Suchergebnisse

It is often suggested that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a hegemonic global policy agenda. To test this proposition, we ask what role the SDGs play in what most governments consider their highest policy statement, their national development plan. To what extent are the SDGs, the logic of the interconnected nature of the SDGs, the core themes of poverty, gender and inequality and SDG imagery found in recent national development plans? We use conventional, directed and summative content analysis on 170 plans published between 2016 and 2021 and deploy five measures of the importance that plans accord to the SDGs. There is little evidence from these plans to support the assertion that the SDGs are a hegemonic agenda in development policy. The SDGs are a contested agenda.

Zimbabwe's Drought Relief Programme was hailed in the 1980s and 1990s as an effective response to a food crisis in a poor country. International observers in particular credited the Programme with preventing famine and protecting livelihoods. Even before the current political turmoil and the ensuing politicisation of Drought Relief that have afflicted Zimbabwe since 2000, Zimbabwean authors were more sceptical about the effectiveness of Drought Relief. Both sides in the debate, however, failed to substantiate their arguments with national household survey data on who got what kind of assistance from Drought Relief, but rather relied on administrative data, qualitative interviews or sub‐national surveys. Drawing its inspiration from WHO's minimum evaluation procedure, this article uses data from four nationwide household surveys in 1992–1993 and 1995–1996 and various definitions of poverty to ask whether Drought Relief provided poor people with relevant, timely and adequate assistance in the 1990s. The analysis suggests that Drought Relief was effective in supporting drought‐affected smallholders during the 1990s. Drought Relief generally had a slight pro‐poor bias. Unfortunately, Drought Relief since 2000 has a very different character.

AbstractThe OECD Development Assistance Committee and G7 Finance Ministers have suggested that many bilateral and multilateral aid organizations are too dispersed, pursuing too many objectives in too many countries and too many sectors with too many partners. These organizations are accused of lacking critical mass, failing to follow their comparative advantage, failing to find and exploit a niche, and having high transactions costs and low effectiveness. Such aid organizations are being told to 'focus', 'concentrate', or be more 'selective' in order to become more effective. This article analyses the arguments in favour of greater focus by aid organizations and suggests that, while some of these arguments are valid, some are not and others need to be more nuanced. There are many possible dimensions along which an aid organization could focus and the link — if any — between focus and aid effectiveness is complex along each of those dimensions. The debate so far has also ignored the possibility that less focus may promote more effective aid. There is no clear, simple link between focus and aid effectiveness, but this finding should not be interpreted as carte blanche for spreading aid programmes indiscriminately. Dispersion, like focus, needs careful thought and justification.

This paper suggests that a principal‐agent perspective may be one of several useful ways of analyzing the family. The principal‐agent literature has so far ignored an important set of cases where the principal is incapable of defining and defending her own interests, and so is assigned an agent by law or custom. This paper applies principal‐agent analysis to one such case, the family, where the child is taken as the principal and the parent is her agent. The principal‐agent problem within families creates a prima facie case for certain state interventions to protect the interests of child‐principals. The principal‐agent perspective on the family sheds new light on two old debates: about provision of state welfare services in cash or in kind, and about user fees for social services.

Cover; Title Page; Copyright; Detailed Table of Contents; Foreword; How to Use This Textbook: Notes for Students, Professors, and Teaching Assistants; List of Figures; List of Tables; List of Boxes; Part I Introduction: Basic Concepts; Chapter 1: Canada as an Example of International Development and Globalization; Overview; Learning Objectives; A Family History; Canada, Colonialism, Globalization, and the British Connection; The Francophone Fact in Canada's History; The Canadian Confederation; Turtle Island-North America from an Indigenous Perspective; Canada Yesterday and Today

"What are Canada's various links with international development and globalization? They extend beyond foreign aid to diplomacy, trade, finance, aid, immigration, military intervention (both peacekeeping and combat roles), membership in a variety of international organisations, and people-to-people links. This multi-disciplinary and multi-author textbook, designed for first- or second-year students, introduces the main concepts, ideas, theories, and perspectives that form the historical background and foundation of Canada's interactions with developing countries in a globalizing world. It discusses Canada's diplomacy vis-à-vis developing countries and changes in priorities over time. It examines Canada's political, economic, military, social, immigration and aid policies and how they have interacted with each other. It presents economic, political, and cultural dimensions of the process of globalization and the ways they affect Canada; examines the public development institutions and policies, private sector and civil society organizations in Canada; and explores the moral imperatives behind Canadian international policy. Finally, it examines current issues, including Canada's promotion of human rights, democracy, good governance, support to the private sector, relations with fragile states, and relations with the emerging economies. Each thematic chapter is written by a different subject matter expert and is supplemented by case studies of issues and incidents, following a common template. The case studies, also written by different subject matter experts, also follow a common template. Each case study is designed to be read in conjunction with two or more thematic chapters."--

A multi-disciplinary and multi-voiced undergraduate textbook linking international development and international studies in a context of globalization, extending to trade, investment, immigration, peacekeeping and combat military interventions, international organizations and people-to-people links.