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Planning and evaluation in aid organizations

Upphovsperson: Forss, Kim
Utgivare: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet | EFI Stockholm School of Economics and NAI
År: 1985
Ämnesord:
The success (or failure) of aid programmes in developing countries is difficult to measure in terms of results. In fact international cooperation in development programmes seems to have reached few of its objectives. World recessions and wildly fluctuating commodity prices have hit many developing countries hard, while an ecological doomsday looms in the background. What went wrong with development cooperation through aid? What can be done better? What should the objectives of development programmes be? These questions imply that we need to study not only the impact of development projects but also initiation, implementation and evaluation processes for aid programmes. Aid organizations need to emphasize the efficiency of these processes if development programmes are to succeed. This book deals with structures and processes in aid organiztions. It shows how planning and evaluation work in practice in a comparative study of two organizations, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Swedish International Development Authority (SIDA). Several examples of industrial development projects in Tazania are used - some successful, some failures, with others somewhere in between. The aim is to learn from this experience - whether successful or not - and to delineate the potential for more effective development cooperation.

War in Mali : Background study and annotated bibliography. July 2012 - March 2013

Upphovsperson: Lindberg, Emy
Utgivare: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Conflict, Displacement and Transformation |
År: 2013
Ämnesord:
Not long ago, Mali was considered a beacon of stability and a model of democratic evolution in West Africa. The country then experienced a military coup in the capital in March 2012, followed by the usual post-coup volatility and uncertainty. In the immediate aftermath of the coup, armed insurgents swiftly took over half the country. It did not take long to dismantle a country that on the paper appeared to be functioning, stable and democratic. French troops intervened in the conflict in the north. Yet even if this intervention put a stop to the outright threat of the insurgents taking over the south and significantly shifted the balance of forces in the north, it did not end the conflict. The insurgents have dispersed into remote areas in the sub-region, changing their tactics to terrorist-like activities. Different forms of political negotiation and reconciliation are certainly needed in the region. With the current global clash between radical Islam and the Western “War on Terror”, northern Mali will probably continue to be contested terrain for a long time. In the meantime, a transition to democratic rule is planned for the country, with elections scheduled for July this year. In all likelihood, this will prove to be only an illusory end to an intense power tussle over state control in Bamako.

Relations Key to Innovations – Peasants, Institutions and Technical Change on the Mossi Plateau in Burkina Faso

Upphovsperson: Hårsmar, Mats
Utgivare: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, African International Links
År: 2013
Ämnesord: Technical change, Food crop productivity, Innovation systems, Burkina Faso, Smallholders
How can technical changes within food crop cultivation in a country like Burkina Faso be explained? This is an important question for the reduction of poverty, for enhanced food security as well as for economic growth. Poor countries, where agriculture is dominating broad based economic growth, require increased productivity in food crop cultivation. This study builds on fieldwork from three villages, undertaken in 2001/2002 and in 2010. The villages are situated on the ‘Mossi plateau’ in central Burkina Faso, where chronic poverty is widespread. The study finds the character of diffusion channels and the role of social relations to be decisive in explaining access, choice and adoption of new techniques. The innovation system theory is found relevant, not least because of its focus on power structures and relations between actors. To further strengthen such systems, intermediary organizations should be supported and informal institutions transformed.

The production of sexual mutilation among Muslim women in Cairo

Upphovsperson: Malmström, Maria Frederika
Utgivare: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Conflict, Displacement and Transformation | Taylor & Francis Online
År: 2013
Ämnesord: body, gender, embodiment, agency, female circumcision, Human rights, sexuality, desire
Female circumcision has become a global political minefield, with ‘Western’ interventions affecting Egyptian politics and social development, not least in the area of democracy and human rights. As younger generation of women in Egypt informed by international human rights discourse begins to question norms still upheld by the previous generation, new dilemmas and tensions emerge. In this article, I discuss the risk that international interventions designed to modify local practices may fail when the local moral worlds in which such practices are embedded are inadequately understood. Rather than increasing women's agency, such interventions may reduce it and instead produce a sense of sexual mutilation among women.

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