Blockchain Papers

Damien Cubizol

No abstract is available for this record.

Prosper Mandela Amaltinga Awuni, James Mbinta

The withdrawal of the USA from the World Health Organization and the freeze on USAID are among the major events in the realm of U.S. foreign policy under the U.S. president. Within his broader “America First” policy, aimed at reducing the U.S.‘s international commitments and rethinking its role in global organizations and foreign aid, this review attempts to make a case for Africa by examining the implications of recent reductions in U.S. funding. We conducted a comparative case study of Nigeria, Ghana, Zambia, and Rwanda, selected for their aid volume, exposure to disruption events, and availability of outcome data. Using process tracing and critical narrative synthesis, we analyzed policy documents, expenditure reports and peer-reviewed studies to assess how each country responded to aid disruptions and what structural factors shaped their resilience or fragility. Three dominant patterns emerged: acute service interruptions (Nigeria, Zambia), structural fragmentation (Ghana), and resilient adaptation (Rwanda). Key drivers of vulnerability included overreliance on tied aid, SAP-era health system legacies, and underdeveloped domestic financing mechanisms. Rwanda’s ability to maintain high ART coverage and reduce malaria deaths by 88% during funding cuts reflects a deliberate break from aid dependency through community-based insurance, decentralized governance, and regional procurement strategies. Donor transitions are not neutral events; they expose and exacerbate pre-existing structural weaknesses. Current models that frame aid withdrawal as empowerment risk, replicating past harm unless coupled with institutional reform and reciprocal accountability. This study suggests assessing transition readiness and reorienting global health partnerships toward equitable, resilient, and sovereign systems.

