Life Skills Education for Youth in Developing Countries: What Are They and Why Do They Matter?

Drawing from a review of theoretical, methodological, and empirical literature on life skills from the fields of education, public health, psychology, economics, and international development, this paper attempts to clarify basic definitional and conceptual issues that relate to life skills education. It addresses the questions: (1) What are life skills, and how has the term emerged in academic and donor agency literature? And (2) What bodies of practice and research evidence converge in the rise of ‘life skills’ programming and increased interest in ‘life skills’ among thought leaders and donors in the field of international education? The paper identifies implications from this analysis to be considered in research and interventions that focus on life skills for adolescents, particularly in light of global efforts to improve the quality of education.

Using Blockchain to Ensure Trust between Donor Agencies and NGOs in Under-Developed Countries

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in under-developed countries are receiving funds from donor agencies for various purposes, including relief from natural disasters and other emergencies, promoting education, women empowerment, economic development, and many more. Some donor agencies have lost their trust in NGOs in under-developed countries, as some NGOs have been involved in the misuse of funds. This is evident from irregularities in the records. For instance, in education funds, on some occasions, the same student has appeared in the records of multiple NGOs as a beneficiary, when in fact, a maximum of one NGO could be paying for a particular beneficiary. Therefore, the number of actual beneficiaries would be smaller than the number of claimed beneficiaries. This research proposes a blockchain-based solution to ensure trust between donor agencies from all over the world, and NGOs in under-developed countries. The list of National IDs along with other keys would be available publicly on a blockchain. The distributed software would ensure that the same set of keys are not entered twice in this blockchain, preventing the problem highlighted above. The details of the fund provided to the student would also be available on the blockchain and would be encrypted and digitally signed by the NGOs. In the case that a record inserted into this blockchain is discovered to be fake, this research provides a way to cancel that record. A cancellation record is inserted, only if it is digitally signed by the relevant donor agency.

Donor-State Partnerships in the Cambodian Land Sector

This chapter examines the formation of Cambodia's postwar property rights regime by tracing the evolving relationship between the German donor agency GIZ and the Cambodian state. It reviews donor agencies that ignored the failures of Cambodia's Land Rights Program and donor practices and turned the political issue of land control into a technical problem. It also explains the practices that justified the donors' continued presence, even as they created uncertainty over what was actually happening on the ground and shut down space for deeper questions about the relationships between land titling and tenure security. The chapter charts the affiliation of GIZ with the Cambodian Ministry of Land since 1995 to determine how donor interventions worked to strengthen the state elite's grip on power. It illustrates how faith in the efficacy of land title is produced in public discourse through oversimplified technical data and veiled threats that silence deeper questions.

Narratives of Donor Accountability in Support to Peace Processes: The Case of the Joint Peace Fund in Myanmar

There is a growing scholarly focus on the accountability of Northern donors in their work in recipient countries. Yet scholarly work on donor accountability has given limited attention to the complex challenges of accountability when donors are engaged in supporting peace processes. Further, literature on donor accountability often focuses on examination of accountability mechanisms and relationships, whilst the way accountability is understood amongst practitioners has received less attention. Using the example of donor support to peace processes in Myanmar, this article examines the way that accountability is narrated within donor agencies and amongst international and local networks of peace activists and analysts. When attached to simplified stories, accountability takes a variety of meanings and serves to position donors in different ways. Examination of these narratives, and their divergence, reveals that policy negotiation about accountability mechanisms is influenced by political assumptions about the legitimacy of donor agency engagement in peace processes.

Making Foreign Aid Work: Issues of Cost Effectiveness of Educational Aid in Pakistan

The quality of inclusive and accountable institutions in a donor-recipient country determines the effectiveness of foreign aid. This study examined whether the role of donor agency or the implementing agency was more helpful in the successes of two foreign-funded educational interventions in Northern Pakistan. The two interventions, each focusing on teachers’ development program and the capacity development of principals, were funded by two different international donors. The study also provided a comparison of the two international donors working styles and their strategies applied for the execution of their respective projects. The findings of the study, which were generated through qualitative methods, noted wide variations not only in the working strategies of the two donors, but also the role of the executing agency. It was noted that multiple factors determined the productivity of the two projects; one of the elements that contributed the success or failure of the two project was their design or road map. Based on the findings of this study, it was maintained that a proactive role of both the entities is crucial for the success of such interventions.

Personality Profile

With an objective to highlight the prominent Nepali personalities who have played important roles in major donor agency, Asian Development Bank (ADB), HYDRO Nepal Journal considers it appropriate to underline the profile of Dr. Bindu N. Lohani to its readers. HYDRO Nepal JournalJournal of Water Energy and EnvironmentIssue No: 22Page: 53-53Uploaded date: January 14, 2018

Conflicts of Interest and Effective Oversight of Assisted Reproduction Using Donated Oocytes

Assisted reproductive technology (ART) is a multibillion dollar market in the United States (U.S.), generating a continual demand for oocyte donors whose gametes contributed to 12.6% of all ART cycles in 2012. Oocyte donation is a variant of in vitro fertilization (IVF) that is typically used when an intended mother cannot produce healthy oocytes of her own and instead uses oocytes provided by a third party in an attempt to produce one or more children. When oocyte donation was first developed, oocyte donors were selected among family and friend groups but, increasingly, active solicitation of anonymous donors and brokering the relationship between donor and recipient has become part of the services offered by fertility clinics. In addition, recipients may choose to work with an independent donor agency to find a suitable donor before completing the IVF procedure at a fertility clinic.