Foreign aid project exit strategies that contribute to sustainable development have been rarely considered throughout the history of development studies and practice. The philosophical underpinnings of early development were based on economic theories. Over the years initiatives have manifested themselves by investments through international aid projects. As aid projects are donor-driven, most exit strategy planning involves closing down a project without turning it over to another organization to continue implementation. This means that aid benefits end with whatever impact the project has made, leaving ill-equipped local ministries or under-resourced NGOs to meet local development needs and fill the gap of terminated services. The project cycle—a popular development tool used by multinational and bilateral organizations alike—provides a framework to induce development, but makes no accommodation for an exit strategy that perpetuates development. This is a missed opportunity that reveals a flaw in the project cycle. This flaw can be corrected by revising the project cycle implementation stage to include building the capacity of people to perform the functions the project was designed for, as well as a local implementing entity through which they can work. Once accomplished, a sponsor can transfer project activities and resources to the local implementing entity though a phase-over process to extend development post-project for ongoing impact. / The aim of this thesis is to promote a greater understanding of exit strategies and analyze an aspect of project management essential to all foreign aid projects since every project must eventually end its interventions upon completion of its goals or within prescribed financial and time constraints. What are the conditions necessary to complete a foreign aid project phase-over to a local institution successfully? How can in-country local project staff contribute to institution-building before, during, and after a phase-over? What are the appropriate ways to measure the success of a phase-over? / This thesis examines the concept of exit strategy within the context of a case study of the United States Department of Agriculture’s Marketing Assistance Project (USDA-MAP) in Armenia (1995-2005) and the innovative phase-over approach it used to establish the Center for Agribusiness & Rural Development (CARD). To do this, the writings of Levinger & McLeod (2002), Gardner et al. (2005), and Esman (1972) are drawn upon to analyze this case. The actions taken by the USDA illustrate how an emphasis on internal local project staff, over external technical interventions, furthers development. The USDA’s exit strategy incorporated collective participation, empowered local stakeholders, promoted development ownership through localization, and built individual and institutional capacity. The resulting organization that was created is evidence of a successful phase-over and an innovative institution. This phase-over model offers a paradigm that embraces and promotes social/human assets within aid projects for sustainable development, and in so doing has ramifications for policy makers, project designers, and development practitioners to rethink conventional development practices.

Foreign aid project exit strategies that contribute to sustainable development have been rarely considered throughout the history of development studies and practice. The philosophical underpinnings of early development were based on economic theories. Over the years initiatives have manifested themselves by investments through international aid projects. As aid projects are donor-driven, most exit strategy planning involves closing down a project without turning it over to another organization to continue implementation. This means that aid benefits end with whatever impact the project has made, leaving ill-equipped local ministries or under-resourced NGOs to meet local development needs and fill the gap of terminated services. The project cycle—a popular development tool used by multinational and bilateral organizations alike—provides a framework to induce development, but makes no accommodation for an exit strategy that perpetuates development. This is a missed opportunity that reveals a flaw in the project cycle. This flaw can be corrected by revising the project cycle implementation stage to include building the capacity of people to perform the functions the project was designed for, as well as a local implementing entity through which they can work. Once accomplished, a sponsor can transfer project activities and resources to the local implementing entity though a phase-over process to extend development post-project for ongoing impact. / The aim of this thesis is to promote a greater understanding of exit strategies and analyze an aspect of project management essential to all foreign aid projects since every project must eventually end its interventions upon completion of its goals or within prescribed financial and time constraints. What are the conditions necessary to complete a foreign aid project phase-over to a local institution successfully? How can in-country local project staff contribute to institution-building before, during, and after a phase-over? What are the appropriate ways to measure the success of a phase-over? / This thesis examines the concept of exit strategy within the context of a case study of the United States Department of Agriculture’s Marketing Assistance Project (USDA-MAP) in Armenia (1995-2005) and the innovative phase-over approach it used to establish the Center for Agribusiness & Rural Development (CARD). To do this, the writings of Levinger & McLeod (2002), Gardner et al. (2005), and Esman (1972) are drawn upon to analyze this case. The actions taken by the USDA illustrate how an emphasis on internal local project staff, over external technical interventions, furthers development. The USDA’s exit strategy incorporated collective participation, empowered local stakeholders, promoted development ownership through localization, and built individual and institutional capacity. The resulting organization that was created is evidence of a successful phase-over and an innovative institution. This phase-over model offers a paradigm that embraces and promotes social/human assets within aid projects for sustainable development, and in so doing has ramifications for policy makers, project designers, and development practitioners to rethink conventional development practices.

