Restrictive Institutions and Critical Resources: Non-Profit Organisations and Volunteer Resources in the Russian Federation

Abstract

Resource management is essential for any organisation’s success. For non-profit organisations (NPOs) volunteers are a key resource. In this article, we examine how NPOs recruit, mobilise and manage volunteers in a challenging institutional and operational context. By drawing on a qualitative study of Russian health NPOs, our study highlights that the operational and institutional environment encountered by Russian NPOs leads to ‘management by network’ to acquire necessary volunteer resources. This pragmatic approach, whilst ensuring an organisation’s short-term survival, ultimately limits the type of volunteer recruited by Russian NPOs. The implications of these findings are also explored.     

Accountability Standards for Nonprofit Organizations: Do Organizations Benefit from Certification Programs?

Stakeholders are demanding nonprofit organizations (NPOs) continually improve and work effectively in an ever-changing environment. While there are many ways to approach this operational challenge, this paper examines the impact of acquiring an accountability certification, specifically the Standards for Excellence® Certification. Using a sample of 102 NPOs that have received the Standards for Excellence certification, we find that the certification is associated with increases in public support relative to a control group that did not receive the certification. These results suggest that some stakeholders favorably respond to the certification process, and NPOs can realize tangible benefits from becoming certified.     

The Determinants of Collective Coproduction: The Case of Secondary Schools in Russia

ABSTRACT

This research focuses on parents’ participation in their children’s education via self-organizing through non-profit organizations (NPOs). The aim of this article is to uncover the factors which have an impact on Russian parenting organizations participating in collective coproduction in schooling. Quantitative analysis revealed three groups of explanatory variables: a) the “economic” variables, namely GRP per capita and poverty rate; b) a “high status” of a school; and c) variables capturing the “federal district effect” on the probability of collective coproduction. Results of the quantitative analysis highlight the significant discrepancies in regional conditions for emerging NPOs in coproduction in schooling.     

Mediating multiple accountabilities: variation in formal and perceived accountability among international and domestic actors in the health sector in Peru

Based on a comparative case study of bilateral and multilateral donors, this article examines individual and institutional accountabilities among donor officers, implementing agencies, government officials and intended beneficiaries. It explores how multiple accountability demands interact, the extent to which they conflict, and how development actors mediate among them when they do. Institutionally there was substantial alignment of objectives and little goal conflict between international donors and the state; however, there was poor harmonisation across the many donors and numerous projects they were pursuing. There was greater variation within rather than between bilateral and multilateral donor chains, with perceived accountability differing more based on individuals’ positions within their organisation than by the type of organisation for whom they worked. Most informants cited multiple entities to whom they felt accountable. They more frequently acknowledged outward accountability when there existed formal accountability mechanisms, although intended beneficiary groups were conceptualised in different ways.     

Using Social Media to Increase Nonprofit Organizational Capacity

This study examines social media utilization in nonprofit organizations (NPOs) for increasing organizational capacity. Using data from a survey of human service NPOs in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the study finds that NPOs that post frequently on their social media sites and use dedicated funding are more likely to perceive social media as being effective in increasing their organizational capacity. However, NPOs that use Twitter, videos, and community-building posts are less likely to perceive social media as being effective. The study also reveals that NPOs face major challenges in social media use regarding resources, expertise, leadership and constituency.     

Symbolic Gestures: The Development Terrain of Post-Tsunami Villages in (Southern) Sri Lanka

This article analyses how rituals and ceremonies were deployed in the post-tsunami rehabilitation process in Sri Lanka to ‘incorporate’ development projects into the habitus and social reality of local communities. It argues that even though the aid delivery process is represented as a gift, in reality it is more concerned with strengthening the social capital of the local and foreign donors. Through this process there is an expectation and an implicit demand for acquiescence from the beneficiaries, which leaves them with a social debt. This, in turn, compels them to participate in the game of development rituals and ceremonies, in order to express their (ambivalent) gratitude and thankfulness. Through two case studies, we explore how the good intentions of donors to provide aid and alleviate suffering and the acceptance of this aid by the local communities, results in an asymmetric relationship where both become accomplices of Bourdieuian notions of subtle and gentle violence.     

