Good countries or good projects? Comparing macro and micro correlates of World Bank and Asian Development Bank project performance

This paper examines the micro and macro correlates of aid project outcomes in a sample of 3797 World Bank projects and 1322 Asian Development Bank projects. We find that project outcomes vary much more within countries than between countries: only 10–25 % of the variation in project outcomes is between countries, and the rest is within countries. Among country-level macro variables, GDP growth and the policy environment are significantly positively correlated with project outcomes. Among project-level micro variables, shorter project duration and the presence of additional financing are significantly correlated with better project outcomes. In addition, the track record of the project manager in delivering successful projects is highly significantly correlated with project outcomes. We find few significant differences between the two institutions in the relationship between these variables and project outcomes.     

Partnerships,learning, and development: a case study from Ghana

Decades of development practice suggest the fundamental importance of improving aid-delivery systems and stakeholder competence in order to improve the well-being of poor people. However, it is questionable whether the aid system is able to change its attitudes and values through such partnerships in a way that will do this. This paper suggests that for this change to be possible, processes of individual, organisational, and inter-organisational learning have to be encouraged, in ways that do not sacrifice the knowledge obtained by aid workers in the processes of global management. The paper explores procedures of bilaterally funded community education projects in Ghana, in order to give insights into the working of partnership arrangements as a means to contribute to the alleviation of global poverty. Critical instances from the case study projects reveal the ways in which learning is facilitated, used, ignored, and hindered as the organisational relations develop.     

Citizen preferences and public goods: comparing preferences for foreign aid and government programs in Uganda

Different theories about the impact of aid make distinct predictions about citizens’ attitudes toward foreign aid in recipient countries. We investigate their preferences toward aid and government projects in order to examine these different theories. Are citizens indifferent between development projects funded by their own government versus those funded by foreign aid donors, as aid capture theory suggests? To address this, in an experiment on a large, representative sample of Ugandan citizens, we randomly assigned the names of funding groups for actual forthcoming development projects and invited citizens to express support attitudinally and behaviorally. We find that citizens are significantly more willing to show behavioral support in favor of foreign aid projects compared to government programs, especially if they already perceive the government as corrupt or clientelist or if they are not supporters of the ruling party. They also trust donors more, think they are more effective, and do not consistently oppose aid conditionality. This experimental evidence is consistent with a theory that we call donor control which sees donors asbeing able to target and condition aid so that it is not fungible with government revenues and thus to be able to better direct it to meet citizens’ needs.     

美国金融危机对泰国金融业的影响

作为1997年亚洲金融危机的始发国和重创国,泰国金融业在此次金融危机中受到的影响程度备受关注。本文在金融危机传导机制的基础上分析了美国金融危机对泰国金融业的影响,并探索对我国金融业健康发展的一些启示。     

Bad neighbors? How co-located Chinese and World Bank development projects impact local corruption in Tanzania

The rise of China as a "non-traditional" development partner has been one of the most important phenomena in the field over the past decade. The lack of transparency in Chinese development projects, coupled with an uninterested stance towards governance, lead many to wonder if Chinese engagement will contribute to or undermine existing development efforts. This paper adds to the debate by inquiring as to the relationship of Chinese development efforts with perceptions of, and experiences with, corruption when projects are closely-located to those from a traditional donor, the World Bank. Taking advantage of spatial data, the paper evidences an association between the location of a larger number of Chinese projects and higher experiences with and, to some extent, perceptions of corruption when accounting for co-located World Bank projects. Likewise, while World Bank projects are associated with lower levels of corruption in the absence of Chinese projects, this relationship disappears when Chinese projects are nearby. However, these relationships only hold for Chinese projects which are not "aid-like," suggesting that the differentiation of Chinese overseas flows is an important consideration when studying China as a development partner.     

Organisational learning in NGOs: An example of an intervention based on the work of Chris Argyris

The research work of Harvard professor Chris Argyris gave rise to much of what is today called organisational learning, an approach subsequently promulgated by Peter Senge and his team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The first section of this paper argues the relevance of organisational learning to NGOs, despite its origins in the study of the private sector. The second section describes a particular project intervention based on organisational learning theory which is currently underway in a Brazilian NGO.     