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)

發展援助議題一直是國際社會相當重要的議題，臺灣在面臨外交困境之際，仍致力於從事國際援助。然而，國際新興援助國的興起，加上發展中國家的轉變，對外援助趨勢逐漸朝向以受援國為主要核心價值的發展。近年來，緬甸逐漸對外開放，不但成為國際發展合作的新焦點，亦成為臺灣接觸的對象。本研究歸納整理國際發展援助的趨勢，並以緬甸為案例，利用文獻分析與深度訪談來分析當代援助模式。此外，為使本研究更具全球意義，將其他國家與國際組織對緬甸的發展合作策略納入分析，探討目前新興國家與緬甸的發展合作模式，並指出目前我國所面臨的援助有效性問題。 在全球化下的今日，僅是透過援助難以使一國持續向上發展，唯有結合投資才能促進發展。研究結果發現，相對於私部門因我國公部門受國際政治限制，使得援助效益不如預期。為此，本研究認為若能利用官方對外援助鼓勵我國私人企業對外投資，不僅能提升政府援助效率，亦可強化我國與受援國之經濟，進而帶動其他發展，對於我國與東南亞國家而言，為雙贏局面。 / Even under diplomatic plight, Taiwan, for long, has been committed to development assistance due to its importance to international community. During the past decade, with the rise of newly emerging donors and certain shifts within developing countries, rule of game has quickly changed. The need of recipients has become the focus of foreign aid, and this research intends to study if Taiwan’s assistance follows such emerging rules. Due to its ascending degree of opening-up, Myanmar has stepped into the spotlight of international and Taiwanese development cooperation in the past few years. To explore Taiwan’s foreign aid efficiency, the author will use Myanmar as a case, summarizing the trends in international development assistance, examining the strategies of different countries and international organizations, and comparing Taiwan’s development methods in this country. In the era of globalization, it is difficult to promote a country’s development without investment. The result of this study indicate that Taiwan’s foreign aid is ineffective due to （domestic）political restriction, therefore, if Taiwan can use official assistance to encourage private sectors to invest abroad, it will not only improve the efficiency of government assistance but also strengthen the economic link between Taiwan and recipient countries. Therefore creates a mutual-benefit situation for Taiwan and Southeast Asian countries.

Denna kvalitativa studie fokuserade på effektiviteten av svenskt utvecklingsbistånd i Zimbabweutifrån på organisationernas synpunkter samt hur de arbetar med utvecklingen i landet. Sammanlagt genomfördes fyra semistrukturerade intervjuer med kvalificerade biståndsarbetare somrepresenterade svenska utvecklingsorganisationer och partnerorganisationer i Zimbabwe.Dessa organisationer var Diakonia, Zimbabwe Women's Resource Center & Network, Afrikagrupperna och Unionen. Resultaten har visat att det finns positiva och identifierbara inverkanav utvecklingsbistånd trots utmaningarna i landet. Dessutom presenteras i denna uppsats deförändringar som biståndsorganisationerna har genomfört i olika städer i Zimbabwe. Slutsatsensom studien har kommit fram till är, för att de möjligheter som biståndsorgan skapar ska varahållbara bör regeringen välkomna aktörerna i det civila samhället och den privata sektorn somhar resurser för att komplettera det som regeringen inte har. Samt skapa en bra politisk miljödär regeringen och det civila samhället kan samarbeta. / This qualitative study focused on the effectiveness of Swedish development aid in Zimbabwe,based on the organizations' views and how the aid organizations work with development in thecountry. A total of four semi-structured interviews were conducted with qualified developmentworkers representing Swedish development organizations and partner organizations in Zimbabwe from, Diakonia, Zimbabwe Women's Resource Centre & Network, Afrikagrupperna andUnionen. The results have shown that there is a positive impact of development aid despite thechallenges in the country. We have presented in this essay the positive and identifiable changesthat aid agencies have accomplished in various cities in Zimbabwe. The conclusion of this studyis, for the opportunities created by aid agencies to be sustainable, the government should welcome the civil society actors and the private sector that have the resources to complement thosethat the government does not have. As well as create a good policy environment in which government and civil society can cooperate.

