This research is in response to the current debate on aid in Australia. The debate focuses on the volume of money allocated to aid rather than the impact. While Australian aid is still far from the UN commitment of 0.7 per cent of gross national income, this focus has kept public debate superficial and has deflected attention away from the more important discussion: is aid achieving outcomes and impacting positively in areas identified by developing countries as essential for their sustainable development. / The release of the first Annual Review of Development Effectiveness provided the impetus to investigate whether the newly formed Office of Development Effectiveness (ODE) will introduce changes that will improve Australia’s approach to aid. Framed within national interest, development and aid literature, this research analyses what limitations, if any, there are to reform of aid policies and practices in Australia. / The thesis concludes that the potential for the ODE to significantly improve the effectiveness of Australia aid is limited. It is one of many voices – including the powerful national interest agenda furthered by foreign policymakers – shaping Australian aid policy and practice. However, the furthering of Australian national interest – narrowly defined as security and economic considerations – through the aid program is at the expense of poverty alleviation objectives. This negatively affects how the development ‘problem’ is framed and thus the focus of aid policy. Furthermore, efforts to prioritise national interest considerations undermine the adoption of ‘good’ practice essential for sustainable development. / This is a political reality that is unlikely to change. Thus, the role of the ODE is to provide recommendations within this restricted framework. However, it is only through scrutiny, discussion and debate that the discrepancy between ‘good development’ in theory and in practice can be narrowed. This should also be the role of the ODE.

No description available.

In this thesis, I critically analyse power relations between donors and the government of Malawi (GoM) under the new aid architecture and argue that this new configuration represents a shift away from domination, with donors attempting to impose policies, and towards more subtle interactions, through which donors seek to transform the GoM into a self-disciplined, entrepreneurial, neoliberal subject by shaping its aspirations and promoting specific norms of conduct, ‘truths’ and policy-related techniques. The research focuses on funding for AIDS and draws on forty interviews with representatives from the GoM, donors and civil society, conducted in Malawi 2008, as well as discursive analysis of secondary sources. I use Foucault’s concept of governmentality, a form of productive power focused on the care of the population and working through individuals’ subjectivities, and extend it to the relation between donors and the GoM. I show that the agency of the GoM is both elicited by the principle of country ownership, and re-worked through the increased involvement of donors in the policy sphere. I explore how these interactions are legitimised by a discourse that presents donors and the GoM as equals, while casting the GoM as technically deficient and requiring donors’ intervention. I analyse how donors instrumentalise dialogue with the GoM to instil an ethos of self-responsibility.I also investigate how AIDS funding has been made reliant on public financial management reforms, which re-code social domains according to an economic logic, by subordinating government activities to macroeconomic imperatives and creating new undemocratic accountabilities based on market rationalities. I argue that by restructuring the GoM according to this neoliberal rationality, the new aid architecture has programmatic effects, allowing donors to rule at a distance. I also examine avenues for resistance, particularly the potential residing in the intrinsic contradictions of this rationality.

<p> </p><p>Program utvärderingar utgör till stor del grunden till det formella lärandet inom Sida (Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency). Utvärderingars syfte är att bistå med kunskap och Utvärderingar ska garantera att insatser är baserade på god förståelse om verkligheten i mottagarländerna. Genom att gynna organisatoriskt lärande förmodas utvärderingar bidra till biståndets effektivitet (Stefan Molund, 2004).</p><p> </p><p>Teorier om den lärande organisationen hävdar att organisationers fall beror på medlemmars tendens att förenkla och misstolka verkligheten. Medvetet eller omedvetet leder detta till att organisationens vision försvagas, medlemmars engagemang försvagas och den verklighet man sökt att förändra förblir den samma (Peter M. Senge, 1994).</p><p> </p><p>Genom att bistå sektorer som hälsa, utbildning och demokrati mm. har det svenska biståndet präglats av en objektiv eller positivistisk syn på verkligheten i utvecklingsländer. Insatser inom hälsa leder onekligen till effektivitet i fattigdomsbekämpningen.</p><p> </p><p>Min uppsats visar hur Sidas strävan efter objektivitet löper risken att försvaga organisationens vision. I de fattigaste och mest socialt komplexa utvecklingsländerna finns inte förutsättningarna[1] för objektiv utvärdering, och resultaten av en utvärdering blir ofta öppna för olika tolkningar. Trots att utvärderingarna skildrar en sann bild av verkligheten så leder detta till frustration hos handläggare. Resultatet blir att utvärderingar görs av program som handläggarna redan har god kunskap om. Mitt resultat visar att denna trend successivt försvagar Sidas vision då insatser ämnade åt att öka effektiviteten i biståndet allokeras från de ”fattigaste länderna” till länder som kommit längre i utvecklingsprocessen.</p><p>[1] De “fattigaste” utvecklingsländerna saknar de institutioner för datainsamling som krävs för objektiv utvärdering. Att skapa förutsättningarna för den kostnadseffektiva objektiva utvärderingen i utvecklingsländer är ett utvecklingsmål som vilket annat som ingår i den övergripande fattigdomsbekämpningen.</p><p> </p> / Presentation har ägt rum

