Pub Date : 2020-12-15DOI: 10.1080/08039410.2020.1858953
Kwame Adovor Tsikudo
Abstract This study examines the issues of linkage development pertaining to the Bui Hydropower Dam. 1 Completed in 2013, the 400-megawatt hydropower facility was touted by the government to catalyse Ghana’s socio-economic transformation. However, while the Chinese contractor delivered the physical edifice to the Ghanaian government, the dam’s material benefits have yet to materialize. The inability to instigate economic linkages from the project has sparked debate in research and policy circles in Ghana. While some scholars reference local factors, others cite external elements, including the demands of Chinese actors and financiers as the cause of the limited economic linkages the dam created in the Ghanaian economy. This paper explores these counterpropositions. Drawing from exploratory mixed-method research, the paper asserts that although linkage creation is mediated by internal and external factors, the former is more salient when it comes to engagement with China.
{"title":"Ghana’s Bui Hydropower Dam and Linkage Creation Challenges","authors":"Kwame Adovor Tsikudo","doi":"10.1080/08039410.2020.1858953","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08039410.2020.1858953","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This study examines the issues of linkage development pertaining to the Bui Hydropower Dam. 1 Completed in 2013, the 400-megawatt hydropower facility was touted by the government to catalyse Ghana’s socio-economic transformation. However, while the Chinese contractor delivered the physical edifice to the Ghanaian government, the dam’s material benefits have yet to materialize. The inability to instigate economic linkages from the project has sparked debate in research and policy circles in Ghana. While some scholars reference local factors, others cite external elements, including the demands of Chinese actors and financiers as the cause of the limited economic linkages the dam created in the Ghanaian economy. This paper explores these counterpropositions. Drawing from exploratory mixed-method research, the paper asserts that although linkage creation is mediated by internal and external factors, the former is more salient when it comes to engagement with China.","PeriodicalId":45207,"journal":{"name":"FORUM FOR DEVELOPMENT STUDIES","volume":"48 1","pages":"153 - 174"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2020-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/08039410.2020.1858953","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"59579007","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-12-12DOI: 10.1080/08039410.2020.1851753
Simon Pahle
Abstract During the last decade, the liberal paradigm, hegemonic in development assistance from the 1980 and well into the 2000s, has seen a fracturing. Rather than an impasse or outright conflict between ‘aid with Chinese characteristics’ and that of traditional donors, we might now be witnessing an evolving convergence. Through a concise review of China’s aid –its modalities, motives, substance, underlying conceptions of development, and morals – I extrapolate the following key features across the Chinese approach: Collateralization of development finance; neo-mercantilism; a preference for aid to tangibles; a deep-seated ‘growthmentality’; and a non-moralizing politics. I then take these features as referents for charting possible convergence in a case study of recent shifts in the development assistance of Norway – a hitherto ardent advocate for liberalist thinking and practices in aidland. In ways of thinking and acting, there seem to be some clear commonalities emerging. Convergence around said referents may owe much to the fact that these are not so novel – they exhume much of that which is associated with the modernization paradigm, which traditional donors now seem to re-discover as both feasible and desirable templates for aid.