This research focuses on assessing the extent to which the Principles of Aid Effectiveness were followed and translated into action by taking the General Education Quality Improvement Programme (GEQIP) in Ethiopia as an example. Outcomes of the secondary reviews conducted on the selected government institutions and development partners documents demonstrate that these Principles are taken as overarching strategies to guide the undertakings on GEQIP. The study attests that a number of factors influence the realization of aid effectiveness in Ethiopia. These include, at the recipient level, existence of strong national development plans while demanding improvement on absorptive capacity. At the level of development partners, compliance with pledges made on the provision of resources and better coordination is needed. A common country framework to guide the aid effectiveness process including mutual accountably is important. The study most importantly identifies that beyond sector specific reviews, emphasis should also be given to assess the contribution of the Principles of Aid Effectiveness for efficient delivery of support to the GEQIP. / Development Studies / M.A. (Development Studies)

Les modes de négociation au CAD de l'OCDE sont organisés autour de la règle du consensus et d'un processus itératif conduit entre pairs. Ces modes de négociation ont produit la notion d'Etat fragile de 2004 à 2010, idée prête à l'usage et prête à être étendue par ses promoteurs initiaux comme par tous les représentants de bailleurs de fonds qui choisissent de s'y investir. La notion et l'agenda concernant les Etats fragiles entrent en 2005 dans la course à la démonstration de la légitimité de l'aide publique au développement comme des compléments nécessaires et comme des concurrents à l'agenda de l'effocacité de l'aide. Cependant les mêmes modes de négociations ainsi que les contraintes organisationnelles et normatives rencontrées dans les bureaucraties de l'aide qui participent à cette construction ont tendu à normaliser le contenu et à limiter la transposition politique et bureaucratique de ce nouvel agenda. Au sein du CAD, ces contraintes diminuent également la portée des tenants de l'agenda Etats fragiles qui doivent faire face à des normes établies. Cet agenda a cependant pu être diffusé rapidement en raison de sa malléabilité, de la nature proinstitutionnelle de son argumentaire et du risque normatif et politique relativement faible qu'il fait prendre aux acteurs qui s'en servent pour promouvoir leurs propres visions stratégiques de l'aide publique au développement. Dans ce contexte, le CAD constitue une arène internationale de négociation où s'analyse l'action organisée des représentants de bureaucraties bilatérales et multilatérales. / LModes of negotiation OECD DAC are organized around the rule of consensus and an iterative process led peer. These modes of negotiation produced the concept of fragile state from 2004 to 2010, an idea ready to use and ready to be extended by its promoters as the original by all representatives of donors who choose to invest. The concept and agenda for fragile states come into the race in 2005 to demonstrate the legitimacy of official development assistance as necessary complements and as competitors on the agenda of the effocacité help. However the same modes of negotiation and organizational constraints and normative encountered in aid bureaucracies involved in this construction have tended to standardize the content and limit the political and bureaucratic implementation of this new agenda. In the DAC, these constraints also reduce the scope of the proponents of the fragile states agenda should deal with established standards. This agenda has yet been released quickly because of its malleability, nature proinstitutionnelle of its arguments and the normative and political risk he is taking relatively small actors who use them to promote their own strategic visions of the official development assistance. In this context, the DAC is an international trading arena where analysis of organized action by representatives of bilateral and multilateral bureaucracies.

Foreign aid as an economic policy was previously widely accepted as a way to assist least developed economies to achieve economic growth. Over the years, aid effectiveness has been questioned, whilst aid dependency has continued to rise. To assist in aid reduction, various economists have proposed aid exit strategies that countries could adopt to reduce aid dependency. However, the adoption of these strategies has been rather slow. The purpose of this study was to review and assess the current literature on the different proposed foreign aid exit strategies, in terms of their feasibility and ease of implementation, taking into account the current state of African economies. The analysis focused on the exit strategies recommended by Tandon (2008), Moyo (2009) and Fee (2012). The main finding of this study suggests that the aforementioned exit strategies are feasible, but not necessarily easy to implement, due to the limitations faced by many least developed countries. / Economics / M. Com. (Economics)

