Finalllyyyy Flashcards
What are the 3 main takeaways from this class?
- Development takes a long time.
- Institutions count
- You have to have local buy-in or the programs will collapse once the funding stops
What are the major disciplines of Development?
Public Health Economic Growth Crisis Management Environment & Natural Resource Management Infrastructure - roads, bridges, ports Education Democracy & Governance Agriculture
What is the Paris Declaration for Aid Effectiveness?
Over 100 countries and international agencies came together to endorse specific commitments for donors and partner countries to improve aid effectiveness.
What are the 5 core principles of the Paris Declaration of Aid Effectiveness?
- Ownership
- Alignment
- Harmonization
- Managing for Results
- Mutual accountability
What is the significance of the Paris declaration?
It helps stress countries’ responsibility to own their process of development
What are the downsides of the Paris Declaration for Aid Effectiveness?
The Paris Declaration has not been implemented fully because there is an aid accountability problem with developing countries. Also, if you are an aid administrator with a choice between violating an international agreement or violating accountability rules of the United States…you’re gonna violate the international agreement and stick with what the US government tells you to rather than violate federal law.
Does foreign aid work? Under what circumstances? How do you define success?
Foreign aid does not work if the programs are imposed by the donor government and do not have the approval of the local government. The local government needs to take ownership of the program for it to be successful long term.
Success comes when people are brought above the poverty line, when they are no longer sick, when they are fed…any improvements that can be measured.
What is the FAR and how does it affect USAID?
FAR stands for Federal Acquisition Regulation. It is a statute that gives OMB the power over how all procurements will be done for federal contracts.
One of the provisions says that you can write a memo of understanding for no competitive bidding that you won’t take their money and they won’t take yours.
In your view, what is the most important factor in whether countries develop and what is marginal vs. what is peripheral?
Institutions are one of the most important factors in whether countries develop, because they impact every other area - governance, economy, education, etc. You must have strong institutions to develop.
Culture is marginal.
What role does politics play in the development programs from the donor perspective and from the recipient perspective?
Politics, both domestic and international, can get in the way of development, as explained in one of the 5 clashes.
What is ICT? What principles determine the success of ICT programs?
Information and Communications Technology
- Enabling environment
- Accessibility and Affordability
- Ruggedization
- Appropriateness
- Sustainability
- Availability
What is an open access order?
According to Douglas North, in open access societies, there are many nonprofits and organizations. The US and Western democracies are open access orders. They are likely to be highly stable, so ideally countries with natural or limited access orders will become open access. To have open access orders, you need a pervasive and effective government.
Highly decentralized system of decision making
What is a limited access order/natural order?
According to Douglas North, in limited access societies, the governing coalition runs a society and dominates the political and economic system - nonprofit institutions are small in number in these countries. It is a highly centralized society like China. Limited access orders are a characteristic of underdeveloped states that are hard to work with.
What is Easterly critique of foreign aid?
According to Easterly, the failure of economic development is that there are not incentives and monitoring to ensure that people in countries follow through.
His recommendation is not to abandon the quest, but to improve the institutions of governments and international actors to create incentives that promote growth.
His basic conclusion: loans only work if the policies of the country work
What is community development and how has it affected development programs? Who carries it out? Where did it come from?
Community Development upholds local government and social services. It is the opposite of High Modernism.
Small-scale community development didn’t work well in the US, but it did in Ethiopia. The problem arises when you leave that country to work on your own.
New Directions was a part of community development under Nixon, which moved away from high modernism infrastructure projects towards more human service projects like agriculture, health, and water.
