of the processes external to the policy subsystem (e.g. the occurrence of aid effectiveness movement), the minority coalition, whose belief system is mainly represented by altruistic motives and the support for increasing aid effectiveness, has not had enough policy-relevant resources to press for a major policy change. I argue that the conflict between the coalitions is driven by normative beliefs and that it is more likely that there will be incremental policy...

Democracy assistance aims to encourage democratization process or solidify already existing democratic system in a foreign country. The strategy that should accomplish such goal differs according to donor country. Similarly, there are differences between Czech and American democracy assistance approaches. Diploma thesis Czech and American democracy assistance: the case study of Myanmar examines contrasts between Czech and American democracy promotion in Myanmar within the period of major political changes. The Asian country underwent transformation starting in 2011 when military junta passed several reforms, opened up a dialog with political opposition and arranged partly free parliamentary elections in 2015. The thesis focuses on Czech and American assistance and its evolution from the prerevolution period starting in 2007, through the peak of reform changes, up to NLD winning the majority of parliamentary seats and their governance in 2018. Czech democracy assistance appears to be characterized by their focus on civil society activization and bottom-up approach. On the contrary, the United States stress more than Czech assistance projects marked with political approach, thus securing free and fair election processes and other functioning democratic institutions. The case study of Myanmar and...

Power as a concept has a long history of being debated in regards to foreign policy, whereforeign aid as a tool can create asymmetrical power dynamics between donor and recipient.Traditional donors' own national interests have frequently been reduced to security oreconomic motives. China, an independent and emerging donor, is thought to be among themajor donors of foreign aid today. With the growing Belt and Road Initiative, China's globaleconomic ambition is increasing. The general theme of this study is power in relation toforeign aid. The aim is to examine donor motives and how foreign aid can transitioneconomic power to political influence in accordance with Joseph Nye’s theory of power. Inaddition, could China's aid-project be regarded as a “smart power”-strategy? This was doneby examining China’s whitebook on development cooperation through a motive analysis. Inaddition, a method of process-tracing on the case of Chinese aid to Cambodia wasimplemented to examine how China’s foreign aid can manifest as a means of power.Cambodia is a top receiver of Chinese aid, and therefore interesting to explore. The resultsshowed that China’s donor motives can be summarised as security, global development andambition, cooperation, commercial and diplomatic interests. Furthermore, evidence was foundthat Chinese foreign aid can be considered a means of power in Cambodia. Largely becauseof an asymmetrical bilateral relationship as well as Cambodia’s weak state capacity.

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Foreign aid is publicly motivated by a moral obligation to help the poor and develop underdeveloped countries. Donors have invested more than US$2.3 trillion in foreign aid, but despite this significant investment, 3 billion people are still living on less than $2 a day, 840 million are hungry, 10 million children die from preventable disease, and 1 billion adults are illiterate. This study focuses on the impact of foreign aid on economic growth and development of underdeveloped countries. It was found that many variables influence growth and development and that cross-country regression analysis is an inappropriate method to measure the effectiveness of aid. The methodology is too generalist, and treats foreign aid as a homogenous entity that works equally in all countries in all types of environment and across all times. There is an urgent need to develop a new methodology for measuring the effectiveness of foreign aid. / Development Studies / M. A. (Development Studies)

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-29T13:48:35Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Juliano Akira de Souza Aragusuku.pdf: 1165422 bytes, checksum: 64ca26eb0f96f14e7ecb53dee11d631d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-03-11 / Fundação de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo / Japan is one of the main actors at the International System, with expressive capacity in the economic dimension and low expression in the strategic and political dimensions. Thus, Japan emphasized its performance in the international scene through the economic way, being distinguished, until the present moment, as one of the main actors in the international cooperation for development disbursing Official Assistance for Development (ODA). However, it would be ingenuous to assume that the supply of assistance to the developing countries occurs in reason of altruistic positions. Therefore, the objective is to analyze how the ODA is inserted in the context of the Japanese foreign policy. Initially we will evaluate the theoretical explanations developed in the field of the International Relations on the developed countries‟ aid disburses, emphasizing the case of Japan. Thus, we will seek to identify the motivations that support the Japanese ODA, using an empirical research. It is intended, finally, the comprehension about the Japanese uses of ODA to promote its interests, marking its position in the game of the international relations / O Japão é um dos principais atores do Sistema Internacional, com expressiva capacidade na dimensão econômica e baixa expressão nas dimensões política e estratégica. Destarte, o Japão enfatizou sua atuação no cenário internacional por meio da via econômica, destacando-se, até o presente momento, como um dos principais atores na cooperação internacional para o desenvolvimento por intermédio dos mecanismos de Assistência Oficial para o Desenvolvimento (ODA). No entanto, seria ingênuo supor que o fornecimento de assistência aos países em desenvolvimento ocorre em razão de posturas altruístas. Dessa forma, o objetivo deste trabalho consiste em analisar como a ODA se insere no contexto da política externa japonesa no período de 2003 a 2008. Inicialmente serão avaliadas as explicações teóricas desenvolvidas no campo das Relações Internacionais para o fornecimento de ajuda por parte de países desenvolvidos, dando-se ênfase ao caso do Japão. Em seguida, procurar-se-á identificar as motivações que sustentam a oferta de ODA por parte do Japão, tomando por base uma pesquisa empírica. Pretende-se, por fim, o entendimento de como o Japão utiliza a ODA para promover seus interesses e/ou marcar suas posições no jogo das relações internacionais