Kattya Cascante Hernandez, Tahina Ojeda Medina

This article examines the convergence of two major initiatives of international cooperation: the European Union’s Global Gateway (GGE) and China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). At first glance, these projects appear to embody distinct paradigms. The GGE emerged within the framework of North-South Cooperation (NSC), traditionally associated with the Global North’s approach to development assistance, emphasizing aid conditionality, institutional reforms, and adherence to liberal democratic norms. In contrast, the BRI is rooted in South-South Cooperation (SSC), which stresses solidarity among developing countries, mutual respect, and non-interference. Despite these different origins, both frameworks have increasingly adopted convergent strategies, driven by shared geopolitical ambitions and the pressing need to frame global development within the narrative of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The analysis proceeds from a critical theory perspective within International Relations, questioning whether these initiatives genuinely transform the global order or, rather, reproduce existing power asymmetries. Building on the insights of Robert Cox, the article emphasizes that international cooperation is not a neutral or purely humanitarian exercise. Instead, it constitutes a political mechanism that sustains hegemonic structures. Aid, investment, and connectivity projects often reinforce the interests of donor states, embedding them in development agendas that appear universal but remain shaped by particular geopolitical priorities. This theoretical framing provides the basis for interrogating the practices of both the GGE and BRI. From this critical lens, the article argues that cooperation should not be understood simply in terms of poverty alleviation or technical assistance. Rather, it is part of a broader struggle over global governance, legitimacy, and influence. Discourses around sustainability, inclusion, and “win-win” partnerships often obscure the underlying reality: cooperation serves to project power, secure strategic resources, and expand spheres of influence. The EU and China, though employing different narratives, both use development as a foreign policy instrument, reinforcing their global standing at a time when multipolarity and competition over leadership in the Global South are intensifying. Both the GGE and the BRI claim to tackle urgent global challenges. The EU highlights infrastructure deficits, climate change, and digital divides, framing its response in terms of values such as transparency, democracy, and rules-based governance. Conversely, China emphasizes its commitment to mutual benefit, shared prosperity, and non-interference, presenting the BRI as an inclusive framework that accommodates partner countries’ priorities without imposing political conditions. These discourses reveal important ideological differences but also converge on the goal of legitimacy: both seek to present themselves as reliable partners to the Global South and as leaders in shaping a post-Western order. Institutionally, the two models diverge significantly. The Global Gateway operates through a complex, multilayered governance structure involving the European Commission, EU Member States, development banks such as the EIB, private sector actors, and civil society organizations. This decentralized architecture is coordinated through the “Team Europe” approach, designed to promote coherence and visibility of European external action. By contrast, the BRI remains a highly centralized initiative. Strategic direction is set by Chinese ministries, while state-owned enterprises play a central role in implementation, supported primarily by financing from state-owned development banks such as the China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China. This centralized and state-led model reflects China’s preference for bilateralism and flexibility, allowing Beijing to negotiate directly with partner governments on a case-by-case basis. Yet, despite these structural differences, both models demonstrate a growing convergence in financial logic. Traditional concessional aid has declined in importance, giving way to investment-driven cooperation that blends public and private capital. This shift emphasizes risk mitigation, return on investment, and the mobilization of large-scale funding for infrastructure and connectivity projects. The EU’s EFSD+ mechanism, for instance, offers €40 billion in guarantees and €13.5 billion in grants, designed to catalyze up to €135 billion in private investment across strategic sectors. China’s BRI, meanwhile, had mobilized over $1.17 trillion in cumulative investments by 2024, with more than $11 billion allocated to renewable energy alone in that year. Such figures underscore how development cooperation has become increasingly financialized, subordinating aid to logics of profitability and visibility. This financialization also reveals a deeper ideological shift. Earlier models of cooperation often invoked moral obligations or humanitarian imperatives. By contrast, the contemporary discourse stresses mutual benefit and partnership—rhetoric that often conceals underlying asymmetries. “Win-win” outcomes are frequently skewed toward donor states, whose strategic and economic priorities dominate project design. Moreover, the growing reliance on repayable instruments raises concerns about debt sustainability in recipient countries, particularly those with weak governance structures or limited fiscal capacity. The danger is that development cooperation, instead of fostering autonomy, may deepen dependency and vulnerability. These trends highlight a broader transformation in the global aid architecture. While the vocabulary of the 2030 Agenda emphasizes inclusivity, equality, and sustainability, the actual practices of cooperation remain subordinated to geopolitical imperatives. Far from redistributing resources equitably or enabling independent development trajectories in the Global South, cooperation increasingly functions as a means of securing access to markets, strategic corridors, and political alignment. The EU and China thus represent two different pathways to the same end: the use of development as an instrument of geopolitical positioning. The article further considers the role of recipient states and non-state actors in this dynamic. Officially, both the GGE and the BRI advocate for local ownership, context-sensitive implementation, and participatory governance. In practice, however, the influence of local actors remains limited. The GGE incorporates civil society organizations to a greater degree, particularly in monitoring and advocacy, but final decision-making is driven by institutional and financial imperatives at the EU level. In the BRI, local participation is even more constrained, with negotiations conducted primarily between Chinese officials and partner governments, often behind closed doors. This imbalance reflects the structural challenge of ensuring genuine agency for recipient states in a context where power asymmetries remain pronounced. Ultimately, the article concludes that both the GGE and the BRI are not transformative frameworks but rather mechanisms that reconfigure existing hierarchies of global governance. While their instruments, discourses, and institutional arrangements differ, their substantive impact converges: reinforcing rather than challenging the dominant structures of international order. This convergence underscores the limitations of the 2030 Agenda, which, despite its universal aspirations, has become deeply entangled with the foreign policy agendas of major powers. As international cooperation becomes increasingly subordinated to strategic competition in a multipolar world, the scope for building genuinely solidarity-based frameworks narrows. The article calls for renewed debate on the purpose, governance, and political economy of development cooperation. It argues for moving beyond the adaptation of existing frameworks toward the envisioning of new paradigms rooted in equity, pluralism, and democratic governance. Such paradigms would not treat the Global South merely as a beneficiary but as a co-architect of global development, capable of shaping agendas, institutions, and norms on equal footing. Only in this way can cooperation transcend its role as a vehicle of power projection and become a tool for genuine transformation.

