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Stagnation of Integration in Aid Administration in South Africa―Choices Between Norms, Interests and Power Balance―
Get PDFConventional literature, which analyzes potential factors to determine aid approaches, initially focused on donor interests rather than recipient needs. Recently, this analysis is being replaced with new understandings that emphasize the importance of identities and norms. Once aid actors internalize these concepts, these identities and norms can both help to determine approaches to aid. This paper argues that the intensity of both interests and identities/norms may differ between donors as well as within donors, and it can also take on a variety of roles at different times. Hence this paper focuses on the roles that both the interests and norms of stakeholders take in integrating aid administration.
This paper analyses South Africa’s international aid approach, focusing on how and why the integration of its aid administration has stagnated. South Africa is not only a salient emerging aid donor individually but, at the regional level, is the only major donor on the African continent and, in a global sense, is the one member of BRICS from Africa. South Africa has been attempting to centralize and integrate its currently decentralized aid administration. Drawing on the sense of shared African identity fostered by the president, ruling party and foreign ministry, South Africa initially attempted to establish a centralized aid co-ordination mechanism—the South African Development Partnership Agency (SADPA). However, the process of establishing SADPA has been stymied due to a number of factors: the change of president, corruption allegations against one president, the subsequent weakening of leadership, criticism by opposition parties, the economic recession and budget austerity, consistent economic interest in regional integration, and the indifference of the media and taxpayers. The idea of an African identity, which puts considerable faith in solidarity with other African countries, is accepted in different ways by domestic actors, and support for it may rise or fall according to changeable political and economic situations. At this moment, arguments for the promotion of national interests in aid approaches are more common among aid-related workers than those for an African identity. Therefore, the relative power balance of actors is favorable to actors for South Africa’s domestic rather than external interests, causing the stagnation of integration of aid administration in South Africa. Therefore, it can be concluded that the integration of aid administration is a highly political process, although DAC recommends it be undertaken in a less politicized manner.journal articl
人間の安全保障再考 ―東アジア11か国の研究ら提言 ―
Get PDF人間の安全保障は、その概念や実践について国連場裏で一定の概念整理がなされたものの、20年以上にわたって議論が続いており、定義が合意されたのも最近のことである 。そこで、本ポリシー・ノートでは、東アジアの36名の研究者や実務家が参加した研究プロジェクト「東アジアにおける人間の安全保障の実践」 の成果に基づき、東アジアで人間の安全保障がどのように理解され実践されているかについて述べた後、主に開発支援や人道支援に従事する関係者に向けて、以下の３つを提言した。
１．「政府による保護」から「人々の能力強化」へ―援助関係者は、危機の発生直後には国家の保護機能の強化を支援すべきだが、その後は適切なタイミングを見極めて、支援の重点を人々自身の行動能力の強化へと移すことが必要である。
２．横のネットワークの推進―援助関係者は、危機の発生に際しては、現地の政府と協力するだけでなく、国境を越えて官民やマルチステークホルダーが連携するネットワークを活用し、現場の人々のニーズを聞き取り、それに応えていく必要がある。
３．主権尊重と相互の信頼醸成―援助関係者が平時から被援助国の主権を尊重した支援を継続し、信頼関係を構築していると、危機の発生に際しても、迅速かつ有効な緊急支援が可能になる。articl
The Impact of Migration and Remittances on Labor Supply in Tajikistan
Get PDFmajor labor migrant sending and remittance dependent country in Central Asia. We contribute to the literature in two ways. First, we effectively address the common methodological issues that result in biased estimates in analyses of migration and remittances. Our empirical work accounts for the endogeneity of migration and remittances with respect to the labor supply decisions of household members left at home, and for the self-selection of migrants and remittance senders through the application of a control function approach. Second, we apply our empirical model to unique high-frequency household panel data that further helps to remedy methodological problems present in cross-sectional studies. The findings suggest that having a migrant member and receiving remittances increases the reservation wages of the household members left at home, thereby reducing their labor supply and economic activity rate. This result is robust to different model specifications and definitions of migration and remittances.departmental bulletin pape
The Hearts, Minds, and Sentiments: The Volunteers Program in the Immunization Program in Bangladesh and the Chagas Diseases Control Project of Honduras
Get PDFThis paper argues that the work of the Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers (JOCV) brought about sustained developments in social capital in the host communities and contributed to motivating people to change their individual behavior. A mixed-methods approach using semi-structured interviews and surveys was used to examine how Volunteers worked to instill “norms”, “trust,” and affect changes of “sentiment” among people in two developing countries, Bangladesh and Honduras. Specifically, the paper is concerned with the activities undertaken by the JOCV within the Polio Control/EPI (Expanded Program on Immunization) programs in Bangladesh from 1999 to 2015, and the Chagas Disease Vector Control program carried out in Honduras from 2003 to 2011. The key findings of the study include: In Bangladesh, the JOCV contributed to improving the motivation of field workers, demonstrating that their “trust” for enlarging