Citizen aid,social media and brokerage after disaster

Abstract

In a crisis, aid providers deliver humanitarian relief across a hierarchy of organisations where influence and capacity map to their scale of operations. On the front lines of crises, ‘citizen aid’ is what small, local and informal groups offer to fellow citizens. These citizen aid groups are well-networked in place and tend to work through longstanding personal relationships. In the Philippines, citizen aid groups frequently support their activities by documenting their work with photos of beneficiaries to solicit donations from within the country and around the world across social media platforms. This paper builds on recent debates on brokerage through a case study of citizen aid in the relief effort after Typhoon Haiyan (2013–2017). Using this case-study approach, we demonstrate how social media has produced novel forms of brokerage shaped by circulating images online. This new kind of brokerage involves a layered network of brokers that both shapes citizen aid efforts and creates new channels for localising aid, enhancing the control of citizen groups in the Global South over aid.     

From the Executive Board to the Classroom. What Debt Relief Means for Education in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)

ABSTRACT

This analysis re-assesses the IMF’s decision to grant debt relief to the DRC in 2010 based on the country’s poverty reduction and growth performance: would the IMF come to the same conclusion given the current knowledge available about the impact of the debt relief process on public governance and service delivery? First, it shows that, whereas the direct resource effect of this aid modality was minimal, the indirect effect was more significant: the conditionalities attached to the process helped to stabilize the economy and increased the overall budget of the Congolese state. This increased resource availability also sustainably percolated to the education sector. Second, however, the impact on social development was minimal: school enrolment increased but was hardly accompanied by extra budget per pupil, whereas more complicated challenges like disparities in access or quality of schooling were left untouched. The government’s strategy was also partly short-circuited by the electoral process.     

Motivations behind citizen aid: Norwegian initiatives in The Gambia

Abstract

Little is known about citizen aid initiatives originating in Norway, and they are not recognised as part of the official Norwegian development aid. Citizen aid initiatives are personal and small, and by themselves they do not raise large sums of money, nor do they individually have a large-scale development impact. But collectively, their influence on sponsors in Norway and on aid beneficiaries in the Global South might be substantial. Through qualitative interviews, this study explores the motivations of Norwegian founders of citizen aid initiatives, who run small development projects in The Gambia. The study finds that they are motivated by the very characteristics of these citizen aid initiatives which set them apart from formal development organisations. These include the initiatives’ small size, which allows for a personal closeness to and control over the projects. These features are often interconnected with motivations stemming from the founders’ personal experiences. The study finds that, inasmuch as the founders see the need for beneficiaries to be supported, they also experience a need to help themselves. The founders’ identities, as helpers and givers, are both formed and continually reinforced by their personal involvement in this specific type of aid work.     

Changing Forms of Accountability in Education? A Case Study of LEAs in Wales

Political mechanisms of accountability were marginalized by Conservative government reforms during the 1980s and 1990s which sought a more market-oriented approach within the public sector in order to enhance ‘consumerism’. In education, parents were given more choice between schools and were provided with more information on school performance. The promotion of market accountability has involved a reduction in the powers of local education authorities (LEAs) which had been central to the operation of political accountability. However, whilst market-based forms of accountability were firmly enhanced in principle by the legislation, to what extent have the forms of accountability operating within LEAs changed in practice? Interviews with Chief Officers and the Chair of the Education Committee are used to identify changing perceptions and practices of accountability in LEAs in Wales. The findings indicate that although local politicians and officials have been forced to operate within the legislative framework of market accountability, they have sought to impede its successful implementation. The policy community in Wales facilitated the LEAs’ capacity to respond in this way. The market-based reforms conflicted with fundamental values held in Wales, which remain those of professional accountability.     