泰国曼谷民办非全日制华文教育的现状与特色

民办非全日制华文教育是泰国华文教育的两大体系之一。其基本特征为:产权私立,以补习学校为主要办学形式;商业化运作,以社会需求为导向,重视信用培育、品牌塑造、市场开发和公众评价;规模较大,生源多样化;师资性别年龄学历学缘结构趋于合理,年轻化、专业化和职业化倾向明显。相对优越的教学条件、较为严谨的教学规范、灵活的班级与课程设置以及注重华语交际能力的培养模式,使其在华教领域呈现多方面的优势。民办非全日制华文教育的发展,将华教触角从学校延伸到社会,从学生扩大到所有人群,既增加了受众,也深化了层次,提升了华文教育的效率、质量和社会影响力,促进了华文教育的推广和中泰文化交流。     

Choosing international organizations: When do states and the World Bank collaborate on environmental projects?

While international cooperation research emphasizes institutional design, states mostly interact with existing organizations. How do states choose organizations for cooperation? We develop a theory of agency choice for development projects, emphasizing the importance of domestic institutions, the scope of cooperation, and the resources of the implementing agency. If states are to cooperate with funding agencies that have abundant resources, such as the World Bank, they must accept more stringent conditions on project implementation. We argue states accept the stringent conditions that resourceful organizations demand if the public goods from project implementation are highly valuable. Empirically, this is the case for democratic states, large projects, and projects that produce national instead of global public goods. We test this theory using data on 2,882 Global Environment Facility (GEF) projects, 1991–2011. The GEF offers an ideal case because various implementing agencies are responsible for the actual projects. States implement projects in collaboration with the World Bank, which has the most expertise and resources among the GEF’s implementing agencies, if their regime type is democracy, the project size is large, and the benefits are primarily national. Qualitative evidence sheds light on causal mechanisms.     

大湄公河次区域合作：复杂的合作机制和中国的参与

自90年代初由亚行牵头与澜沧江—湄公河沿岸的柬、中、老、缅、泰、越六国共同建立起大湄公河次区域经济合作机制,在国际上一般称为“大湄公河次区域合作”,即把“大湄公河”作为澜沧江(中国境内云南段)和湄公河(流经中南半岛段)的统称。大湄公河次区域合作开展以来,合作范围日趋扩大,机制也越来越多样复杂。本文拟对此作一个简要的分析,并提出中国及云南省的参与对策。     

银行信贷扩张与房地产泡沫:对东亚金融危机教训的反思

银行信贷扩张在东亚国家和地区房地产泡沫的形成过程中扮演了重要的角色。对东亚金融危机中具有代表性的泰国、马来西亚以及香港地区的银行信贷与房地产泡沫危机表明:银行信贷在房地产业的过度扩张不仅是造成房地产泡沫的重要原因,而且在泡沫崩溃和经济、金融危机中也起了同样重要的作用。为此,我们应汲取东亚金融危机的这一深刻教训,大力推进国有商业银行的改革,发展各类金融市场,加强金融监管和金融市场制度建设,以保证我国银行业和房地产业的健康发展。     

Exploring the role of migrants’ remittances in the UN's nation building and development management in Haiti

Remitting outweighs foreign aid by a rate of more than eight times, resulting in a skewed perception of the Haitian economy and consequent hindrance to development. Endowing Haitian state institutions and civil society by strengthening the potential role of migrants’ remittances in regional socio-economic reconstruction could prevent some of the mistakes uncovered in previous development policies from recurring in current nation-building initiatives. The funding gap of the United Nations’ short term funded projects could be bridged with a long term commitment of a new migrant class of investors to finance productive projects and endow regional participatory institutions.     