Paweł Krzyworzeka

This research note calls for an alternative approach to understanding ‘innovativeness,’ particularly in arenas like Decentralized Finance (DeFi) where participant perceptions clash with mainstream evaluations, often leading to their dismissal. When conventional metrics fail to capture the perceived value and groundbreaking nature asserted from within these communities, there is a pressing need to explore their distinct ‘cosmologies’ or internal logics. This paper argues for the importance of investigating these alternative meaning systems – how value and innovation are defined and experienced by participants – rather than solely relying on external measures. It posits that a deeper engagement with the ‘native point of view’ in such ‘rejected arenas’ can yield crucial insights, not only for understanding these specific phenomena but also for challenging and enriching our broader conceptions of innovation. This note serves as a call to researchers to undertake such explorations.

Robert Oldham Young

The United Nations (UN) plays a pivotal role in addressing climate and economic governance through initiatives like the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the Paris Agreement under COP conferences.While the UN promotes international cooperation and sustainable development, challenges persist regarding the alignment of its strategies with the socioeconomic realities of underdeveloped nations.This article critically examines the role of the UN in climate and economic governance, emphasizing its impacts on national sovereignty, transparency in climate financing, and the practical implementation of global initiatives in the Global South.Key issues such as outdated agricultural methods, pollution from heavy metals and microplastics, and limited infrastructure in underdeveloped regions are analyzed.Solutions proposed by environmental advocates like Dr. Robert O. Young and political leaders such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Donald J. Trump are explored, including detoxification strategies, decentralized approaches to environmental governance, and flexible emission reduction policies.The paper advocates for a balanced, region-specific approach to climate governance that prioritizes local empowerment, tangible solutions to pollution, and transparency in climate financing while respecting national autonomy.

Benjamin Chemouni, 10th European Conference of African Studies (ECAS)

This paper examines how international green finance is both shaped by and reshapes local political economies, using the case of Rwanda to illustrate these dynamics. Focusing on the Green Climate Fund (GCF) subsidy for adaptation projects in Gicumbi district in the North of the country, the paper demonstrates how national and local elites have leveraged GCF funding not only to enhance resilience against climate impacts in rural areas but also to further their interests and consolidate political authority. At the national level, this has manifested in the realignment of key policies related to adaptation, villagization, and agriculture, while also altering the distribution of power and resources among some political elite. Specifically, GCF funding has driven institutional rearrangements within the state apparatus, stifling decentralization and strengthening certain ministries and agencies at the expense of others. At the sub-national level, local governments have reinterpreted green finance frameworks to navigate local constraints and maximise political survival. This has occasionally disrupted traditional power dynamics, disempowering some segments of the local elite in favour of other actors in the small capitalist class, national elites, and security actors. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in Rwanda and policy analysis, the paper contributes to understanding how international climate finance gets localised and its capacity to alter governance structures and power relations in the Global South.

Gita Steiner‐Khamsi

Abstract This chapter deals with the global drivers and national adopters of the reform. It examines the first two movers—the OECD and the World Bank—that promoted and funded the global dissemination of SAWA. The Ministries of Finance were their primary counterparts at the national level. The reform was subsequently transferred and “translated” into line ministries, including the Ministries of Education. In OECD countries, New Public Management (NPM) included the introduction of new procurement laws. Governments were henceforth obligated to invite businesses and other private providers to bid for public goods and services. Contracting became the preferred policy instrument that relied on numerical measures of “pedagogical services” and expected outputs, which would then be costed and outsourced. This marked the inception of datafication in the education sector. The World Bank, in turn, rigorously promoted decentralization policies in aid-recipient countries for both ideological and managerial reasons. The structural adjustment policies of the World Bank Group pursued the same goal as NPM: reduction of public expenditures, increase in revenues, and outsourcing to the private sector. The chapter also provides a first glimpse into meso-level investigations of how institutions selectively adopted and translated the global school reform to fit their local policy contexts.