Poor loan repayment causes the decline and failure of some microfinance institutions. The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore strategies that microfinance (MFI) leaders use to reduce loan default in the base of the pyramid market. The study population included 6 MFI leaders, 12 borrower community-based groups, and 4 staff members of the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA Rwanda) who reduced MFI loan default in Rwanda. Data were collected through semistructured interviews with 3 MFI leaders, 3 ADRA Rwanda staff members, and 3 members of borrower groups. Data were also collected through focus groups with 3 borrower community-based groups comprising 6 to 8 members. Additional data were collected through the analysis of MFI and ADRA Rwanda organizational documents. The Varian group lending model was the conceptual framework for the study. Data analysis involved methodological triangulation and the Gadamerian hermeneutics framework of interpretation. Four major themes emerged: intrapreneurship and environmental business opportunities, favorable loan repayment conditions, strategies for choosing borrower groups, and loan use monitoring. A sustainable microfinance institution can produce social change by providing microfinance loans that clients can use to start and grow microenterprises that can become the source of income for improving the lives of clients and their family members. Findings may also be used to create economic growth through the participation of more people in economic activities in the base of the pyramid market.

This work seeks to understand the demands of the security sector in Latin America and Caribbean (LAC), in the context of reforms promoted by international aid agencies in the region. The initial hypothesis of this study is that international aid programs focused on Security Sector Reform (SSR) in the region have been generic, and have overlooked recipient countries\' own reform agendas. LAC perspectives on SSR have been inferred from documents of the Organization of American States (OAS), UNASUR, MERCOSUR, CARICOM and Andean Community documents. Information on international assistance for SSR programs was gathered from the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) database for the years 2004-2014. The analysis shows that assistance programs are not generic and that the profile of projects, resources allocated and countries targeted differ greatly according to donors. However, international offer does not account for the whole set of demands and some expensive programs funded by international assistance are not even mentioned in local agendas, what suggests that SSR aid responds to funder\'s guidelines rather than to local needs. The study also reveals differences in programs funded by bilateral and multilateral aid agencies in the region, showing that, in general, programs funded by multilateral agencies are more attentive to local needs than those promoted by bilateral agencies, which are less demand-driven and more guided by donor interests. / Este trabalho busca entender as demandas do setor de segurança na América Latina e Caribe (ALC), no contexto das reformas promovidas pelas agências internacionais de cooperação para o desenvolvimento na região. A hipótese inicial deste estudo é que os programas de assistência internacional voltados à Reforma do Setor de Segurança (RSS) na região são genéricos e negligenciam as agendas de reforma dos países receptores. As perspectivas da ALC sobre RSS foram inferidas a partir de documentos da OEA, UNASUL, MERCOSUL, CARICOM e Comunidade Andina. Informações sobre assistência internacional para programas de RSS na região foram coletadas da base de dados do Comitê de Assistência ao Desenvolvimento (CAD) da OCDE para o período 2004-2014. A análise mostra que os programas de assistência não são genéricos e que o perfil dos projetos, recursos alocados e países alvo diferem muito de acordo com os doadores. No entanto, a oferta internacional não contempla o conjunto de demandas locais e alguns programas dispendiosos financiados pela comunidade de doadores sequer são mencionados nas agendas regionais, o que sugere que a assistência para programas de RSS responde às diretrizes do financiador e não às necessidades locais. O estudo também revela diferenças entre programas financiados por agências de ajuda bilateral e multilateral na região, mostrando que, em geral, programas financiados por agências multilaterais têm maior aderência às necessidades locais do que aqueles promovidos por agências bilaterais, que são menos orientadas pela demanda e mais guiada pelos interesses dos doadores.