Wide debates over the last 15 years have questioned the impact of global initiatives like the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness 2005 and more recently the Grand Bargain 2017 on any real improvements to the development effectiveness agenda. Many also ask to what extent do the initiatives consider the concerns and views of practitioners as stakeholders who implement the objectives and who have valuable experience, contextual insights, specific skill-sets and innovative ideas on how to address complex problems (Sjöstedt 2013). The breadth of literature surrounding the initiatives seems to reflect this, collectively calling for improvements in four common theme areas; greater collaboration, partnership and coordination between actors; instilled mutual accountability and shared responsibility; simplified administrative requirements for implementers; and greater participation and inclusion of stakeholder voices throughout processes. Questions that ask ‘who are the actors and decision-makers?’, and ‘who ought they be?’ can highlight gaps between an ideal situation and the reality, and is characteristic of a Critical Systems Heuristics (CSH) approach to analysing sources of influence in a typical system, or in this case, global initiative. Therefore, this paper analyses the voices of aid and development practitioners who are actively working in the sector, and compares their responses to the four themes from the literature. The research was conducted over three (3) months from May to July 2018 and interviewed nineteen (19) participants from a wide variety of development and humanitarian backgrounds and levels. The main findings of the research are summed as follows: Definitions of ‘effectiveness’ vary and depend on underlying political influences  Global initiatives like the Paris Declaration and Grand Bargain have had minimal visible impact on changing systems at the implementation level The role of global initiatives is however still important as forums for promoting discussion, defining boundaries and unifying debates Power imbalances and hierarchies within the development sector are structurally embedded and addressing this is crucial to improving effectiveness Real improvements to the effectiveness agenda require both innovative, participative and evidence-based learning, and systems to accept and address the concerns of implementers

The aim of this thesis is to explore the localisation agenda in humanitarian aid put forward during the 2016 Grand Bargain. The thesis aims to prove that localisation remains a high level concept with little effective implementation in humanitarian contexts. The concepts of “the local”, decoloniality and localisation provide a theoretical framework for the analysis, while the theories of power and dependency are used to analyse the results of the research.  In order to show that localisation has not been highly effective at the local level, this thesis compares the contexts of Haiti and Bangladesh to the 2016 Grand Bargain commitments and the fifth annual report on the progress of the Grand Bargain. A comparative case study was conducted using desk research to analyse the available data on each Grand Bargain commitment. This research suggests that there has been mixed success in implementing the Grand Bargain commitments in Haiti and Bangladesh. Some commitments, such as increasing the use of cash and joint assessments, have been successful in both contexts, and are consistent with the reported progress by IASC. Several commitments, such as shifting power to affected communities and increasing funding to local and national humanitarian organizations, have seen little progress in either Haiti or Bangladesh. The findings are largely in line with the fifth annual report on the progress of the Grand Bargain commissioned by IASC. Despite this seeming progress on the Grand Bargain commitments, this thesis also explores how the international sphere — including INGOs and donors — have shaped the localisation agenda to be more palatable to the stakeholders who have to give up funding and power to empower local actors.

What are appropriate and relevant ways for collaboration and coordination between the three sections of aid work, humanitarian, development, and peace? This question has been topical for the aid community for decades when working in places where all three entities are present (Guinote, 2019). It is sometimes rejected, neglected but some times it is also considered and pursued (Hövelmann, 2020). This study aims to assess and analyze the arguments and breeding grounds for the triple nexus approached work in the DRC, the dynamics of promoting and receiving directions in a headquarters-field office relation exploring the challenges and opportunities between the three sections of HDP. Assessments have been done through conducting interviews remotely with people working on-site in the DRC at national or local offices and headquarters in Sweden and Central Europe. By interviewing eleven people with experience from all three HDP sectors, where a few people come from the donor sector, the goal has been to provide a broad picture of the aid community's perspective. This study's findings and inferences are related to funding structures where a more flexible funding system is requested. There are local involvement findings where signs through this study indicate local initiatives have been implementing the nexus approach for years. In environments such as presented in this study, of interrelating groups of people with differences in working culture, there are also challenges of clashing organizational principles, hegemonic approaches, and the ever topical issue of clear and relevant communication presented in the thesis. Through this assessment, power structures are pertinent to analyze to understand how the triple nexus approach can be further implemented. The agency theory will, in this study, be used as an eyeglass to assess these power relations.

International trade ties the world together and is hypothetically fair and equal. In reality, it is highly asymmetrical and poses a significant challenge for developing countries. A massive sea change occurred in the international trade regime during the Uruguay Round of negotiations of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) from 1986 to 1994. Developing countries as a whole began to embrace liberal trade policies which seemed to be the only alternative to failing import substitution industrialization (ISI). An historical comparative account describing and explaining this transformation of developing countries’ attitudes toward the GATT is used in this dissertation to provide an alternative explanation for the transition of developing countries from having little interest in the Uruguay Round of GATT negotiations to sharply changing course and adopting neo-liberal policies which supported the conclusion of the Round. Three theoretical approaches seek to explain why this change occurred, including: liberal trade theory (economic reforms), dependency theory (external forces) and constructivism (the role epistemic communities). The Uruguay Round negotiations were dynamic and heavily influenced by two power-house developing economies, India and Brazil, who were initially opposed to the Round itself. Kenya found itself in a starkly different situation with minimal ability to participate or influence negotiations. These three countries constitute the study’s illustrative case studies. As negotiations progressed, India and Brazil changed course and agreed to the Round’s ‘single-undertaking’ and the ‘inequitable Grand Bargain’ between the developed and developing economies. This subsequently led to other developing countries following suit through a powerful demonstration effect in a trade-off between the inclusion of trade in services and intellectual property for reforms in agriculture and textiles & clothing. While economic reforms began to occur and attitudes began to change during the Uruguay Round itself, assessing developing countries during the Round found that no single theoretical approach can explain developing countries’ transformation; rather each had their own trajectory for their economic reforms. A multi-dimensional conclusion provides the most comprehensive account of this transformation of the global trade regime.