the acceptance of vaccinations has increased as a result of their work; this then resulted in vaccinations becoming the new “norm” for the community. In this respect, the increased “trust” and changing “norms” contributed to the 2004 polio free declaration in the country by altering social capital. In Honduras, the JOCV promoted the creation of an “exchange of responses” between health administrations and communities by stimulating the intrinsic motivation of the people concerned and generating positive sentiment among them. As a result, three common “sentiments” were identified among local Community Health Volunteers: happiness, a sense of achievement, and pride. This indicates that the JOCV created and altered social capital that supported self-sustained vector control.In both Bangladesh and Honduras, the Volunteers accompanied their local colleagues during fieldwork, spoke the same language, and shared common successes and failures. Cooperation between JOCV and local colleagues was an important factor in altering the hearts, minds, and sentiments of the local partners and communities, and contributed to the achievement of the important goal of disease control. This paper argues that more attention should be focused on the heart, mind, and sentimental aspects of the individual aid workers.departmental bulletin pape
Enlightening Communities and Parents for Improving Student Learning Evidence from Randomized Experiment in Niger
Get PDFProviding local communities with authority to manage school resources is a popular education policy in the developing world. However, recent studies suggest that this type of intervention has limited impact on student learning outcomes. To investigate how communities can effectively utilize school resources, we conducted a randomized experiment in Niger by providing school grants and training for school committees to increase communities’ awareness of student learning and improve resource management. The result shows that, when the training was conducted with grant provision, communities increased activities that enhanced student effort, and student test scores in math and French remarkably improved, particularly for low-performing children. As a secondary effect of the training, parents, who have realized their children are not learning the basics at school, increased their contribution to school committees and their support for children’s home study. These results suggest that sharing information and knowledge with communities and raising their awareness is a key to enhancing effectiveness of community participation and school grants policy.departmental bulletin pape
Mainstreaming Biodiversity in Development Cooperation Projects through the Application of Mitigation Hierarchy and Green Infrastructure Approaches
Get PDFThe importance of biodiversity to human welfare is widely recognized and environmental impact assessment (EIA) is regarded as a useful tool to minimize adverse impacts on biodiversity due to development. However, biodiversity loss continues in particular in developing countries though biodiversity-inclusive assessment has been implemented for a long time. The purpose of this working paper is to propose a practical approach for mainstreaming biodiversity into development cooperation projects. This paper examines the biodiversity mitigation measures of 120 EIA reports prepared by the Japan International Cooperation Agency from 2001 to 2012 using quantitative text analysis. The present biodiversity considerations are inadequately addressed and the avoidance measures are quite scarce. Ecosystems have multiple benefits and it is worthwhile to incorporate their benefits into development cooperation projects. The application of mitigation hierarchy aiming for no net loss and green infrastructure approaches to make wise use of ecosystem services can be one solution to stop biodiversity loss and satisfy development needs.departmental bulletin pape
Long-term and Spillover Effects of Rice Production Training in Uganda
Get PDFUsing panel data from 2009, 2011, and 2015, this study estimates the impact of rice production training conducted in Uganda on the adoption of improved cultivation practices and productivities. Since participants were encouraged to share information with fellow farmers, the average effects on training participants and non-participants in training villages (spillover effects) are separately estimated by selecting comparable households from villages without training projects. Because of the non-random assignment of project villages and training participation, a difference-in-differences model with household fixed effects is combined with propensity score weighting for mitigating biases. We find that training increases adoption rates for improved cultivation practices among training participants, both in the short and long term, and the long-term impact of training on rice yield is 0.47 tons per hectare. Although non-participants in training villages increased the adoption of transplanting in the long term, no improvements in non-participants’ knowledge on rice cultivation nor in rice productivity were detected. The results of the heterogeneous impacts on non-participants’ adoption show non-participants who visited the demonstration plot increased the adoption of transplanting, but those who talked with training participants about rice cultivation did not increase the adoption rate more than those who did not.departmental bulletin pape
Technical Efficiency of Public and Private Hospitals in Vietnam: Do Market-Oriented Policies Matter?
