Galvanising and fostering sub-national government leadership for area-wide sanitation programming

Government leadership at both the national and sub-national levels is an essential step towards ensuring safely managed sanitation services for all. Though the importance of sub-national government leadership for water, sanitation and hygiene is widely acknowledged, to date much of the focus has been on the delivery of water services. This article sets out to start to address this imbalance by focusing on practical ways to galvanise and foster sub-national government leadership for sanitation programming. By focusing on the experiences across three sub-national areas in East Africa where positive changes in the prioritisation of sanitation by local governments have been witnessed, we (a group of researchers, local government representatives and development partner staff) cross-examine and identify lessons learnt. The results presented in this paper and subsequent discussion provide practical recommendations for those wishing to trigger a change in political will at the local level and create the foundation to strengthen sanitation governance and the wider system needed to ensure service delivery for all.

China’s Bilateral Aid to the South Pacific Region: A Constructivist Analysis

<p>This paper examines the role of China’s national identities and the impact on its foreign aid policies and practices. The multiple identities shape China’s role as a development partner in pursuit of economic cooperation with aid recipients and that seek to engage with traditional aid donors in terms of aid delivery. To explore the influence of national identities-the victimhood identity, the developing country identity and the rising responsible power identity behind China’s foreign aid policies and behaviors, this thesis uses a solid theoretical foundation-Constructivism. It analyses two empirical cases, the Fiji and the Cook Islands from 2006 to 2013, drawing from a large chunk of literature from English and Chinese publications, government documents, and relevant websites. The thesis finds that China’s aid policies and behaviors are mainly consistent with its victimhood and developing country identities. The country regards itself as a development partner rather than an aid donor and places great emphasis on mutual benefit and non-interference principles with a large proportion of its aid focused on infrastructure, construction-based projects. However, it also uncovers that China has started to address aid recipients’ demands. The country has also learned how to handle aid programs from other donor countries, such as Australia and New Zealand, which is incorporated into China’s new rising responsible power identity. The research aims to challenge the dominated rationality-based analysis and hopes to trigger further discussion about China’s aid and development.</p>

China’s Bilateral Aid to the South Pacific Region: A Constructivist Analysis

<p>This paper examines the role of China’s national identities and the impact on its foreign aid policies and practices. The multiple identities shape China’s role as a development partner in pursuit of economic cooperation with aid recipients and that seek to engage with traditional aid donors in terms of aid delivery. To explore the influence of national identities-the victimhood identity, the developing country identity and the rising responsible power identity behind China’s foreign aid policies and behaviors, this thesis uses a solid theoretical foundation-Constructivism. It analyses two empirical cases, the Fiji and the Cook Islands from 2006 to 2013, drawing from a large chunk of literature from English and Chinese publications, government documents, and relevant websites. The thesis finds that China’s aid policies and behaviors are mainly consistent with its victimhood and developing country identities. The country regards itself as a development partner rather than an aid donor and places great emphasis on mutual benefit and non-interference principles with a large proportion of its aid focused on infrastructure, construction-based projects. However, it also uncovers that China has started to address aid recipients’ demands. The country has also learned how to handle aid programs from other donor countries, such as Australia and New Zealand, which is incorporated into China’s new rising responsible power identity. The research aims to challenge the dominated rationality-based analysis and hopes to trigger further discussion about China’s aid and development.</p>

China Belt and Road Initiative:

Most of Sub-Sahara Africa gained independence from Europe in a wave from 1957 through the late 1980s with the notion that her former colonial masters would be development partners in the newfound era of political, social, and economic freedom. This perception of partnership is evidenced in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth, but regrettably, in other countries in the continent, there have been delays in infrastructure development. With Europe’s failure to meet the expectation, Africa has turned to China as a development partner. China has tackled some of the urgent infrastructure needs in return for agricultural products and natural resources. This recent partnership with China continues to expand in Africa, demonstrated by the launching of the Belt and Roads Initiative (BRI). East and Southern Africa represent the highest beneficiaries of the BRI engagements, receiving over half of the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) from China whose foreign investment practices in Africa have come under great criticism from the West. This skepticism is due to the vague nature of the engagements and notes which are not publicly reported. This persistent suspicion by the West calls for close monitoring of the relations between the US and China that could easily escalate to a conflict between both nations. Though under attack, BRI has scored great instances of success through the execution of major infrastructure and commercial projects in partner nations. An issue of focus addressed here is whether the engagements with China represent sustainable relationships for development.

Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone continues to grapple with the serious and persistent economic and social effects of the pandemic. Containment measures and trade disruptions in 2020 weakened domestic demand and exports and caused domestic revenues to fall. Moreover, food insecurity has risen from its already-high pre-COVID-19 level. 2021 is set to be another challenging year, with the ‘second wave’ of infections and vaccine-related uncertainties posing further risks to the recovery. As import growth picks up and development partner support returns to pre-2020 levels, Sierra Leone faces urgent external and fiscal financing needs (both around about 2 percent of GDP). Uncertainty about the outlook and larger near-term financing gaps have impeded the immediate resumption of the program under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF). The authorities are therefore requesting a disbursement under the Rapid Credit Facility (RCF) of 17 percent of quota (SDR 35.26 million). This follows the June 2020 RCF (50 percent of quota or SDR 103.7 million) and would bring total access for the past 12-month period to 82 percent of quota (or 5½ percent of GDP), well within the 150 percent of quota annual PRGT access limit. The authorities also received debt relief under the Catastrophe Containment and Response Trust (CCRT) and are participating in the Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI).

Uganda’s increasing dependence on development partner’s support for immunization – a five year resource tracking study (2012 – 2016)

Background In Uganda, there are persistent weaknesses in obtaining accurate, reliable and complete data on local and external investments in immunization to guide planning, financing, and resource mobilization. This study aimed to measure and describe the financial envelope for immunization from 2012 to 2016 and analyze expenditures at sub-national level. Methods The Systems of Health Accounts (SHA) 2011 methodology was used to quantify and map the resource envelope for immunization. Data was collected at national and sub-national levels from public and external sources of immunization. Data were coded, categorized and disaggregated by expenditure on immunization activities using the SHA 2011. Results Over the five-year period, funding for immunization increased fourfold from US$20.4 million in 2012 to US$ 85.6 million in 2016. The Ugandan government was the main contributor (55%) to immunization resources from 2012 to 2014 however, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance contributed the majority (59%) of the resources to immunization in 2015 and 2016. Majority (66%) of the funds were managed by the National Medical Stores. Over the five-year period, 80% of the funds allocated to immunization activities were spent on facility based routine immunization (expenditure on human resources and outreaches). At sub-national level, districts allocated 15% of their total annual resources to immunization to support supervision of lower health facilities and distribution of vaccines. Health facilities spent 5.5% of their total annual resources on immunization to support outreaches. Conclusion Development partner support has aided the improvement of vaccine coverage and increased access to vaccines however, there is an increasing dependence on this support for a critical national program raising sustainability concerns alongside other challenges like being off-budget and unpredictable. To ensure financial sustainability, there is need to operationalize the immunization fund, advocate and mobilize additional resources for immunization from the Government of Uganda and the private sector, increase the reliability of resources for immunization as well as leverage on health financing reforms like the National Health Insurance.