{"title":"Back to the Future? Charting Features of the Not-So-New Convergence in Aidland","authors":"Simon Pahle","doi":"10.1080/08039410.2020.1851753","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08039410.2020.1851753","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract\u0000 During the last decade, the liberal paradigm, hegemonic in development assistance from the 1980 and well into the 2000s, has seen a fracturing. Rather than an impasse or outright conflict between ‘aid with Chinese characteristics’ and that of traditional donors, we might now be witnessing an evolving convergence. Through a concise review of China’s aid –its modalities, motives, substance, underlying conceptions of development, and morals – I extrapolate the following key features across the Chinese approach: Collateralization of development finance; neo-mercantilism; a preference for aid to tangibles; a deep-seated ‘growthmentality’; and a non-moralizing politics. I then take these features as referents for charting possible convergence in a case study of recent shifts in the development assistance of Norway – a hitherto ardent advocate for liberalist thinking and practices in aidland. In ways of thinking and acting, there seem to be some clear commonalities emerging. Convergence around said referents may owe much to the fact that these are not so novel – they exhume much of that which is associated with the modernization paradigm, which traditional donors now seem to re-discover as both feasible and desirable templates for aid.","PeriodicalId":45207,"journal":{"name":"FORUM FOR DEVELOPMENT STUDIES","volume":"48 1","pages":"29 - 57"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2020-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/08039410.2020.1851753","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41991122","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-11-25DOI: 10.1080/08039410.2020.1851754
Elín Broddadóttir, G. Gunnlaugsson, J. Einarsdóttir
Abstract Public support in high-income countries for development cooperation and humanitarian assistance influences the provision of Official Development Assistance (ODA) to fight global poverty and improve conditions in low-income countries. This research examined public attitudes in Iceland toward ODA, with the aid provided by the Icelandic government in September 2014 to fight the Ebola epidemic in West Africa as a case in point. Specifically, it examines which characteristics relate to having negative attitudes towards the assistance, and what reasons the public believe influenced the decision to provide aid. A questionnaire about attitudes towards the Ebola epidemic was administered to a random sample of 1.500 adults from an internet panel established by the Social Science Research Institute of the University of Iceland, and 920 people answered (61 per cent response rate). A quarter of the respondents expressed negative attitudes towards the humanitarian assistance provided in response to the Ebola epidemic, and development cooperation in general. Those who held negative attitudes were more likely to lean to the right in political orientation and be less educated. The majority of the public believed ethical reasons influenced the decision to provide humanitarian assistance. Respondents with negative attitudes towards the aid were more likely to believe that self-interest influenced the decision to provide aid; yet, a survey with an experimental design is needed to elucidate this issue further. Governments should ensure that development cooperation and humanitarian assistance are based on ethical considerations, in addition to educating the public about development processes, to increase positive attitudes towards foreign aid.
{"title":"Public Opinion in Iceland on Aid During the Ebola Epidemic in West Africa","authors":"Elín Broddadóttir, G. Gunnlaugsson, J. Einarsdóttir","doi":"10.1080/08039410.2020.1851754","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08039410.2020.1851754","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Public support in high-income countries for development cooperation and humanitarian assistance influences the provision of Official Development Assistance (ODA) to fight global poverty and improve conditions in low-income countries. This research examined public attitudes in Iceland toward ODA, with the aid provided by the Icelandic government in September 2014 to fight the Ebola epidemic in West Africa as a case in point. Specifically, it examines which characteristics relate to having negative attitudes towards the assistance, and what reasons the public believe influenced the decision to provide aid. A questionnaire about attitudes towards the Ebola epidemic was administered to a random sample of 1.500 adults from an internet panel established by the Social Science Research Institute of the University of Iceland, and 920 people answered (61 per cent response rate). A quarter of the respondents expressed negative attitudes towards the humanitarian assistance provided in response to the Ebola epidemic, and development cooperation in general. Those who held negative attitudes were more likely to lean to the right in political orientation and be less educated. The majority of the public believed ethical reasons influenced the decision to provide humanitarian assistance. Respondents with negative attitudes towards the aid were more likely to believe that self-interest influenced the decision to provide aid; yet, a survey with an experimental design is needed to elucidate this issue further. Governments should ensure that development cooperation and humanitarian assistance are based on ethical considerations, in addition to educating the public about development processes, to increase positive attitudes towards foreign aid.","PeriodicalId":45207,"journal":{"name":"FORUM FOR DEVELOPMENT STUDIES","volume":"48 1","pages":"59 - 85"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2020-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/08039410.2020.1851754","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44668075","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-10-09DOI: 10.1080/08039410.2020.1830849
V. Thebe
Abstract Land self-provisioning has been a strategy not only for land access for the landless, but also to rebuild or improve livelihoods for people recovering from livelihood shocks. An analysis of siziphile land occupation of an abandoned safari ranch by communal area residents in south-western Lupane District, reveals the limitation and livelihood risks of such occupations. It shows how by extending farming activities into a safari ranch (which was home to a variety of wild life), farmers were exposed to a great threat from wild life and to their livelihoods. Yet, these farmers typically lacked the means to protect their crops from wild animals. They had no means to recover from the loss of what they had invested after elephants destroyed their crops. The paper emphasizes the risk taken by households to farm a former safari ranch and how it worked to further impoverish households as opposed to improving their livelihoods situation.