Etant donnée la capacité limitée de la majorité des pays en développement à mobiliser des ressources domestiques suffisantes notamment à travers la taxation, le financement extérieur du développement s’est avéré essentiel pour soutenir des programmes d’investissement publics visant à construire un capital public dans les infrastructures, la santé ou l’éducation. Ainsi, au nom du développement, les gouvernements, les institutions internationales et les citoyens des pays industrialisés se sont accordés sur le fait qu’un transfert de capitaux vers les pays en développement serait nécessaire pour les aider à financer leur développement. Les principaux flux extérieurs de capitaux pour le financement du développement sont composés de l’aide au développement, des investissements directs étrangers et des transferts de migrants (travailleurs étrangers) vers leur pays d’origine. L’impact macroéconomique de ces flux extérieurs de capitaux pour le développement est un sujet de controverse entre les économistes. L’espoir et la frustration, entourant ces flux de financement du développement étant donné leur importance en termes de croissance et de réduction de la pauvreté, ont généré une importante littérature en sciences économiques avec des recommandations de politiques économiques opposées. De manière générale, cette thèse porte sur l’efficacité de l’aide et des autres flux extérieurs de capitaux à promouvoir le développement dans les pays du SUD. Nous proposons dans cette optique une vision transversale de la question d’efficacité du financement extérieur du développement en regroupant au sein d’une même analyse les trois acteurs principaux liés à ce débat : Les pays récipiendaires, les pays donateurs et l’architecture de l’aide, et les économistes - responsables des recommandations de politiques auprès des décideurs.La première partie de cette thèse emploie la méta-analyse pour effectuer une « autopsie » du processus de recherche en analysant les études empiriques effectuées sur l’efficacité des flux externes de capitaux pour le financement du développement, afin de mettre en évidence les limites à l’origine de l’hétérogénéité des résultats obtenus par les économistes et donc les insuffisances des recommandations de politiques économiques issues de leurs travaux.La deuxième partie s’intéresse à l’influence des pays émergents dans l’architecture de l’aide au développement et leur incidence sur la qualité de l’allocation de l’aide et le comportement budgétaire des pays à faibles revenus recevant cette aide. Enfin dans la troisième partie de notre analyse nous présentons de nouvelles évidences empiriques sur l’impact des flux capitaux extérieurs et autres mesures pour le développement. Nous nous attaquons ici à l’une des difficultés majeures des actions en faveur du développement : L’évaluation d’impact des programmes et politiques mis en place. Nous proposons dans ce cadre une méthodologie d’évaluation d’impact macroéconomique que nous appliquons à l’initiative « Pays Moins Avancés » dont nous mesurons l’incidence sur la croissance et la vulnérabilité macroéconomique des pays ayant bénéficié de ce programme sur les trente dernières années.Cette coupe transversale de l’efficacité du financement du développement permet d’aborder cette problématique sous une perspective unique et intuitive. / Given the limited ability of many of these countries to raise domestic resources through taxation, external finance is essential to support a multi-year public investment program aimed at developing public capital in infrastructure, health, and education. Thus, governments, aid agencies, and citizens from industrialized countries have often transfer capital flows to those countries to help them follow a sustainable growth and finance their development. The most external financial resources for development included foreign aid, foreign direct investment and workers' remittances. The effectiveness of these external flows to sustain development has long been a hotly contested subject among economists. Hope and frustration surrounding the development finance flows and their ability to promote growth and reduce poverty, generated an important literature with conflicting policies recommendations.The broad subject of this thesis is whether foreign aid and the other External Capital Flows are effective in promoting development. We propose a transversal analysis of the effectiveness of external development financing developed around the three groups concerned by this debate: the recipients, the aid architecture and the actors of development, and the researchers - whose results influence policymakers actions. The first part uses meta-analysis methodology to draw a literature review on external development finance flows with a particular interest on the research processes follow by the empirical studies, in order to explain the conflicting results in the empirical studies. The underlying idea of meta-analysis is to subtract the empirical evidences from authors' characteristics, econometric or methodological choices, to sum up the effective knowledge from existing works. The second part focuses on recent evolutions in aid architecture with the increasing influence of emerging donors. This part of the thesis analyzes the impact of non-DAC donors’ aid allocation on government fiscal choices in recipient countries and on traditional donors' aid allocation.The third part of the thesis proposes new evidences of the impact of external capital flows for development and international measures for development. First, we propose an analysis of the link between development financing and business cycles fluctuations in developing countries. We conclude the thesis by addressing one of the major difficulties in the development assistance, that is assessing the impact of different policies and programs designed to support the less developed countries. We evaluate the impact of Least Developed Country (LDC) status on economic growth and the vulnerability to economic shocks.