Locus and Focus of Third Sector in Development of Nepal

After state and market, NGO regards as third sector in the field of development. NGO produce positive impact on all dimension in marginalized society of developing country like Nepal. To assess the status of non-governmental organization of Nepal in provincial and district level and to identify their prospects and challenges, this article is prepared as the title “locus and focus of third sector in development of Nepal”. It is mainly based on the secondary data of social welfare council, Nepal. Information regarding objectives was collected through various search engines by simple literature review. The status of I/NGO is found unequal at provincial and district level in Nepal. Bagmati province is in top-most position in terms of number of NGO followed by province-2 and province-1. Karnali province is lowest position in terms of number of NGO followed by Sudur Paschim province and Gandaki province. Federalism requires balance development in intra-province and inter-provinces. Being a vehicle of foreign donors to channel their help to the marginalized communities, I/NGO must play effective roles to solve the problem of people neglected by state and market. The joint efforts of all development partners including I/NGO are mandatory to meet financial sustainability and balanced development in Nepal. The governance system transformed from unitary to federal structure in Nepal. Local, provincial, and federal level governments are facing huge resource gaps to perform their roles and responsibilities. The role and responsibility of development partner including I/NGO are vital to fulfilling these gaps. Easy registration process and weak monitoring system of government as well as lack of transparency in I/NGO are the notable issues to address without delay. To meet national commitment “Prosperous Nepal, Happy Nepali” and to fulfill the target of sustainable development goals, joint efforts of all sector like state, market ,I/NGO, cooperative , private sector, international community are mandatory with the visionary and coordinating leadership of federal government of Nepal.

National, cultural and language specificities of Arab official speech style

The problems of building a dialogue of cultures with Arab interlocutors are investigated in the paper; there are practical recommendations for its successful solution. Special attention is paid to the study of national and cultural characteristics of representatives of Arab society, and factors that make influence on the establishment and development partner relations with Arabs. The basic moral values, cultural, national, linguistics norms are briefly formulated in the article. Knowledge of that contributes to the successful conduct of intercultural communication at the “East-West” level. In the Arab countries, the traditions and customs of business ethics and communication, in general, are predominantly developing and changing because of the openness of most countries of the world and the interaction in various spheres (economic, educational, cultural, military, political, etc.). Because of its specificity, Arab society can be described as a closed one. Further on we will present and analyze its characteristics and identify the main features of the Arab official and business style of speech. This requires business participants from all sides to have in-depth knowledge of national, socio-cultural, religious, historical, ethno-psychological peculiarities and possess these skills which can be put into practice when required.

THE PEACEMAKING PEACEBUILDING-DEVELOPMENT NEXUS: MARRYING SOUTH AFRICA'S PEACE DIPLOMACY AND DEVELOPMENT AGENDA

South Africa has often been lauded as an influential and pivotal actor inpeace and security affairs on the evolving African peace and security architecture. The centrality of Africa in South Africa's foreign policy has driven its exercise of peace diplomacy in a significant number of conflicts in Africa; where its mode of engagement has ranged from mediation to peacekeeping and post-conflict reconstruction and development assistance. Concomitant to its peace actor profile, South Africa's repertoire as an emerging development partner also forms a large part of its African agenda. The embedding of sustainable peace as a goal in the post2015 development agenda and the enduring relevance of the securitydevelopment nexus continue to exert profound influence on the parameters and conduct of South Africa's foreign policy and its pointedly Afro-centric agenda. This article argues for greater integration and harmonisation between South Africa's peace diplomacy and its development partnership agenda through the formulation of a peacebuilding and stabilisation strategy.

South Africa as a Development Partner: An Empirical Analysis of the African Renaissance and International Cooperation Fund

As South Africa looks to consolidate its role as a development partner, it remains an open question whether it can maintain a strong presence in Africa while facing significant challenges at home. With the economy struggling to grow and the government increasingly cutting back on expenditure, one has to wonder whether these cuts are translating into a reduction of its role as a development partner in Africa. With the eagerly awaited South African Development Partnership Agency in mind, this chapter examines data from the African Renaissance and International Cooperation Fund (ARF) between 2003 and 2015. It shows empirically that, despite increasing allocations and disbursements in the years following its inception, the global financial crisis and domestic challenges have taken their toll on the ARF’s activities.