{"title":"Siziphile Land Occupations, Wilderness Farming, Threat of the Wild and Livelihood Vulnerability in Western Lupane District","authors":"V. Thebe","doi":"10.1080/08039410.2020.1830849","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08039410.2020.1830849","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract\u0000 Land self-provisioning has been a strategy not only for land access for the landless, but also to rebuild or improve livelihoods for people recovering from livelihood shocks. An analysis of siziphile land occupation of an abandoned safari ranch by communal area residents in south-western Lupane District, reveals the limitation and livelihood risks of such occupations. It shows how by extending farming activities into a safari ranch (which was home to a variety of wild life), farmers were exposed to a great threat from wild life and to their livelihoods. Yet, these farmers typically lacked the means to protect their crops from wild animals. They had no means to recover from the loss of what they had invested after elephants destroyed their crops. The paper emphasizes the risk taken by households to farm a former safari ranch and how it worked to further impoverish households as opposed to improving their livelihoods situation.","PeriodicalId":45207,"journal":{"name":"FORUM FOR DEVELOPMENT STUDIES","volume":"48 1","pages":"111 - 128"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2020-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/08039410.2020.1830849","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45615873","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-10-03DOI: 10.1080/08039410.2020.1829028
Elise Støver Toft, Indra de Soysa
Abstract The effectiveness of aid is heatedly debated in academia and policy circles. Annually, billions of dollars are transferred from industrialized countries to developing countries out of moral and practical concerns. Can aid from Norway, a country apparently with little strategic interests, a great deal of political consensus in support of aid, and much wealth, make a difference towards achieving better political governance in the poorer world? Using data on bilateral – and good governance aid per capita as measures of the value of aid to recipients, and novel data on political corruption, we find that aid from Norway associates negatively with political corruption, whereas total aid from all donors associates positively. The substantive impacts of these effects, however, are minimal. More sophisticated analyses accounting for selection effects and endogeneity suggest that Norwegian aid is perhaps following good governance rather than causing it. This finding, while not supporting aid optimism, might somehow comfort Norwegian taxpayers who might rest assured that their money is not unduly benefiting the corrupt. While there is no support for the extremely pessimistic view of Norway’s generosity towards the poorer world, one might still question its instrumental value if it only follows success rather than causes it.
{"title":"Rich and Naïve? Assessing the Effects of Norwegian Aid on Political Corruption, 1980–2018","authors":"Elise Støver Toft, Indra de Soysa","doi":"10.1080/08039410.2020.1829028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08039410.2020.1829028","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The effectiveness of aid is heatedly debated in academia and policy circles. Annually, billions of dollars are transferred from industrialized countries to developing countries out of moral and practical concerns. Can aid from Norway, a country apparently with little strategic interests, a great deal of political consensus in support of aid, and much wealth, make a difference towards achieving better political governance in the poorer world? Using data on bilateral – and good governance aid per capita as measures of the value of aid to recipients, and novel data on political corruption, we find that aid from Norway associates negatively with political corruption, whereas total aid from all donors associates positively. The substantive impacts of these effects, however, are minimal. More sophisticated analyses accounting for selection effects and endogeneity suggest that Norwegian aid is perhaps following good governance rather than causing it. This finding, while not supporting aid optimism, might somehow comfort Norwegian taxpayers who might rest assured that their money is not unduly benefiting the corrupt. While there is no support for the extremely pessimistic view of Norway’s generosity towards the poorer world, one might still question its instrumental value if it only follows success rather than causes it.","PeriodicalId":45207,"journal":{"name":"FORUM FOR DEVELOPMENT STUDIES","volume":"48 1","pages":"1 - 28"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2020-10-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/08039410.2020.1829028","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45262650","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.1080/08039410.2019.1672779
V. Thebe
Abstract Farmer support systems, mainly by the state, have long been considered as central in the agricultural development in Zimbabwe. While this is partly true, the main contention of this paper is that such a perspective fails to grasp the complex relationship between proletarianization and rural agriculture, and the significance of the rural economy within the life course of rural households. The paper develops this argument by focusing on the experiences of farmers in the mid-Zambezi to illustrate how they developed successful farming careers by investing income accumulated from employment. These farmers were formerly proletarianized. Rural production, therefore, met their income accumulation needs after retirements or retrenchments. The mid-Zambezi frontier offered scope for accumulation because of the availability of land and labour for extensive farming. The paper illustrates that the main aspect driving farming was access to financial capital accumulated from employment, which allowed farmers to take advantage of opportunities offered by the new environment. It concludes by examining policy implications of this case study for agricultural development in the country.
