2 - From Colonialism to the SDGs Flashcards
What did sign the start of development cooperation on a global scale?
The League of Nations explicitly stated as one of its objectives to guarantee the well-being and development of people that were not yet able to stand by themselves. It did so by providing technical assistance through itself and ILO and WHO to development countries’ governments
How did the UN approach development cooperation?
The UN established in 1949 the Expanded Program for Technical Assistance, which raised around 20 million dollars mainly to finance technical assistance.
What fostered a major commitment to development cooperation?
The anti-colonialist attitude of the US under Truman, who issued the Marshal Plan to relieve Europe from the strain of war, called for a more significant commitment to development cooperation on Europe’s side. In 1950, US Congress approved the law which allowed the government to sign bilateral development agreements.
How does the OECD contribute to development cooperation?
The OECD’s Development Assistance Committee from its foundation to the present day is one of the most relevant bodies for Western donors
What were the two tenets of development cooperation in the 1960s?
- Sociological/functionalist theory: modernisation of developing countries would have been hastened by providing technical assistance
- Economic theory (two-gap model): developing countries were encountering difficulties in their development due to the lack of savings and hard currency, which Western states could provide.
What was the state of development cooperation in the 1960s?
The 1960s were called the “Development Decade”. The Un approved a resolution stating that wealthy countries should give 1% of their wealth to their developing counterparts. The US dealt with the surplus of agricultural goods, caused by the EU recovery, selling them for cheap to developing countries. From 1960, all Western states established their development cooperation bodies, concerned with gaining the most out of it.
What was the state of development cooperation in the 1970s?
The 1970s were called the “Second Development Decade”. The economies of the developing countries grew at a rate of 5%/year during this period yet the Pearson’s Commission claimed that the gap between developed and developing countries was rising wider and the rate should raise to 6%. The UN passed a resolution encouraging developed countries to give 0.7% of their GNI to their developing counterparts. Developing aid became developing support. Developing countries claimed for “trade, not aid”
What is the Lomé Convention?
The Lome Convention is an agreement signed by the 9 members of the European Community with countries in the African, Pacific and Caribbean regions (APC). It made provisions for favourable commercial conditions as well as additional aids.
How does development cooperation relate to educational aid?
Development cooperation follows the trend of the latest research. When it claims that aid to secondary education is the most efficient, they allocate funding to it. Conversely, when research affirms that aid to tertiary education is the most efficient, they back it and cut funding to secondary education.
What happened in the lost decade?
The share of ODA spent on basic needs fell from 38% in 1971 to 22% ten years later, because of the rise of populist regimes. The debt of developing countries became intolerable. Loans were not granted because of favourable investment opportunities but the need of donor countries to export their products. The World Bank and the IMF set strict requirements (“structural adjustments”) for developing countries to request more funds.
What were some standard SAPs requirements?
- fiscal discipline
- selectivity in government spending (for example, no more general subsidisation of healthcare and education)
- tax reforms
- devualation
- liberalisation of trade
- privatisation
What were the effects of SAPs?
Foreign aid was used to push the “right” macro-economic measures. Social services (e.g. healthcare, education) previously provided for free, were made subject to the market mechanisms by SAPs. The requirements were particularly demanding, sprouting protests all over the recipient countries.
What was the state of global poverty by the 1990s?
By the start of the 1990s, 100 developing and transitional countries together representing one-third of the world’s population – were poorer in terms of per capita income than they had been 10, 20 or sometimes even 30 years earlier (Jolly, 2002).
Post-Cold-War development cooperation
The end of the Cold War required new legitimation for development support. The consensus was found in the Human Development Reports, issued by UNDP. They are a rights-based approach, assuming that people who are given no development opportunities are deprived of social, political and economic rights.
What was the state of development cooperation in the 1990s?
It was found that aid did not speed up development. Furthermore, developing countries’ governments were reported to spend funds differently from what was agreed. Thus, the World Bank’s Comprehensive Development Cooperation Committee set policies to alleviate poverty as a condition to require funds. Those policies had to be indicated by governments in a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP). Furthermore, aid was to be provided by different donors in a coordinated manner under the leadership of the recipients’ governments.
