Tsarist Russia, the USSR and modern Russia have had unique perspectives on Africa and aid, due to geographical location, changing ideologies, non-colonial history with Africa, the Cold War, alternating aid status of recipient and donor, and a historic view of Africa in a tripartite relationship with the West. Western development discourse evolved to produce a large aid apparatus, accompanied by depoliticised discourse on Africa. The USSR’s discourse on Africa was political. Using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), Discourse Historical Approach (DHA) and a postcolonial approach, with a structural analysis of 262 pages of Soviet newspaper Pravda and discourse analysis of 54 articles, this thesis relates findings to the Russian, Soviet and Western contexts in which the discourses arose. It shows that Pravda used Africa and aid as discursive tools to establish the USSR’s position in the international hierarchy, used Africa as a rhetorical proxy, and carried a theme of “freedom as development”. Similarities between Soviet, Russian and Western representations of Africa, development and aid (for example Africa’s low status) were built on different motivations and assumptions, and used different tools. The USSR’s Cold War rhetoric conveyed a partial and incomplete construction of Africa, aid and development. Pravda conveyed assumptions that all countries, including the USSR, are developing, that the USSR and Africa are comparable and in some ways similar, and that freedom is an overriding aspiration. Constructing development as natural, Pravda constructed a weak link between development and aid, and in general Pravda presented aid as harmful Western aid. Russia’s legacy is an ideology in which Africa is still eternally “developing” but shares this activity with all countries, Africa is weak and yet is Russia’s friend and ally, competition continues between Russia and the West over Africa’s friendship, and aid has mainly humanitarian rather than development value. Socialist ideological discourse of equal nations remains in today’s Communist Pravda. This thesis explores the evolution of perceptions in Soviet Pravda discourse, and makes a substantive analytical contribution to the literatures on development and aid, Russian foreign policy and international relations, and postcolonialism. It increases knowledge of Cold War Africa, and the USSR’s and Russia’s self-perceptions and attitudes towards others. Russia’s status as a non-Western donor and recent aid recipient make its legacy and attitudes of particular interest.

There is ample debate around the conceptualizations of rural development as well as its implementation and impacts. Contemporary understandings underline the importance of social movements in social change, which has become a fundamental part of development. The Rural Development Tuki Association (RDTA) is such a social movement from Dolakha district in Nepal that originated within a Swiss-funded development project in the 1970s. The organization was a prime actor in social change and influenced the development of the villages in their district. There is a lack of applied research focusing on the history, evolution and context of social movements.The junction between social movement studies and organizational theory originated the theory of ‘strategic action fields’ that is used to analyze and understand the dynamics that underlie the emergence, stabilization and contestation of movements and organizations. The findings that are to inform this framework were collected during a field visit to Dolakha district through six informal gatekeeper-selected interviews and the analysis of documents provided by the organization itself. All this data was analyzed through content analysis and complemented by an extensive literature review on rural development, rural advisory services and Nepal’s political history to better understand the wider context within which the actions retold by members or related individuals took place.The RDTA originated as a novel approach to delivery of rural development services to village communities aiming to increase their self-reliance and agency in development. The ‘Tuki’ were selected members of village communities that received training and were then to share the newly acquired expertise with their peers like an expert-farmer or farmer-to-farmer extension system would. At first the villages struggled to accept the new authority and governance at the time made it impossible for the Tuki to formally organize. There was considerable conflict between Panchayat officials and Tuki members. Towards the end of the Panchayat the Tuki became respected members of village communities and started to increase their influence on local politics as well as widen their network within the district. This enabled the organization to claim and maintain a dominant position within rural development in Dolakha from its official registration in 1991 until the end of the direct financial support from the Swiss Agency of Development and Cooperation (SDC) in 2004. The support from Switzerland had significantly influenced the Tuki’s focus, ideals and organizational structure and the work done by SDC was a progressive reflection of the rural development discourse that was predominant at the time. The organization was able to stabilize after its funding crisis around 2004 but was never able to return to previous stability and activity. The ability to identify community needs, create collective identities and mobilize individuals to engage in action frames that aim for the common good where the main forms of social skill that enabled the RDTA to reach the network and impact it did and maintain its activity throughout different political scenarios that threatened the organizations ability to continue its action. The RDTA is facing challenges of identity, funding and staff-turnover and will need to reengage in debates around its focus and organizational structure if it is to continue its legacy in Dolakha.Social movements and civil society actors played a crucial role in the development of Nepal’s rural areas and its evolution towards a democratic, egalitarian and inclusive society. More research is needed to better understand the impact the RDTA has had on village life and how national and international discourses on rural development have informed and influenced their activities and frameworks. The theory of ‘strategic action fields’ provided an excellent framework that was crucial at analyzing the dynamics that govern the emergence, stabilization and contestation of strategic action and its broader environment.

Les projets d’aide internationale au développement sont extrêmement divers. Ils visent des objectifs multiples, prennent des formes variées, atteignent des dimensions très différentes et se déroulent dans des contextes très contrastés. Cette extraordinaire diversité suscite un discours méthodologique extrêmement normatif. En effet, concernant l’évaluation de la performance des projets, un seul dispositif est conçu dès le démarrage des projets et de façon invariante pour toute la durée de l’action. Les outils et les techniques de ces dispositifs sont censés collecter et traiter un grand nombre d’indicateurs également identifiés dès la création des projets à partir du « cadre logique ». Ces outils et techniques sont conçus par des instances éloignées du terrain, et redevables à l’égard de bailleurs de fonds. Dans la réalité, on constate cependant que même les projets dotés de moyens conséquents peinent à maîtriser le processus d’évaluation de la performance. Rares sont les praticiens qui réussissent à mener de bout en bout une évaluation de la performance. Plus rares encore sont les projets dont les comités de pilotages utilisent réellement les données issues de tels dispositifs d’évaluation pour éclairer leur décision. Pourtant, les évaluations de la performance sont systématiquement réalisées au sein de chaque projet d’aide internationale au développement. Cette thèse se propose d’expliquer les raisons d’un tel paradoxe. / International development assistance projects are extremely various. They have multiple objectives, take various forms and take place in contrasted contexts. This diversity causes a normative methodological discourse. Indeed, concerning the project’s performance evaluation, a single and unchangeable management tools is designed from the start to the end of project.This management tools is supposed to collect and process a large number of indicators also designed at the beginning, according to the project « logical framework ». Tools conceives far away from the project and accountable to the donors. In reality, it can be seen that even projects with substantial resources struggle to master the process of evaluating performance. Few practitioners are successful in leading an evaluation of performance. Even few are the projects whose committee leaders use, for making decision, data from such evaluation. However, performance evaluation are systematically carried out within each international development aid project. This research proposes to explain the reasons of such paradox.

The thesis analyzes the role of NGOs in the field of international development assistance, mainly analyzes the structure of funding and links with the expenditures of the state budget. Total expenditures on official development assistance are set into the structure of the state budget, revenues are quantified in selected non-profit organizations and their structure is outlined. The thesis also covers legislative changes introduced by the new Civil Code. There are used analytical, comparative and descriptive methods by which the author comes to the conclusion that the form of projects implemented by non-profit organizations can be influenced by the Concept of development assistance and subsidies which can be obtained from the state.

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