La question de l’efficacité de l’aide publique au développement est complexe et protéiforme. L’aide se présente sous de nombreuses formes et implique de nombreux instruments et acteurs, dont les objectifs et mêmes les philosophies diffèrent fortement entre les pays et les organisations. De cet enchevêtrement, les économistes ont jusqu’alors échoué dans leurs recherches de relations macroéconomiques robustes censées guider l’action publique. Ainsi, aucun consensus ne semble pour l’instant émerger de ce débat. Dès lors, l’orientation des politiques de développement a essentiellement été influencée par des hypothèses contestables reposant sur des fondements empiriques fragiles. Ce travail tente d’apporter de nouveaux éléments au débat sur l’efficacité de l’aide au travers de sept essais. Les trois premiers chapitres se consacrent à la question de la relation entre aide et croissance du point de vue statistique. Les nouvelles approches qui y sont proposées tentent de surmonter la plupart des défauts de la littérature empirique existante. Nous y montrons que la relation entre aide et croissance est extrêmement complexe et qu’il est difficile de l’appréhender à l’aide des méthodes économétriques usuelles. De plus, bien que l’aide semble globalement efficace en termes de croissance du PIB, son efficacité dépend de différents facteurs révélés par la présence de seuils aussi bien conditionnels que non-Conditionnels. Parmi ces facteurs, la vulnérabilité économique semble jouer un rôle primordial et sa prise en compte s’avère indispensable pour une compréhension globale du lien entre l’aide et la croissance économique. Dans une seconde partie, les deux chapitres suivants s’intéressent plus particulièrement à l’aide sectorielle, à travers l’étude de l’efficacité de deux initiatives largement reconnues que sont l’aide à la scolarisation primaire universelle et l’aide au commerce. Leur efficacité sera alors déterminée non plus en termes de croissance du PIB mais en termes de scolarisation et de performance à l’exportation. A l’instar des trois premiers chapitres, nos résultats semblent confirmer la présence d’une relation significative entre l’aide et les objectifs visés. Nos conclusions, notamment celles en termes d’éducation, vont clairement à l’encontre de l’idée selon laquelle l’aide aurait fait plus de mal que de bien. Enfin, en se basant sur les résultats précédents, les chapitres six et sept explorent, dans une troisième partie, les possibilités d’amélioration des stratégies actuelles d’allocation de l’aide mises en œuvre notamment par les grands bailleurs multilatéraux. Une de nos principales observations est que la vulnérabilité économique est un facteur important devant être pris en compte dans le design des méthodes d’allocation de l’aide. / Aid effectiveness is a complex issue. Aid comes in many instruments, has many targets and involves many stakeholders whose objectives, methods and philosophy greatly differ across countries and institutions. From this mixed bag, economists have struggled finding strong regularities at the macroeconomic level to guide the political debate and consensus have failed to emerge. Hence, political stances have often been influenced by strong assumptions based on weak or at least hotly debated evidence. This work is an attempt to provide new perspectives on the aid effectiveness debate through seven essays. The first three chapters address the technical question of the aid/growth relationship issue using new approaches and new statistical instruments in an attempt to overcome most of the caveats of the aid empirical literature. We show that the aid/growth relationship is complex and difficult to measure using common statistical methods. Moreover, while aid is globally effective, its effectiveness depends on different factors reflected by the existence of conditional and unconditional thresholds. Among those factors, economic vulnerability seems to be a key component that has to be taken into account in order to identify this relationship. In a second part, we try to assess the effectiveness of two flagship initiatives which are Aid for Trade and Universal Primary Education with regards to the outcomes they ultimately target, namely, export performance for the former and school enrolment, gender parity and repetition rate in primary school for the later. As in the first three chapters, our results support the existence of a significant relationship between aid and the targeted outcomes. Those results, notably for the education sector, clearly argue against the idea that aid has done more bad then good. Finally, based on previous results, in a third part, chapters six and seven explore the mean to improve the current aid allocation strategies used notably by the Multilateral Development Banks. One of the main conclusions is that economic vulnerability is a central factor to be taken into account in the design of aid allocation strategies.