Muzuva Prince, Francisco J. Medina, Ruvimbo Veremu

The withdrawal of USAID and PEPFAR funding from Africa has been contentious, raising questions about the sustainability of healthcare and development interventions, particularly among vulnerable populations. This study evaluates the socioeconomic and health impacts of this shift, with emphasis on service delivery gaps, economic burden, and government and civil society response mechanisms. Employing a mixed-methods approach, the research employs surveys, interviews, and secondary data analysis to assess the impact on healthcare infrastructure, economic stability, and mortality. Informed by Dependency Theory, the study reviews earlier research on foreign aid dependency and sustainability of donor-funded programs. Preliminary results indicate that funding withdrawal has led to HIV/AIDS treatment interruptions, maternal health care services, and immunization programs and also the loss of employment in donor-funded projects. Although some governments and NGOs make attempts to look for alternative sources of funding, vulnerabilities such as poor domestic resource mobilization and governance constraints still persist. The research indicates that African governments should pay greater attention to domestic health financing through taxation, public-private partnerships, and regional mechanisms while strengthening healthcare resilience through capacity building and decentralized mechanisms. In addition, reaching new donors and investing in community-based healthcare and technology-based solutions is essential in maintaining core services. While the removal of aid is a problem, it also presents a chance for African nations to reconsider development finance policy and achieve self-reliance. This debate highlights the necessity for active policy responses to offset adverse effects and ensure continuity in public health and socioeconomic progress.

Osman Antwi‐Boateng, Mohammed Kamarideen Braimah

Abstract This comprehensive study of political vigilantism in Ghana examines the motives, membership, and financing of the phenomenon and proffers solutions to combat it. We use a qualitative methodology of personal interviews with a broad section of Ghanaian political stakeholders totaling 50 participants. This included 30 political vigilante members equally affiliated with the New Patriotic Party and the National Democratic Congress and selected from the vigilante hotbeds of the Northern, Upper East, and Ashanti regions of Ghana. The other political stakeholders total 20 and are made up of: five public political party executives, five civil society members, five police officers, and five local district assembly members. The motives include institutional weakness, winning political power, and economic and group solidarity. Membership involves family and friends, former security personnel, party members, and unemployed youth. Financing emanates from political parties, politicians, and the business class. We argue that patron–clientelism is the driving force behind political vigilantism and recommend more legal accountability for patrons, particularly through constitutional amendments guaranteeing a fixed term for the head of the police and separating the roles of Attorney General and Minister of Justice. This is to ensure that the former can impartially prosecute vigilante patrons. Punitive financial measures are also recommended to deter patrons, backed by sustained public education and more employment opportunities for the masses of unemployed youth—the bedrock of political vigilantism. Related Articles Akwei, Cynthia, Isaac S. Damoah, and Joseph Amankwah‐Amoah. 2020. “The Effects of Politics on the Implementation of Government Programs/Projects: Insights from a Developing Economy.” Politics & Policy 48(6): 1161–201. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12384 . Asiegbu, Martin F., Okey Marcellus Ikeanyibe, Pius Otu Abang, Okwudili Chukwuma Nwosu, and Chuka Eugene Ugwu. 2024. “Natural Resource Fund Governance and the Institutionalization of Rent Seeking in Nigeria's Oil Sector.” Politics & Policy 52(1): Early View. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12579 . Debrah, Emmanuel. 2016. “Decentralization, District Chief Executives, and District Assemblies in Ghana's Fourth Republic.” Politics & Policy 44 (1): 135–64. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12146 .

Mauricio Olavarría Gambi

No abstract is available for this record.