印度应对气候变化战略和清洁发展机制项目的实践

本文介绍了印度应对气候变化战略和在开发清洁发展机制项目中的实践，包括印度国家气候变化行动计划的主要内容、气候变化的主要协调部门和有关机构。印度开发清洁发展机制（CDM）项目的进程，CDM项目的协调机构，CDM项目的背景、开发潜力预测，分析了已经注册的印度CDM项目的类型和地区分布，最后给出了印度应对气候变化战略和开发CDM项目实践对中国的几点启示。     

2010年东南亚政治经济发展概述

2010年东南亚地区政治经济形势的发展特点可以概括为“政治上喜忧参半,经济上整体上扬,区域合作缓慢推进”。总体上讲,除泰国外,东南亚地区各国基本上都保持了政治社会的稳定;尽管挑战明显增加,但东盟共同体建设以及由东盟主导的东亚合作仍然缓慢推进;东盟国家整体实现恢复性增长,东南亚成为最具经济活力的地区之一。     

Extreme poverty alleviation through community-based entrepreneurship: PRODECO in Paraguay

Community-based entrepreneurship projects have been advocated as a potential approach to alleviate extreme poverty as they provide opportunities for income generation and capacity enhancement. This practical note provides an overview of the PRODECO project undertaken jointly by the Paraguayan government and the World Bank (1999–2008) in three southern departments of Paraguay (Itapúa, Misiones, and Ñeembucú). It describes and analyses the context, scope, operations, and results of this project, and identifies five main lessons related to frequent challenges faced by this approach; on size, access to skills, distance from government agencies, pace, and technology.     

Women in the informal sector

This article reviews the extent to which the educational system has acknowledged the importance to women of the informal sector of the economy, and the extent to which it has sought to prepare them for employment or self-employment within it. It assesses the record of both formal and non-formal education in providing women with the necessary skills to compete with men for employment, and concludes that both have generally failed to assist women to obtain skilled, well-paid, and secure jobs, leaving them in overwhelming numbers in subsistence-level activities in the informal sector. Within the non-formal approach to education, the article examines training in income-generating projects, which are a major conduit for ssistance to poor women in developing countries. Some recommendations for improved strategies of education and training provision are presented. 1     

军事政变和独裁交替下的泰国民主化道路——泰国民主化的特征与未来

比其他亚洲国家起步早的泰国民主化道路走得并不平坦,军事政变和政治独裁的交替似乎成为了近70多年来泰国政治的主线。这种奇特的政治现象和泰国的政治文化、宗教意识、教育水平、社会结构等因素密切联系在一起。最初由精英发起的泰国民主化运动,如果得不到整个国民的回应,没有获得成熟市民社会的支持,真正的民主主义也就不可能在泰国扎根。     

The politics of contract allocation in the World Bank

Scholarship on informal politics in multilateral aid organizations investigates all stages of the allocation process - from project identification to aid disbursement and project evaluation. Yet, one area remains almost entirely overlooked in the literature - allocation of aid-financed contracts. This article aims to address the shortcoming of the existing research and develops a theory of contract allocation in a prominent multilateral aid organization – the World Bank. The theoretical argument explores the relationship between formal procurement arrangements and recipients’ control over contract allocation, and the role of this relationship in explaining patterns of contract allocation. My empirical analyses using data on the World Bank’s contracts provide evidence of recipients’ ability to allocate contracts in favor of domestic companies, as well as bilateral aid donors.     

Displacement,resettlement, and livelihood restoration: safeguard standards in practice

This article presents a case study of development practice based on the author’s experience of designing a livelihood restoration plan and monitoring its implementation. The plan was based on safeguard standards of a multilateral development bank that funded a private sector renewable energy project on land belonging to a vulnerable community in Central India. Illustrating the challenges faced in implementing and monitoring this plan and the reasons for its failure, the article argues that a complex set of institutional and individual relationships determine the way in which safeguard policies are translated into practice by diverse and interrelated actors.     

Factors affecting the sustainability of a community water supply project in Kenya

This paper examines how three sustainability factors (water supply, regulatory policy, local management) are affecting the sustainability of a community water supply project in Kenya. Findings show that after 10 years the project is at a threshold of sustainability – it may yet fail. Changing rainfall patterns and additional withdrawals from new projects are threatening available water supply. The community is resisting compliance with water sector reforms including those intended to benefit community-managed projects. Community management deficiencies and a lack of supportive external relationships are impeding project continuity and sustainable local water management.