This thesis deals with the assessment of the effectiveness of selected bilateral projects of Czech official development assistance. Main purpose is to assess how well were the projects prepared and what were their results and eventual impacts. On the basis of aid effectiveness literature and manuals and handbooks for project management some main recommended principles and components of the ideal project design were specified. These principles and components were confronted with the reality of selected Czech development projects, the way these projects were design and with results they brought. These information were gathered by undertaking an own survey among projects leaders and through analysis of existing evaluation reports. In general, the design of considered projects has not been found sufficiently coherent with the recommended principles. Projects' results have not been as good as was expected. Although many of the considered principles had already been well known a long time before the evaluated projects were implemented, it has to be noted that there were no common standards formally declared in the Czechia in the time when these projects were formulated and implemented. Key words: development cooperation, aid effectiveness, project cycle management, Czechia

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

This dissertation explores the extent to which transnational policies can change the international development bureaucracy. Over the last decade, significant resources were invested to integrate aid effectiveness policies into the global network of donor organizations and recipient governments in an effort to improve aid delivery. These policies adhere to five principles: ownership, alignment, harmonization, managing for results, and mutual accountability. They are organized around the principle of ownership, according to which control over the development process is transferred from donor partners to recipient countries. While seemingly straightforward, underneath the perceived consensus are layers of ambiguous terminology, assorted interpretations and competing discourses that influence the policies—often dissipating the potential for transformation. This case study takes a multi-scalar approach in examining how aid effectiveness principles emerged as a transnational discourse and were embraced in Canada and Tanzania. The methods include a focus group, a policy review, qualitative observations, and interviews with practitioners from government, multilateral and civil society organizations in Canada and Tanzania. The analysis employs a reading of governmentality that focuses on the link between the microphysics of power embedded in day-to-day operations and the emergence of larger societal or discursive regimes. The dissertation found that aid effectiveness policies were repeatedly modified as they moved through the international development bureaucracy, effectively subduing significant changes in the recipient government-donor partner relationship. In Canada, aid effectiveness policies were incorporated into an already weak policy framework, which resulted in a truncated version that emphasizes accountability and managing for results. This restricted how the field staff negotiated with other donor partners and the Government of Tanzania. In Tanzania, the emphasis was on the principles of harmonization, alignment, and ownership, which generated a high level of organizational change with only minimal adjustments in terms of control over the development process. This case study found that policy modifications occurred on a daily basis as bureaucrats negotiated implementation strategies, various interpretations, and underlying discourses. This process amplified the technical aspects and subdued the transformational aspects of aid effectiveness policy. The dissertation concludes with a brief discussion of possible ways to overcome this quandary.

Improvement in information sharing and communication about the foreign aid resources between the donors and the aid-recipient countries have always been considered very important. In recent years, the integration of advanced technology in the area of aid coordination has received a tremendous amount of attention. The following thesis studies the influence of technology in the area aid coordination within the context of Afghanistan. Guided by the Actor-Network Theory, the thesis examines how the social and technological aspects of the Development Assistance Database (DAD), as an advanced aid information management technology, influences aid coordination and information sharing between the donors and the government of Afghanistan. Using a case study methodology, the research also investigates whether or not the DAD adheres to the principles of aid effectiveness. The findings reveal that although technology had a profound impact in the area of aid management in Afghanistan, there are several areas that still face challenges. The present study highlights these challenges and recommends the appropriate solutions.

New Zealand’s aid programme reflects many of the controversies surrounding foreign aid more generally. From issues relating to the influence of political considerations and the administration and evaluation of aid agencies, to the fragmentation of the global aid system and the volatility of aid, these issues compromise the efficacy of aid provided to developing countries. This paper analyses the evolution of New Zealand’s aid programme and critiques its current policy and administrative structure in the context of these current controversies, in order to highlight the ways in which New Zealand’s aid can be delivered more effectively. The paper concludes, among other things, that New Zealand’s change in focus to economic development, its close alignment of aid policy with foreign policy and the re-absorption of its semi-autonomous aid agency NZAID back into its Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade risks compromising the effectiveness of the aid that New Zealand provides.

New Zealand’s aid programme reflects many of the controversies surrounding foreign aid more generally. From issues relating to the influence of political considerations and the administration and evaluation of aid agencies, to the fragmentation of the global aid system and the volatility of aid, these issues compromise the efficacy of aid provided to developing countries. This paper analyses the evolution of New Zealand’s aid programme and critiques its current policy and administrative structure in the context of these current controversies, in order to highlight the ways in which New Zealand’s aid can be delivered more effectively. The paper concludes, among other things, that New Zealand’s change in focus to economic development, its close alignment of aid policy with foreign policy and the re-absorption of its semi-autonomous aid agency NZAID back into its Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade risks compromising the effectiveness of the aid that New Zealand provides.