{"title":"Who Becomes a Farmer?: Migrant Farmers and the Cotton Economy in the Mid-Zambezi Valley Frontier Region, Northern-Western Zimbabwe","authors":"V. Thebe","doi":"10.1080/08039410.2019.1672779","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08039410.2019.1672779","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Farmer support systems, mainly by the state, have long been considered as central in the agricultural development in Zimbabwe. While this is partly true, the main contention of this paper is that such a perspective fails to grasp the complex relationship between proletarianization and rural agriculture, and the significance of the rural economy within the life course of rural households. The paper develops this argument by focusing on the experiences of farmers in the mid-Zambezi to illustrate how they developed successful farming careers by investing income accumulated from employment. These farmers were formerly proletarianized. Rural production, therefore, met their income accumulation needs after retirements or retrenchments. The mid-Zambezi frontier offered scope for accumulation because of the availability of land and labour for extensive farming. The paper illustrates that the main aspect driving farming was access to financial capital accumulated from employment, which allowed farmers to take advantage of opportunities offered by the new environment. It concludes by examining policy implications of this case study for agricultural development in the country.","PeriodicalId":45207,"journal":{"name":"FORUM FOR DEVELOPMENT STUDIES","volume":"47 1","pages":"447 - 467"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/08039410.2019.1672779","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41361568","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.1080/08039410.2020.1833978
Melisew Dejene, Tesfaye Semela
Abstract Policy analysis needs to go beyond the conventional ‘problem solving’ approach to interrogating ‘problem representations’ within policy documents. Numerous studies on social protection in Ethiopia, and in sub-Saharan Africa at large have been confined to studying the impact of policy interventions. Studies that aimed to scrutinize policy documents for their ‘problematization’ of issues and ‘problem representations’ in the Foucauldian sense are in dearth. This study used document analysis as a method and Bacchi’s (2009a) ‘What is the Problem Represented to be’ (WPR) model as its analytic frame to interrogate the ‘problem representations’ of the Developmental Social Welfare Policy (DSWP) and the present Social Protection Policy of Ethiopia. The findings suggest that though there is improvement from the earlier to the current policy, ‘problem representations’ of both were limited in terms of what they could deliver, for they were framed by targeting theory, having the ‘resource scarcity’ excuse. This was mainly reflected in the policy regimes’ ‘problematization’ of issues and ‘subjectification’ of beneficiaries.