Ángel Saz‐Carranza, Martino Maggetti, Kutsal Yesilkagit, David Coen

Abstract Several recent studies have pointed to the increasing relevance of relatively informal, non-treaty-based global governance bodies (GGBs). Yet, a systematic fine-grained assessment of these bodies and their implications for global governance are still pending. To what extent, do non-treaty-based GGBs constitute a truly novel type of governance body, distinct from traditional treaty-based international organizations (IOs)? How do the distinctive features of GGBs affect their role in global governance? To what extent are GGB’s patterns of emergence and development specific to policy sectors? This article tackles these questions, drawing on an original dataset on GGBs in five distinct policy areas (banking and finance, energy, global health, Internet, and migration policy). We combine a micro-organizational perspective with a meso-level network approach to unpack the main features of non-treaty-based GGBs vis-à-vis, traditional IOs. Our results provide support to the general expectation that non-treaty-based GGBs offer distinctive opportunities for global governance with respect to traditional IOs. However, importantly, this relationship is not dichotomous. We find that GGBs exist on a continuum of fit-to-purpose designs ranging from hard, formal, and intergovernmental models to a soft, informal, and multistakeholder-based form of governance. Lastly, we also find notable variations across policy areas, where global health stands out given its decentralized network structure.

HON. DR. RWIGEMA PIERRE CELESTIN

Community Development Policy aims to mobilize and empower the Rwandan community to exercise its powers in decision making in order to promote development, commensurate with the progress of decentralization. The policy is formulated in response to the challenges the community still confronts: extreme poverty, illiteracy, a culture of deference to authority and the widespread use of traditional farming methods which constrain significant sustainable development. Analysis of the regional situation (EAC Vision 2050, various official sources) indicates a number of important phenomena and socioeconomic developments characterizing the EAC – with the region’s socioeconomic development status and trends over the recent past reflecting an improvement in a number of areas. Among others, the Community has been identified as one of the fastest growing regions in Sub-Saharan Africa – with an average GDP growth of 6.2 percent in 2015. It is also one of the largest regional economic blocs, and has one of the largest single markets in Africa – with a total population of about 150 million. It has a diversified economic base – offering a variety of business and investment opportunities. In addition, the region is increasingly creating a business-friendly environment – being the world’s fastest reforming region – with a largely stable economic and political environment; harmonised tariff; great market access to all regions in Africa, Middle East and Asia, as well as preferential market access to the US, the EU and some other developed countries. EAC’s major economic trends indicate, inter alia, that real GDP growth in EAC Partner States varied over the past five years, driven by diverse factors – with average growth over the past five years having been 4.2 percent. The collective GDP (at current prices) of the five EAC Partner States (excluding the Republic of South Sudan) stood – as of 2016 – at USD 156.7 billion (after rebasing in some Partner States in 2014). The region has also managed to sustain economic expansion, despite a number of international economic shocks. As regards inflation, exchange rate depreciation pressures, coupled with supply factors, have rendered the consumer prices to remain above the target levels of inflation in the region – although the situation is expected to improve in the medium-term. Also noteworthy is that in the External Sector, over the review period, the EAC Partner States registered increases in their total trade, despite having increasing current account balances; while in the Fiscal Sector, the Partner States continue to face shortages of local resources to finance their budgets, given pressures to finance infrastructure developments and human development needs – with the overall deficit in the region, on average, having varied between 4.4 percent in 2013, to 6.2 percent in 2015. As regards infrastructure development in the region, in response to the existing situation characterised by a largely under-developed transport infrastructure, the EAC has prioritised ten (10) international road transport corridors (the East African Road Network), totalling fifteen thousand eight hundred kilometres (15, 800 km) (EAC Vision 2050). This is partly benchmarked against one of the EAC Vision 2050 targets for the regional road network that by 2030, the paved road network will be 35,250km, and is expected to reach 65,700km by 2050. As regards the railway network – considering that the regional railways sub-sector is still considerably underdeveloped (across all Partner States); the EAC has adopted a Railway Master Plan that guides the development of railway projects in the region. With regard to the region’s sea and lake ports, these face several challenges, which include: poor operating systems; predominantly aged fleet, inefficient cargo handling equipment; siltation; as well as water hyacinth and narrow berths, particularly at Port Bell, Jinja, Mwanza North Port and Kisumu – which inhibit the navigation and docking of large ships. Lake transport also faces a serious challenge of accidents due to poor search and rescue systems. It is also noteworthy, however, that the various EAC regional Social Sectors, including, among others, Health; Education and Training; as well as Culture and Sports, have already been responding to the above and related phenomena, though, inter alia, developing and implementing various regional legal, policy and strategic instruments, plans, as well as other initiatives and interventions in a holistic manner – in accordance with their respective mandates – and continue to do so going forward. Regarding major regional trends in political affairs and governance, first, the political situation in the EAC region over the last five years has, inter alia, been characterized by considerable democratic activity – including the holding of multi-party elections in Kenya (2013); Tanzania (2015); Burundi (2015); and Uganda (2016); as well as the most recent ones for Rwanda and Kenya, held in August, 2017. Over the same period, various developments have also taken place with regard to the pursuit of the EAC Political Federation – culminating into the most recent development, whereby the 33rd Council of Ministers in February, 2016, adopted a Political Confederation as the model for East Africa’s integration – pending working out the form the Confederation of East Africa will take, as well as related details – including development of the Confederation Constitution. Among the major factors most frequently cited by the various implementing entities, as the ones underlying mediocre performance were: complete lack of funding; low levels of actual funding vis-a-viz expected levels; as well as delayed or inconsistent and untimely release of funds. These were followed by lack of adequate support and goodwill by various major stakeholders on which Strategy Implementers had originally relied for the success of their respective Strategic Interventions, as well as less than adequate coordination of stakeholder efforts in Strategy implementation. Against the above background, the necessary unaccomplished planned Strategic Interventions under the 4th EAC Development Strategy have been “rolled over” and integrated into the 5th EAC Development Strategy (2016/17 – 2020/21). A number of lessons – which are duly documented in the main document – have been learnt and have also partly informed the formulation of this Strategy. Keywords: Microfinance, efficiency evaluation, management, sustainable economic development, goals CITATION: Rwigema, P. C. (2022). Community development programs: conceptions and practices with emphasis on East Africa Community. The Strategic Journal of Business & Change Management, 9 (4), 1447 – 1486.