The Political Economy of Aid and Governance in Cambodia

The impact of massive aid on development and governance has been studied for a decade with mixed results. Using the results of an elite survey on aid and quality of governance based on Kaufmann et al.'s six dimensions (voice and accountability, political stability, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, and control of corruption), this article offers a case-study of Cambodia. The country's challenges in light of high aid dependence and ‘Dutch disease’ in the aid sector are elaborated, and disappointing human development outcomes are examined. Despite more than five billion dollars in aid, infant and child mortality and inequality have worsened. Key informants are overwhelmingly in agreement that, save for political stability, aid has not had a positive impact on governance in Cambodia. The failure on control of corruption shows how hard it is for donors to be tough on a country with extreme poverty. On the basis of what has been accomplished to date, however, aid seems unlikely to be able to deliver large improvements in governance and in many ways may even contribute to its further deterioration.     

The Impact of SWAps on Health Aid Displacement of Domestic Health Expenditure

Recent research suggests that an additional $1 of health aid would displace – or crowd out – nearly the same amount in a recipient government’s own health expenditure. Implementing a Sector Wide Approach (SWAp) may exacerbate crowding out because recipient governments should face fewer constraints when allocating health aid. This paper uses rigorous panel data methods to investigate this hypothesised effect of SWAps. We find that SWAps provide not an exacerbating but a potentially protective effect, reducing displacement of government health expenditure. This suggests some aid dollars are more fungible than others, and the mechanism for aid delivery makes a difference.     

Citizen’s Charter for Improved Public Service Delivery and Accountability: The Experience of Land Administration at the Local Government in Bangladesh

Improved public service delivery and accountability have increasingly turned out to be important issues in public sector management. In Bangladesh, there has been noteworthy progress, including the introduction of citizen’s charter since 2008. This article explores the contribution of citizen’s charter in improving public service delivery and accountability at the local government land administration, adopting a qualitative longitudinal study. Analysis of the findings reveals that most of the service recipients are ignorant about the charter even after 8 years of its introduction. The charters are mainly producer dominated and their grand rhetorics are far away to achieve in reality.     

Hegemony,Politics and Ideology: the Role of Legislation in NGO–Government Relations in Asia

In the wake of debate on the ‘New Policy Agenda’ of good governance and the increasing prominence of Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) in public service delivery, serious questions are being asked about the role of NGOs in development, their accountability, their relationships with donors, with the state and with their beneficiaries. As southern NGOs receive increasing amounts of funding from donors and northern NGOs, their profile is being raised, prompting government response. The nature of legislative responses of governments to increasingly high profile NGO communities range from open hostility and suspicion, to indifference. National legislative frameworks are neglected in the literature, yet they may profoundly influence the accountability, legitimacy, organisation and vision of local NGOs as well as the way northern NGOs can operate in a country. The article illustrates the potential for conflict over legislation on NGOs but also important opportunities and benefits, maintaining that legislation is necessary, because it can act as a catalyst to spark and focus debate on the role of NGOs, the extent to which they legitimately represent civil society, to whom they are accountable and how they can be protected. Open, balanced negotiation between stakeholders is necessary to avoid conflict and focus discourse on NGO and government roles and accountability. Governments, donors and NGOs each have a role to play in shaping NGO legitimacy, ensuring their upwards and downwards accountability.     

Aid and Gendered Subjectivity in Rural Guatemala

Development discourse has focused on gendered dimensions of poverty, demonstrating how parastatal poverty alleviation programmes target women as aid recipients while devaluing their productive and reproductive work. However, seldom analysed is how privatisation of social services and proliferation of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have impacted women. We explore this in a Guatemalan community where we find that although NGOs discursively commit to ‘alternative’ development approaches, on the ground they reproduce elements of a neoliberal subjectivity akin to parastatal programmes. NGOs additionally configure aid disbursement as gift giving, requiring beneficiaries to assume affective postures of gratitude, and facilitating intrusion into women’s lives.     

