scholarly journals Judicial review and the future of UK development assistance: On the Application of O v Secretary of State for International Development (2014)

Legal Studies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 320-335
Author(s):  
John Harrington ◽  
Ambreena Manji
Keyword(s):  
International Development ◽  
Judicial Review ◽  
Development Assistance ◽  
National Income ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Development Aid ◽  
Secretary Of State ◽  
Development Spending ◽  
Accountability Gap ◽  
First Time

AbstractIn this paper we explore a case for judicial review brought against the Secretary of State for International Development by an Ethiopian national, Mr O. The claimant alleged that the Department for International Development (DfID) had failed adequately to assess evidence of human rights violations in Ethiopia to which funds provided by DfID had contributed. Warby J ruled that the claim merited a full hearing. DfID is unaccustomed to judicial review: the O case is the first time since the 1995 Pergau Dam case that UK development aid has been reviewed by the courts. We study Warby J's judgment and its implications for accountabiity for aid decisions. We argue that both the wider context for aid and the legal framework governing development assistance have changed significantly in the 20 or so years since Pergau. In particular, we show that despite the UK's new legal commitment, made in 2015, to spend 0.7% of gross national income (GNI) on official development assistance, the existing mechanisms for scrutinising aid decisions are inadequate. We argue that there is an accountability gap in relation to the UK's now considerable development spending and explore the role of judicial review in this context.

TICAD: The Context of Japan’s Development Aids to Africa

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ayokunle Olumuyiwa Omobowale
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Development ◽  
Development Assistance ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Development Aid ◽  
Development Projects ◽  
Usual Practice ◽  
Self Help ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
And Control

Most of the discourse on development aid in Africa has been limited to assistance from Western countries and those provided by competing capitalist and socialist blocs during the Cold war era. Japan, a nation with great economic and military capabilities; its development assistance for Africa is encapsulated in the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) initiative. The TICAD started in 1993 and Japan has so far held 5 TICAD meetings between 1993 and 2013 during which Africa’s development challenges and Japan’s development assistance to the continent were discussed. The emphasis on “ownership”, “self-help” and “partnership” are major peculiar characteristics of Japan’s development aid that puts the design, implementation and control of development projects under the control of recipient countries. This is a major departure from the usual practice in international development assistance where recipient countries are bound by clauses that somewhat puts the control of development aid in the hands of the granting countries. Such binding clauses have often been described as inimical to the successful administration of the aids and development in recipient countries. Though Japan’s development aid to Africa started only in 1993, by the 2000s, Japan was the topmost donor to Africa. This paper examines the context of Japan’s development aid to Africa by analyzing secondary data sourced from literature and secondary statistics.

Bilateral Aid Allocation for International Development: Impact of the Financial Crisis

2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 (4) ◽  
pp. 100-121
Author(s):  
Elena Balter ◽  
Aleksandra Morozkina
Keyword(s):  
Financial Crisis ◽  
International Development ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Development Assistance ◽  
Development Aid ◽  
Low Income Countries ◽  
External Financing ◽  
Bilateral Aid ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Allocation Decisions

This article examines the impact of financial crisis of 2008-2009 on allocation of development aid. Using OECD data on Official Development Assistance (ODA) allocation for international development by key donor countries, authors test three hypotheses: first, general impact of crisis on ODA allocation; second, impact of crisis on three recipient income groups; third, impact of crisis on relative importance of analyzed factors for ODA allocation decisions. The results show that general impact of crisis on ODA volumes was negative, although donors preferred to increase aid to low-income countries. Impact of factors describing economic situation in donor countries (public debt level, government expenditures and donor growth) increased after crisis. Donor countries might make use of these results to increase efficiency of their development assistance strategies, whereas recipient countries may exploit these results in order to attract more external financing for development.

Theory and Practice of International Development Assistance in Third World Countries: Background for the 1980's

1981 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 566-582 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seleshi Sisaye
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Economic Growth ◽  
International Development ◽  
Third World ◽  
Development Assistance ◽  
The United States ◽  
Development Aid ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Development Objective

Since the beginnings of development assistance to Third World countries during the post-World War II period, there have been some philosophical changes in the theory and practice of development aid programmes. Western development aid ( i.e., of the United States and West European countries), can be classified into two main conceptual types. These include economic growth as development objective and economic growth with an increased quality of life as development objective. The first two decades of development assistance 1950–1970 focused on economic growth objectives with increased production. The period, 1970–1980 concentrated on redistributive measures to improve the quality of life of the rural poor, the provision of basic needs, creation of employment opportunities, and the implementation of policy measures to reduce relative inequality and absolute poverty. The main purpose of this article is to discuss the changes in the theory and practice of Western aid programmes in Third World countries from 1945–1979. We will look into the underlying international causes that contributed to these changes. We will also review the evolution of aid to Third World countries for the last thirty years by examing the economic, political and social background for the changes in development assistance from urban to rural development programmes and from an emphasis in increasing production to that of redistribution with growth. These problems are discussed in the hight of their relevance for policy-onented rescoorch in Third World Comtnes.