Orla Nicole Hadjisophocleous, Tahir Abbas Syed, Hana Lee

While there is a rise in the applications of Blockchain technology in humanitarian and development aid programs, our understanding of Blockchain implementation and the resulting implications remains scant in this context. This research-in-progress report on the research currently underway in the United Nations World Food Program–Building Blocks. Adopting a case study approach, this study explores how the Building Block project revolutionizes the aid programs with the application of Ethereum, a blockchain-based distributed computing platform, and what new risk and social problems perpetuate with it. The study contributes to the growing stream of Information Systems research that focuses on the virtues and vices of using Blockchain technology and enhancing the effectiveness of humanitarian aid programs. As a relatively new technology, this study assesses the appropriateness of its usage and intends to provide insights to humanitarian and development organizations to consider when employing this novel technology.

Richard Bluhm, Andreas Fuchs, Austin Strange, Axel Dreher · 6 authors

This paper studies the causal effect of transport infrastructure on the spatial distribution of economic activity within subnational regions across a large number of developing countries. To do so, we introduce a new global dataset of geolocated Chinese grant- and loan-financed development projects from 2000 to 2014 and combine it with measures of spatial concentration based on remotely sensed data. We find that Chinese-financed transportation projects decentralize economic activity within regions, as measured by a spatial Gini coefficient , by 2.2 percentage points. The treatment effects are particularly strong in regions that are less developed, more urbanized, and located closer to cities.