{"title":"The ‘Problem Represented To Be’ in the Social Protection Policy Regimes of Ethiopia","authors":"Melisew Dejene, Tesfaye Semela","doi":"10.1080/08039410.2020.1833978","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08039410.2020.1833978","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract\u0000 Policy analysis needs to go beyond the conventional ‘problem solving’ approach to interrogating ‘problem representations’ within policy documents. Numerous studies on social protection in Ethiopia, and in sub-Saharan Africa at large have been confined to studying the impact of policy interventions. Studies that aimed to scrutinize policy documents for their ‘problematization’ of issues and ‘problem representations’ in the Foucauldian sense are in dearth. This study used document analysis as a method and Bacchi’s (2009a) ‘What is the Problem Represented to be’ (WPR) model as its analytic frame to interrogate the ‘problem representations’ of the Developmental Social Welfare Policy (DSWP) and the present Social Protection Policy of Ethiopia. The findings suggest that though there is improvement from the earlier to the current policy, ‘problem representations’ of both were limited in terms of what they could deliver, for they were framed by targeting theory, having the ‘resource scarcity’ excuse. This was mainly reflected in the policy regimes’ ‘problematization’ of issues and ‘subjectification’ of beneficiaries.","PeriodicalId":45207,"journal":{"name":"FORUM FOR DEVELOPMENT STUDIES","volume":"47 1","pages":"511 - 530"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/08039410.2020.1833978","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45834759","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.1080/08039410.2019.1654544
Synneva Geithus Laastad
Abstract In 2008, Ecuador became the first country in the world to make nature a subject of constitutional rights, and they did so by invoking nature as la Pachamama, the Kichwa Mother Earth deity. This is a biocentric notion which challenges the modernist vision of nature as resources subject to human use, which could imply a fundamental transition in the human-nature relationship with implications far beyond the legal system. With this point of departure, the aim of this article is to explore how Ecuador’s rights of nature are understood and employed rhetorically by relevant actors, particularly in relation to the country’s development model, which is based on extraction and export of natural resources, i.e. a subject understanding of nature. The rights of nature’s meaning have been attempted fixed in a discursive struggle, and three different discourses regarding the rights of nature have been identified from interview data: The Anti-Capitalist Ecologist Discourse, the Transformative Discourse and the Anthropocentric Developmentalist Discourse. The latter, which conceptualizes the rights of nature as anthropocentric sustainable development has become hegemonic. This can explain why the rights of nature can co-exist alongside continued and increased resource extraction with detrimental socio-environmental effects.
{"title":"Nature as a Subject of Rights? National Discourses on Ecuador’s Constitutional Rights of Nature","authors":"Synneva Geithus Laastad","doi":"10.1080/08039410.2019.1654544","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08039410.2019.1654544","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In 2008, Ecuador became the first country in the world to make nature a subject of constitutional rights, and they did so by invoking nature as la Pachamama, the Kichwa Mother Earth deity. This is a biocentric notion which challenges the modernist vision of nature as resources subject to human use, which could imply a fundamental transition in the human-nature relationship with implications far beyond the legal system. With this point of departure, the aim of this article is to explore how Ecuador’s rights of nature are understood and employed rhetorically by relevant actors, particularly in relation to the country’s development model, which is based on extraction and export of natural resources, i.e. a subject understanding of nature. The rights of nature’s meaning have been attempted fixed in a discursive struggle, and three different discourses regarding the rights of nature have been identified from interview data: The Anti-Capitalist Ecologist Discourse, the Transformative Discourse and the Anthropocentric Developmentalist Discourse. The latter, which conceptualizes the rights of nature as anthropocentric sustainable development has become hegemonic. This can explain why the rights of nature can co-exist alongside continued and increased resource extraction with detrimental socio-environmental effects.","PeriodicalId":45207,"journal":{"name":"FORUM FOR DEVELOPMENT STUDIES","volume":"47 1","pages":"401 - 425"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/08039410.2019.1654544","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42713864","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.1080/08039410.2020.1832568
Kwaku Abrefa Busia, Prince Osei-Wusu Adjei
Abstract This article discusses the supporting roles of Traditional Authorities (TAs) towards state-led formal education in Ghana through the Otumfuo Education Fund (OEF) from 2000 to 2012. The OEF is an educational fund initiated by the current Ashanti king, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, in the early 2000s to address falling educational standards not only within his kingdom but also other parts of Ghana in line with the state’s educational vision. As one of the foremost educational partnership by a traditional leader in support of state-driven formal education at a massive scale in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), we examine how such state-chieftaincy hybrid governance approaches can promote educational delivery. Through in-depth interviews with 15 multiple stakeholders including officials at the OEF secretariat, traditional leaders, headteachers, government officials and project consultants involved with the OEF, we investigated the effectiveness and limitations of the OEF’s partnership with state educational agencies in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. By using Helmke and Levitsky’s typology of formal-informal interactions, we find that hybrid arrangements between traditional leaders (through the OEF) and the Ghanaian state aligns to an ‘accommodating-complementary’ type of partnership. Under this, the OEF supported the state in four main areas namely providing scholarships (to brilliant but needy students), expanding and renovating educational infrastructure in deprived areas, providing educational materials and organising career development workshops for students. We conclude that greater attention should be given to partnerships between state educational agencies and TAs, particularly in deprived areas where access to education remains a challenge.