Money,people or mission? Accountability in local and non-local NGOs

Little is known about how ownership affects accountability in non-governmental organisations (NGOs). This article explores differences between locally- and non-locally-owned NGOs in South Africa. Our data suggest that locally-owned NGOs more often claim to implement downward and internal accountability mechanisms, while non-local NGOs more often claim to implement upward accountability mechanisms. Bigger NGOs also perform better at downward and upward accountability mechanisms than smaller ones. The data suggest there is much these organisations can learn from each other to strengthen their accountability mechanisms. Furthermore, assuming there is a positive relationship between local ownership and development effectiveness, these findings may have important implications in furthering effective development interventions.     

The Effectiveness of Aid under Post-Conflict Conditions: A Sector-Specific Analysis

It is widely believed that foreign aid may help conflict-affected countries to recover after the termination of conflicts. However, the available empirical evidence supporting this view largely neglects the heterogeneous nature of aid. Drawing on the conflict database of the Uppsala Conflict Data Program, we address the hypothesis that the effectiveness of post-conflict aid differs between specific sectors. Our focus is on social and economic infrastructure which is most likely to suffer during conflict episodes so that the need for aid is particularly pressing in this area. We find fairly robust evidence that post-conflict aid is effective in improving social infrastructure. In contrast, aid appears to be ineffective in improving economic infrastructure.     

Russian Educational Reform and the Introduction of the Unified State Exam. A View from the Provinces

The introduction of the Unified State Examination (USE) in Russian higher education has been the subject of much debate. One of the primary factors hindering the transition has been ambivalent public and professional perceptions of the effectiveness of the USE in addressing the problems associated with inequalities of access to higher education. This essay contributes to research in this area through a case study analysing the introduction of the USE in Ul'yanovsk Oblast’. It draws on survey data collected from pupils and parents of final year high school students about the USE reforms and explores the reasons why the transition to USE did not proceed as smoothly as its creators might have envisaged. Here the negative perceptions of the high-school graduates and parents reveal that the reforms have been judged to be largely ineffective with regard to reducing the role of material and regional inequalities in determining access to higher education, and in addressing how the differing institutional status of ordinary ‘comprehensive’ and elite, specialised schools continues to create inequalities in access to higher education in Russia.     

Resources and Rent Seeking in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

By examining the Congolese political economy through the lens of the ‘resource curse’ theory, this article aims to advance our understanding of the chronic underdevelopment of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Proceeding in three distinct phases the article examines the effect of resource rents, foreignn aid and the likely effect of Chinese investment. It finds that a political tradition of patrimonialism and corruption based on large inflows of easily corruptible resource rents was established in the Mobutu period. In the post-conflict period the source of revenue shifted from resource rents to foreign aid, while the political tradition remained essentially unchanged. The model of the Congolese political economy established in these first two sections will then be used to make an informed assessment of the Sicomines deal. The article finds that the structured nature of the deals means that it is unlikely to perpetuate the ‘resource curse’ condition.     

结果导向型援助及其超越 ——兼论中国国际发展合作与全球发展话语权

援助是一国外交政策的重要工具。冷战期间,美苏对外援助的主要目的是争夺盟友,对援助成效的评估主要是以过程为导向,其标准是援助的投入是否成功使受援国留在本方阵营。冷战后,西方国家内部出现援助预算的合法性危机,对援助成效的讨论也逐渐从过程导向转向结果导向。进入21世纪,联合国千年发展目标和2030年可持续发展目标为发展援助的结果评估提供了重要参照。结果导向型援助提高了中国对外援助的可见性,但其存在的弊端和南北垂直援助特征需要中国制定超越援助的新时代国际发展合作战略。联合国2030年可持续发展议程吸收了结果导向型援助的积极因素,但这也为超越该理念奠定了基础。新时代中国国际发展合作与2030年议程的深入对接为中国突破西方战略围堵和实现中华民族伟大复兴提供了重要机遇。全球发展倡议与"一带一路"倡议、人类命运共同体理念和生态文明思想共同构成中国全球发展话语权的基础,并逐步超越了结果导向型援助,为落实2030年议程指明了方向。