Untaming aid through action research: Seeking transformative reflective action

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfredo Ortiz Aragón ◽  
Kent Glenzer
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
International Development ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
Development Assistance ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Development Aid ◽  
Official Development Assistance ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Five Practices ◽  
Time Frames

Planned international development—Official Development Assistance—pretends to address complex, intergenerational problems. The pretense is endemic to, and necessary for, the continuation of the development enterprise, frequently leading to docile projects. Official Development Assistance’s methodologies and methods are ill-matched for confronting such problems, while those of action research are well-suited to the task. Yet Official Development Assistance and action research are only infrequent and ephemeral bedmates. Research from five sites on three continents reveals five lessons for untaming aid through action research: (1) plan and develop programming iteratively and over long time frames to offer meaningful support to people’s lives, (2) develop new connective tissue and relational capital, (3) commit to inquiry and learning in specific contexts, (4) incrementally confront culturally embedded practice in a safe and feasible manner, and (5) use methodology to develop safe and participatory spaces that engage tacit and explicit perspectives and ways of knowing. This article, the introductory essay to the Action Research Journal’s special issue, “Development, Aid, and Social Transformation,” argues that adoption of these five practices could help untame Official Development Assistance and make it more powerful, ethical, and transformative.

Foreign Aid, Law Reform, and the World Bank’s Doing Business Project

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Webb Yackee
Keyword(s):  
International Development ◽  
Empirical Test ◽  
Development Assistance ◽  
Development Aid ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
Doing Business ◽  
Mixed Support ◽  
The World ◽  
Rich Countries ◽  
To Receive

AbstractProminent socio-legal scholars have criticized the World Bank’s Doing Business Project on the grounds that development aid donors improperly condition aid on compliance with Doing Business norms. This paper provides the first empirical test of that thesis. I examine nearly a decade of development assistance to analyze whether developing countries that implement more Doing Business reforms indeed tend to receive more development aid. I find mixed support for the conditionality thesis. While aid from multilateral organizations and from the World Bank’s International Development Assistance (IDA) program are correlated with reform efforts, total aid, as well as aid from rich countries, is not.

scholarly journals The Legal Framework for UK Aid After Brexit

2019 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-57
Author(s):  
Ambreena Manji
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
International Development ◽  
Development Assistance ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Official Development Assistance ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Economic Context ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Way

Abstract Since 2015, when the UK legislated a target for aid spending, the nature of its spending on official development assistance has changed significantly. Government departments not traditionally associated with spending aid have found themselves in charge of disbursing aid funds as a result of that year’s spending review. The vote to exit the European Union has subsequently introduced a number of uncertainties. What considerations will be at play in UK aid spending after Brexit? What will become of official development assistance currently spent through European mechanisms? In what sort of configuration might the Department for International Development and other government departments find themselves? The focus of this paper is on how the vote to leave the European Union might affect the way the UK spends aid. It asks whether the legal framework for this spending is robust enough to withstand the demands that a new post-Brexit political and economic context will make.

Seven Challenges in International Development Assistance for Health and Ways Forward

2010 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 459-469 ◽  
Author(s):  
Devi Sridhar
Keyword(s):  
International Development ◽  
National Health ◽  
Solomon Islands ◽  
Development Assistance ◽  
Significant Proportion ◽  
Development Aid ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Future Health ◽  
Development Assistance For Health ◽  
Sub Saharan

Over the past 20 years, international development assistance for health has increased, albeit for some diseases more than others. However, the triple crises of food, fuel, and finance have raised questions regarding whether aid flows will continue to increase, or even be maintained in the coming future. Health and education are often the first victims of budget cuts in times of limited funding and competing priorities as they are viewed to be in the realm of “low politics” as opposed to security and military spending, which are seen as “high politics.” Cuts in overseas development aid will have a drastic impact on countries where external funding makes up a significant proportion of national health budgets. Although global health aid accounts for only 0.3% of total expenditures on health globally (6.5% in sub-Saharan Africa), in some countries like the Solomon Islands and Mozambique, for example, 82% and 66% of the national health budgets respectively come from external resources. WHO estimates that 23 countries have over 30% of their total health expenditures funded by donors.

