The Politics of Aid: African Strategies for Dealing with Donors

422 Pages·2009·0.56 MB·English

by  Lindsay Whitfield

The Politics of Aid
The Global Economic Governance Programme was established at
University College in 2003 to foster research and debate into how global
markets and institutions can better serve the needs of people in developing
countries.ThethreecoreobjectivesoftheProgrammeare:
(cid:1)
toconductandfosterresearchintointernationalorganizationsandmar-
ketsaswellasnewpublic–privategovernanceregimes;
(cid:1)
to create and maintain a network of scholars and policymakers working
ontheseissues;and
(cid:1)
to influence debate and policy in both the public and the private sector
indevelopedanddevelopingcountries.
The Programme is directly linked to Oxford University’s Department of Pol-
itics and International Relations and Centre for International Studies. It serves
as an interdisciplinary umbrella within Oxford drawing together members
of the Departments of Economics, Law, and Development Studies working
on these issues and linking them to an international research network. The
Programme has been made possible through the generous support of Old
Members of University College. Its research projects are principally funded
bytheMacArthurFoundation(Chicago)andtheInternationalDevelopment
ResearchCentre(Ottawa).
The Politics of Aid
African Strategies for Dealing
with Donors
Editedby
Lindsay Whitfield
1
3
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1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
‘“Paternalism is the greatest despotism imaginable.” This is so
because it is to treat men as if they were not free, but human
material for me, the benevolent reformer, to mould in accor-
dancewithmyown,nottheir,freelyadoptedpurpose.’
IsaiahBerlin,TwoConceptsofLiberty(1958),Oxford:Clarendon
Press,p.22,quotingImmanuelKant
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Contents
Foreword ix
Preface xi
ListofAbbreviations xv
NotesonContributors xviii
Introduction:AidandSovereignty 1
LindsayWhitfieldandAlastairFraser
1. NegotiatingAid 27
LindsayWhitfieldandAlastairFraser
2. Aid-RecipientSovereigntyinHistoricalContext 45
AlastairFraser
3. UnderstandingContemporaryAidRelationships 74
AlastairFraserandLindsayWhitfield
4. Botswana:TheAfricanSuccessStory 108
GervaseMaipose
5. Ethiopia:RetainingSovereigntyinAidRelations 131
XavierFurtadoandW.JamesSmith
6. Rwanda:MilkingtheCow.CreatingPolicySpaceinSpite
ofAidDependence 156
RachelHayman
7. Ghana:BreakingOutofAidDependence?Economicand
PoliticalBarrierstoOwnership 185
LindsayWhitfieldandEmilyJones
8. Mali:PatternsandLimitsofDonor-DrivenOwnership 217
IsalineBergamaschi
vii
Contents
9. Mozambique:ContestedSovereignty?TheDilemmas
ofAidDependence 246
PaolodeRenzioandJosephHanlon
10. Tanzania:AGenuineCaseofRecipientLeadership
intheAidSystem? 271
GrahamHarrisonandSarahMulleywithDuncanHoltom
11. Zambia:BacktotheFuture? 299
AlastairFraser
12. AidandPower:AComparativeAnalysisofthe
CountryStudies 329
LindsayWhitfield
Conclusion:ChangingConditions? 361
LindsayWhitfield
Index 380
viii
Foreword
At the same time as the Global Economic Governance Programme was
foundedin2003,aseriousdebatewastakingplaceamongaidagenciesabout
‘reformingtheinternationalaidarchitecture’.IntheDevelopmentAssistance
Committee (of the OECD) donors were discussing how they should better
coordinate their aid efforts. International agencies were taking seriously the
suggestionthattheyshouldbetterdefinetheirrespectiverolesandfindmore
ways to work together. Donors across the world were focused on how to
improve the quality of their aid. Having established the Global Economic
Governance Programme to focus research on how international institutions
couldbettermeettheneedsofpeopleindevelopingcountries,theaiddebate
wasnotonewecouldavoid.Thatsaid,itprovokedustothinkhardabouthow
university-basedresearchmightcontributetoshiftingareasofpolicysuchas
this.
Itsoonstruckusthatbeyondtheimmediateday-to-dayconcernsofpolicy-
makers and commentators lay a more fundamental question about the way
the debate was being framed. If coordination was so obviously beneficial for
donors and their development partners, why was it not already occurring?
What were the deeper incentives which kept aid uncoordinated? A close
look at the political economy of aid led us to the view that focusing on
greater coordination among donors as envisaged in the OECD DAC process
was unlikely to lead to a rapid improvement in the quality of aid. We chose
instead to focus on the role that aid-receiving countries can or might play
in improving the quality of aid. In our early discussions about the project,
SarahMulleycoinedtheterm‘reverseconditionality’todescribeanapproach
whichwouldturntheaiddebateupsidedown,examiningwhetherthequality
of aid could be improved by aid-receiving countries setting aid-enhancing
conditions on donors – a focus on the demand-side rather than the supply-
side of aid. It is this focus which Lindsay Whitfield has amplified, using her
own extraordinary skills and background in African politics successfully to
bringtogetheranambitious,highlysuccessfulproject.
At the Global Economic Governance Programme, we are hugely fortunate
to have research funders who support this type of research and understand
the importance of approaching international arrangements with a close ear
ix