Reaching the unreached? Good governance and welfare reform politics in Delhi,India

Good governance scholarship has been preoccupied with the donor-driven conditionalities imposed on aid-receiving developing countries. Limited attention has been given to power struggles and resistance from government actors (bureaucrats and politicians) to embrace internally driven good governance programmes. To address this gap, this article ethnographically examines a good governance initiative of the Delhi government (India) to reform its welfare system in partnership with NGOs. The study indicates that the conflict between government and non-governmental actors over the authority to govern the poor eventually maintained the status quo of the welfare system while the poor remain marginalised.     

A conservation partnership for development? Marine conservation and indigenous empowerment at Mimiwhangata

In New Zealand indigenous participation is identified as a means to achieve effective environmental conservation and indigenous empowerment. This article suggests that within current frameworks the scope for meaningful authority and control to be devolved to indigenous communities is limited. The Mimiwhangata project demonstrates the importance of participatory processes in confronting policy shortcomings. Although the successful implementation of culture-centred conservation offers a conservation model both accommodating state-led goals and providing for indigenous cultural empowerment, structural change is required within conservation policy to achieve this outcome.     

Purposefully Triggering Unintended Consequences: the European Commission and the Uncertain Future of the EU-ACP Partnership

ABSTRACT

The EU’s proposal to renew the EU-ACP Agreement in spite of a number of signals pointing in the opposite direction is, inter alia, the unintended consequence of independent decisions taken in three different policy areas (trade, environment, and foreign and security affairs). The common unintended consequence that the three decisions shared would not have materialised if the European Commission had not purposefully triggered it to justify its vision of future EU-ACP relations. These findings challenge the prevailing and superficial usage of the notion of the unintended as a synonym for unanticipated and undesirable, and demonstrate that unintended consequences do not necessarily presuppose lack of anticipation, but may well be the result of calculation by policymakers.     

东盟中国“10+1”关系的全方位发展——纪念中国—东盟建立对话伙伴关系20周年

今年是中国和东盟建立对话伙伴关系20周年.20年来,双方关系得到了深入和广泛的发展,东盟中国"10+1"关系更是在全方位地发展.本文阐述东盟中国"10+1"关系的发展,分析其特点和作用,并展望双方关系未来的发展.     

NEPAD: Talking from the South,governing from the West

The formation of the New Partnership for African Development (NePAD) in 2001 at the African Union (AU) Summit in Lusaka, Zambia, marked the advent of what is regarded as a novel development strategy crafted by Africans for Africa. Rooted in former South African President thabo Mbeki’s call for an African renaissance, the initiative seeks to trigger the continent’s economic development by encouraging African states to explore the prevailing international economic order or globalisation. this article explores NePAD’s capacity to foster economic development in Africa, assesses the reasons for its establishment, reviews its mandate and examines institutional mechanisms for achieving its goals. the article takes issue with the ‘westernisation’ of the ‘discourse’ of Africa and calls for the revitalisation of NePAD’s strategy for sustainable African development.     

Facilitators and obstacles to cooperation in international development networks: a network approach

This paper draws attention to the value of a network approach for understanding cooperation in international development networks. The approach emphasises the impact of social interaction, and the values, ideas, and behaviours of individuals on the achievement of development goals. Social network analysis is used to analyse the social structure and dynamics of interaction in an aid-funded development network organisation that aimed to develop optometry capacity in Mozambique. The analysis shows the value of combining quantitative and qualitative methods in a complementary way to identify factors facilitating (network consciousness and social skill) and hindering (power dynamics) cooperation.     

Exploring project sustainability: using a multiperspectival,multidimensional approach to frame inquiry

In development studies, programme sustainability has gained significant attention in recent years. One challenge to sustainability is the range of stakeholders involved in international development projects, presenting multiple perspectives and priorities, not always in harmony, nor necessarily communicated. This article presents an approach to facilitating stakeholder sustainability dialogue, an analytic framework for programme sustainability inquiry comprising five dimensions: political; economic; institutional; ownership; and practice. To demonstrate this framework we describe inquiry into stakeholder perspectives in one Afghanistan education development project. The results indicate the value of multidimensional, multiperspectival inquiry in identifying areas of potential sustainability challenge and strength.     

Obstacles to NGOs’ accountability to intended beneficiaries: the case of ActionAid

While NGO accountability is widely discussed in the literature, there has been little work done on how accountability systems operate in practice. This article aims to address this gap by using qualitative empirical data to provide a case study of one NGO’s initiative in this area. ActionAid has made substantial, high-profile efforts to improve its downward accountability since 2000. Using data from fieldwork conducted in Uganda and internationally, the article reveals the operational obstacles which have hindered ActionAid in its attempts to strengthen its accountability to intended beneficiaries at the community level, and reviews ActionAid’s ongoing commitment to this goal.     

Measuring the effectiveness of social audits: experiences from Sikkim,India

India has devolved development funds totalling US$46 billion to 240,000 village self-governments. Social audits are emerging as the main tool to ensure their accountability. This article reports on research that analysed panel data of social audits from 2013 to 2015, along with the evolving policy framework. The research found that irregularities were only in the material component and had declined from 1.74% to 0.40% of expenditure, and that works were being completed at 80% of the sanctioned cost. The article proposes a results framework to measure the effectiveness of social audits that covers their punitive as well as preventive role.