Aid Conditionality as a Tool for Peacebuilding: Opportunities and Constraints

Over the past decade, aid donors have pledged billions of dollars to support peacebuilding efforts in collapsed states and war–torn societies. Peace conditionality — the use of formal performance criteria and informal policy dialogue to encourage the implementation of peace accords and the consolidation of peace — could make aid a more effective tool for building peace. In Bosnia, for example, donors have attempted to link aid to the protection of human rights, co–operation with the international war crimes tribunal, and the right of people displaced by ‘ethnic cleansing’ to return to their homes. Yet the conventional practices and priorities of aid donors pose constraints to the exercise of peace conditionality. This article examines several of these constraints, including the reluctance of donors (particularly the international financial institutions) to acknowledge responsibility for the political repercussions of aid; the competing foreign–policy objectives of donor governments; the humanitarian imperative to aid people whose lives are at risk; and the incentive structures and institutional cultures of donor agencies.     

Aid Fuels Faster Socio-Economic Development

In the past 40 years since the founding of the Tibet Autonomous Region, the area has developed at an extraordinarily fast rate. All this has taken place with the strong support of the Central Government and various fraternal provinces and municipalities directly under the Central Government. Blind to the situation, however, the 14th Dalai Lama and his clique, last April,again dished up the so-called Intemational Development Project in Tibet and Guidelines for Sustainable Development (hereinafter referred to as the Guidelines). The proposal contains lies and distorted facts,negating the great achievements in the social and economic development in Tibet, openly attacking national aid to the region and rejecting the idea of the Tibetan people accepting the socialist system.     

Capacity Development as the Model for Development Aid Organizations

Sociological studies of organizational fashions tend to focus on commercial firms. This article looks at the Capacity Development concept that is globally applied as a model in governmentally supported development assistance organizations. The organizations themselves adopt the concept, asserting that an increase in ‘capacities’ in developing countries will contribute to a higher success rate for projects. This article argues that a primary function of concepts such as Capacity Development is to meet the legitimacy requirements of development assistance organizations. The more the effectiveness of these organizations is criticized or challenged, the more they feel the need to defend themselves by developing new — and hopefully more effective — concepts.     

‘Fundermediaries’ in Nairobi,Kenya: Development Partnerships in the Aid Chain

By representing the voice of communities, community-based organizations (CBOs) are increasingly joining development partnerships. This article explores the inherently contradictory relationship between ‘voice raising’ and the politics of listening. While academia has mostly focused on the inclusion of CBOs, few studies have approached this subject from the perspective of the listening practices of ‘fundermediaries’ (a portmanteau term combining ‘funder’ and ‘intermediary’). This ethnographic research on a CBO led by male sex workers in Nairobi, Kenya, illustrates that the listening ability of fundermediaries hinges on their position in the aid chain, and specifically on the dynamics of their own accountability. The analysis distinguishes between two partnership types. The first uses a pragmatic approach, which ultimately limits the channels for CBOs to be included and heard, resulting in them having to ‘make noise’ to ensure they are heard. The second creates more possibilities to listen, engages in constructive dialogues with partner CBOs, and includes the ideas and expertise of CBOs in development strategies; hence, CBOs feel heard and are positive about these partnerships. Improved listening practices facilitate opportunities to reconfigure the position of the different actors in development partnerships and can benefit both the positions of CBOs in the aid chain and the programmatic outcomes of fundermediaries.     

Trilateral Development Cooperation: Power and Politics in Emerging Aid Relationships

Changes are reverberating through the international development system. This article focuses on (re)emerging development actors in the South and their role in setting agendas, challenging current aid orthodoxies, and re‐articulating development cooperation relationships between and within the North and South. Specifically, the article examines trilateral development cooperation, a significant new trend in foreign aid. The first aim is to examine the role of trilateral development cooperation in the changing geographies of development and global partnerships. The second aim is to foreground and critically evaluate the politics of trilateral development cooperation. The authors argue that trilateral development cooperation has potential to improve aid effectiveness, harness the energies and expertise of southern partners, and reshape development relations in more egalitarian ways. Alternatively, however, it may work to co‐opt (re)emerging donors into a depoliticized and ineffective aid system. While this argument has been made by many critics with regard to North–South development relations, the authors also question the projection of shared interests and essentialized developing country identities in relation to the South–South element of trilateral development cooperation. The article concludes by emphasizing the need to extend critical perspectives to all elements of the new development partnerships emerging within a rapidly changing global landscape.     

The Effectiveness of Policy Conditionality: Eight Country Experiences

This article analyses the effectiveness of the setting of policy conditions in exchange for aid. Given the emerging consensus that this process is not effective, this article focuses on explaining why not. In analysing the experiences of eight countries — Bangladesh, Cape Verde, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Tanzania, Uganda, Vietnam and Zambia — an ‘augmented’ principal–agent framework proved valuable in explaining why policy conditionality is not effective in these countries. The article concludes that donors should focus on some simple policy outcomes (ex post) instead of extensive policy conditions (ex ante).     

对外经济援助在战后日本国家发展中的地位

本文试图从国家发展战略的角度 ,通过对不同阶段、不同战略目标下 ,日本对外经济援助政策的特点分析 ,探讨对外经济援助在战后日本国家发展进程中的地位与作用 ,以揭示其对外援助的真实目的 ,并从一个侧面了解日本现代史的发展历程。文章指出日本对外经济援助政策的制订、实施及发展演变不但与其国家发展战略密切相关 ,而且始终是日本获取国家利益的重要工具。对外援助这种特殊的经济手段 ,在战后日本国家发展进程中起着军事力量无法替代的作用。日本之所以如此钟情于对外经济援助的“投入” ,归根结底源自于其对“产出”效果的执着追求。     

Foreign Aid,Structural Adjustment,and Public Management: The Mozambican Experience

In looking at the case of Mozambique under structural adjustment, this article argues that the particular combination of fiscal restraints imposed by financial programming, and the proliferation of decentralized project-based management, together proved to be a potent mixture which failed to reconstruct a coherent pattern of state action. The problem lies in the increasing dominance of foreign aid and in the uneasy interplay between programme aid on the one hand and project aid on the other, as competition from projects wins resources away from regular state programmes, with very little prospect of such projects becoming self-sustainable in the absence of the continued infusion of foreign aid.     

China and Japan in Myanmar: Aid,Natural Resources and Influence

Abstract

This article highlights the parallels between Japan’s leveraging of foreign aid to secure access to strategic natural resources in the post-World War II period, and China’s similar use of foreign aid since the early 1990s. It then shows how both countries have applied similar strategies in their aid programs in Myanmar, and points out how dramatic shifts in Myanmar’s domestic politics have shaped their opportunities for economic engagement. China seized upon Myanmar’s political transition in 1988 to expand its aid program, while Japan has responded to Myanmar’s reform measures since 2010 by resuming its aid efforts. The article concludes by considering the potential for China–Japan cooperation through their aid programs in Myanmar.