{"title":"The Hybridised Context of Traditional Authorities Involvement in State-Driven Educational Provision in Ghana","authors":"Kwaku Abrefa Busia, Prince Osei-Wusu Adjei","doi":"10.1080/08039410.2020.1832568","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08039410.2020.1832568","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article discusses the supporting roles of Traditional Authorities (TAs) towards state-led formal education in Ghana through the Otumfuo Education Fund (OEF) from 2000 to 2012. The OEF is an educational fund initiated by the current Ashanti king, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, in the early 2000s to address falling educational standards not only within his kingdom but also other parts of Ghana in line with the state’s educational vision. As one of the foremost educational partnership by a traditional leader in support of state-driven formal education at a massive scale in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), we examine how such state-chieftaincy hybrid governance approaches can promote educational delivery. Through in-depth interviews with 15 multiple stakeholders including officials at the OEF secretariat, traditional leaders, headteachers, government officials and project consultants involved with the OEF, we investigated the effectiveness and limitations of the OEF’s partnership with state educational agencies in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. By using Helmke and Levitsky’s typology of formal-informal interactions, we find that hybrid arrangements between traditional leaders (through the OEF) and the Ghanaian state aligns to an ‘accommodating-complementary’ type of partnership. Under this, the OEF supported the state in four main areas namely providing scholarships (to brilliant but needy students), expanding and renovating educational infrastructure in deprived areas, providing educational materials and organising career development workshops for students. We conclude that greater attention should be given to partnerships between state educational agencies and TAs, particularly in deprived areas where access to education remains a challenge.","PeriodicalId":45207,"journal":{"name":"FORUM FOR DEVELOPMENT STUDIES","volume":"47 1","pages":"531 - 553"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/08039410.2020.1832568","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41809237","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-08-20DOI: 10.1080/08039410.2020.1808525
I. Pollet, Benjamin Steegen, I. Goddeeris
Abstract Since the early 2000s an increasing number of publications has led to the emergence of a new research field: religion and development. Much of the literature focuses on defining and classifying faith-based organizations, and attributes distinctive characteristics and comparative advantages to religious actors in contrast to their secular counterparts. In line with more empirically oriented research, this article examines how eight Belgian NGOs perceive the importance of incorporating religion in their own development practice. The NGOs’ narratives highlight a number of benefits and drawbacks related to their own religious profile and/or taking into account religious aspects of the context in which they work. While these narratives generally correspond with benefits and risks mentioned in the literature, their ground-level detail adds nuance and questions the validity of a clear-cut dichotomy between faith-based and secular NGOs, and the instrumentalizing language of comparative advantages. To achieve insight into the various, complex and specific ways in which religion is present in development, a deeply empirical, contextualized approach is needed.
{"title":"Giving Religion a Place in Development Cooperation: The Perspective of Belgian NGOs","authors":"I. Pollet, Benjamin Steegen, I. Goddeeris","doi":"10.1080/08039410.2020.1808525","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08039410.2020.1808525","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Since the early 2000s an increasing number of publications has led to the emergence of a new research field: religion and development. Much of the literature focuses on defining and classifying faith-based organizations, and attributes distinctive characteristics and comparative advantages to religious actors in contrast to their secular counterparts. In line with more empirically oriented research, this article examines how eight Belgian NGOs perceive the importance of incorporating religion in their own development practice. The NGOs’ narratives highlight a number of benefits and drawbacks related to their own religious profile and/or taking into account religious aspects of the context in which they work. While these narratives generally correspond with benefits and risks mentioned in the literature, their ground-level detail adds nuance and questions the validity of a clear-cut dichotomy between faith-based and secular NGOs, and the instrumentalizing language of comparative advantages. To achieve insight into the various, complex and specific ways in which religion is present in development, a deeply empirical, contextualized approach is needed.","PeriodicalId":45207,"journal":{"name":"FORUM FOR DEVELOPMENT STUDIES","volume":"47 1","pages":"555 - 576"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2020-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/08039410.2020.1808525","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42511939","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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