Get PDFThis study examined how ownership and the degree of competition in the market were related to pure technical efficiency, using micro-level hospital data from six regions in Vietnam that were collected by an original survey. According to the results, the provincial hospitals have significantly higher efficiency than the district hospitals, while the private hospitals have significantly lower efficiency than the district hospitals. Moreover, the number of competing hospitals has a statistically significant negative correlation with the efficiency of the hospitals, and so does the number of competing private hospitals. On the other hand, the degree of concentration in the market has no significant correlation with efficiency. Those results may imply that competition raises problems with resource allocation among the hospitals in Vietnam.departmental bulletin pape
Measuring the Competencies of International Volunteers: Key Competencies of the Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers and their Perceived Achievements and Outcomes
Get PDFInternational volunteers (IVs) are promoted as catalysts for change in development cooperation. However, little is known about what makes them successful in generating positive changes in developing communities. The present study proposed an affective measure of competencies for IVs and longitudinally examined the relationship between their competencies and volunteer performance such as perceived achievement and outcomes for counterpart organizations. Using panel survey data on the Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers (JOCV), a serious of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses identified three distinct correlated factors which correspond to each of the predicted key competencies, initiative for challenge, intercultural negotiation, and project management under stress. Tests of longitudinal measurement invariance on these measures established partial scalar invariance, indicating that their factor structure is mostly stable over three measurement times: before, during and after volunteering. A series of hierarchical linear regression analyses showed that all three competencies predicted perceived volunteer achievement and/or outcomes for counterpart organizations but at different stages of volunteering. The study also found that these competencies declined toward the end of the first year overall, and then increased toward the end of the volunteer service. Implications for practice are discussed.departmental bulletin pape
A ‘Local’ Response to Peacebuilding Efforts in Timor-Leste
Get PDFMany international agencies and donors that have implemented peacebuilding activities in a variety of countries and situations acknowledge, in theory, the importance of placing local communities at the center of peacebuilding activities. In practice, however, debate continues on how to operationalize community-centered approaches and whether they can be used successfully to promote peace. This paper thus unpacks the voice of ‘the local’ to understand the mechanisms of peacebuilding together with development. By conducting focused group discussions (FGD) in three villages in Timor-Leste and utilizing a community-based rating system for ten key areas, we found that external efforts are perceived differently with respect to location and time. The 2006 political turmoil in the capital had different impacts on local communities. External actors responded as ‘intervenors’ by dispatching an international force along with the provision of humanitarian assistance in urban areas. In rural districts, they maintained capacity-building activities, thus playing the role of ‘mentors’. Findings also show that local communities continue to suffer from poor quality water and lack of qualified teachers and are requesting further involvement from the national government. At the same time, some Timorese nationals have attempted to tackle issues of unsettled land ownership and insecurity at the community level while the formal justice and police services remain underdeveloped. In response, external actors have taken on the role of ‘facilitator’ to assist with the functionalization of a traditional customary system for conflict resolution. Thus, they contribute to the generation of hybrid forms of peace, which evolved from the interactions of different groups. The analysis underscores the challenge of assessing the external actor’s role in regard to the needs of local communities by location, sector and timing.departmental bulletin pape