scholarly journals Localisation in the Context of UK Government Engagement With the Humanitarian Reform Agenda

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellen Goodwin ◽  
Alastair Ager
Keyword(s):  
International Development ◽  
Technical Assistance ◽  
Development Assistance ◽  
National Income ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
National Interest ◽  
Humanitarian Emergency ◽  
Reform Agenda ◽  
Humanitarian Response ◽  
Local Actors

Localisation is a key element of the humanitarian reform agenda. However, there are continuing debates regarding its form and emphasis, linked to understandings of the local, the role of the state and the implications for interpretation of humanitarian principles of “de-internationalised” humanitarian response. This paper considers UK engagement with the localisation agenda, particularly through examination of the policies and programmes of the Department for International Development (DFID). The UK was a major contributor to dialogue on localisation at the World Humanitarian Summit of 2016 and has subsequently shown strong support for Grand Bargain commitments and implementation of a larger proportion of programmes involving cash transfers. Overall, however, advance on this agenda has been limited. The paper notes three major areas of constraint. First, logistical concerns have frequently been noted, particularly with respect to tasks such as procurement and financial monitoring. This has limited the engagement of many local actors lacking organisational capacity in these areas. Second, conceptual ambiguity has also played a significant role. Localisation is poorly theorised, and the roles, functions and capacities—beyond procurement of supplies and emergency technical assistance—that local actors may be able to fulfil far more effectively than international ones are not frequently addressed. Narrowly framed understandings of principles such as independence and impartiality, for instance, appear to severely limit confidence in engaging with local religious actors. Third, political considerations appear to have increasingly limited the space for more radical interpretations of the implications of localisation. Successive UK Secretaries of State for International Development have defended the commitment to a fixed proportion of Gross National Income (GNI) for development assistance based on strong public support for UK aid expenditure to reflect national interests and values. In this context, there are few clear political incentives to cede power over decision-making regarding UK Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) to national and local actors in a manner required for fundamental localisation of humanitarian response. Even where there is a clear potential UK interest—for example, bolstering capacity of local actors in contexts vulnerable to humanitarian emergency to avert more costly emergency response—the public perception of capacity strengthening (compared to life-saving humanitarian actions) mitigates against such moves in a climate of contested public spending. The establishment of a merged Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office in 2020 signals the likelihood of a reframing of localisation. While some advancement in terms of some logistical and conceptual barriers may be anticipated, issues of both national interest and public perceptions of national interest seem likely to continue to constrain a more radical implementation of localisation, particularly with current suspension of the commitment to spend 0.7% of GNI on ODA.

Anne O. Krueger, Constantine Michalopoulos and Vernon W. Ruttan. Aid and Development. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. 1989. xiv + 386 pp.Price: U.S. $ 52.00

1991 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-217
Author(s):  
Mir Annice Mahmood
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
International Development ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Development Assistance ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Infrastructure ◽  
Low Literacy ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Impact

Foreign aid has been the subject of much examination and research ever since it entered the economic armamentarium approximately 45 years ago. This was the time when the Second World War had successfully ended for the Allies in the defeat of Germany and Japan. However, a new enemy, the Soviet Union, had materialized at the end of the conflict. To counter the threat from the East, the United States undertook the implementation of the Marshal Plan, which was extremely successful in rebuilding and revitalizing a shattered Western Europe. Aid had made its impact. The book under review is by three well-known economists and is the outcome of a study sponsored by the Department of State and the United States Agency for International Development. The major objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of assistance, i.e., aid, on economic development. This evaluation however, was to be based on the existing literature on the subject. The book has five major parts: Part One deals with development thought and development assistance; Part Two looks at the relationship between donors and recipients; Part Three evaluates the use of aid by sector; Part Four presents country case-studies; and Part Five synthesizes the lessons from development assistance. Part One of the book is very informative in that it summarises very concisely the theoretical underpinnings of the aid process. In the beginning, aid was thought to be the answer to underdevelopment which could be achieved by a transfer of capital from the rich to the poor. This approach, however, did not succeed as it was simplistic. Capital transfers were not sufficient in themselves to bring about development, as research in this area came to reveal. The development process is a complicated one, with inputs from all sectors of the economy. Thus, it came to be recognized that factors such as low literacy rates, poor health facilities, and lack of social infrastructure are also responsible for economic backwardness. Part One of the book, therefore, sums up appropriately the various trends in development thought. This is important because the book deals primarily with the issue of the effectiveness of aid as a catalyst to further economic development.

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