Aiste Rugeviciute, Afshin Mehrpouya

In recent years, the term “blockchain” has been sprinkled widely and the hype around it attracts billions in investments. The promises that this technology can be a solution to many of society’s present problems have drawn attention from all sectors, including development aid. The historical recognition of potential and actual corruption resulting from development aid sparked a rise in demands for more transparency and accountability in this sector. So far, there have been reflections in different academic disciplines about the potentials of Blockchain in this area. However, little empirical investigation has been conducted to understand the technological and institutional enablers and barriers for its adoption in the development aid sector. This study aims to take initial steps towards such understanding with a focus on the potential role for Blockchain Technology in financial aid flows through an analysis of the donors’ perspectives. Our research is based on diverse qualitative material. It relies on reports and discussion papers produced by donor organizations and on case studies of two start-ups focused on introducing Blockchain into development aid management. Besides a body of archival qualitative material, we conducted interviews with different actors in the development financing field. Based on an inductive qualitative methodology, we grouped findings into three categories of barriers and enablers: discursive, technological and institutional. Our study shows that discourses about Blockchain Technology vary a lot and there is a lack of common framing of its definition, attributes, and insufficient engagement around these concerns between different actors. Overall, the ability to increase the visibility of cash flows and a potential to reduce administration costs were perceived to be the most useful features, combined with the desire/need expressed by some donors to be at the forefront of technological developments. Lack of understanding about this technology and fear of its complexity and related security challenges were the most cited technological obstacles. Lack of institutional structures for rule making and for enabling field-level exchanges and knowledge production around Blockchain-based projects is currently the most prominent challenge to its diffusion and wider adoption.

Bernhard Reinsberg

Abstract Blockchain technology has been considered a vehicle to foster development in poor countries by promoting applications such as secure delivery of humanitarian aid, digital identity services, and proof of provenance. This article examines whether (and if so, how) blockchain technology can enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of foreign aid governance, thereby moving beyond completely anonymous contexts. Foreign aid governance is plagued by lack of credible commitments among states, which are further exacerbated by information asymmetries and which often undermine aid effectiveness. In this context, blockchain technology holds two promises. First, through the guaranteed execution of smart contracts, it can strengthen the credibility of state commitments, for example collective burden-sharing rules among a group of donors or recipient country compliance with policy conditionality in return for aid. Second, through leveraging prediction markets, blockchain technology can allay information problems related to the verification of real-world events along the entire aid delivery chain.

Laura Chinchilla, Doreen Vorndran

In the last decade, Latin American and Caribbean governments have advanced toward a systemic management of the citizen security and justice issues, integrating strategies of crime and violence prevention and control, the application of justice, and social rehabilitation. The region has moved from reactive and punitive approaches to the design and implementation of comprehensive models focused on human rights and multisectoral coordination. Likewise, security institutions have been decentralized to incorporate multiple institutional and social actors at the different government levels. In addition, in terms of public policies, the governments have proposed a range of tools for management by results, coordination, planning, financing, and evaluation of programs. Unfortunately, conceptual and doctrinal advances have not been incorporated with the necessary speed to address the high levels of crime and violence faced by the region. The four main institutional challenges to citizen security are: (i) comprehensiveness, (ii) multisectoriality, (iii) rigorousness, and (iv) sustainability and scalability. The document proposes 10 actions to accelerate the transformation of the security governance.

Authors unavailable

Financing Agreement (Decentralized Service Delivery Program II Project) between the Republic of Sierra Leone and the International Development Association (with schedules, appendix and International Development Association General Conditions for Credits and Grants, dated 31 July 2010). Washington, 14 February 2012

Shahar Hameiri, Lee Jones

Many observers of international politics detect a growing Chinese challenge to the rules-based, liberal international order. In particular, some saw Beijing's recent creation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) as a threat to existing organizations governing international development financing. This article broadly concurs with more sanguine accounts emphasizing the AIIB's similarity to existing multilateral development banks. However, we go further by arguing that the full extent of China's challenge to global governance cannot be understood without reference to the ongoing transformation of the Chinese party-state: the contested fragmentation, decentralization and internationalization of state apparatuses. These processes mean that the AIIB is just one institution among many in China's messy international development financing field—alongside policy and commercial banks, functional ministries, provincial governments and state-owned enterprises. Contestation among these agencies will shape China's real challenge to global economic governance, which will often be significant, yet unintended and non-strategic, in nature.

Berhanu Abegaz

No abstract is available for this record.

Zheng Wen-juan

Research on Chinese civil society has tended to focus on the relationship between non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the state. Such work has underestimated the complexity of the emerging institutional environment where Chinese NGOs are often caught between the state, the market, and a constrained civil society. How do civil society organizations and their respective nonprofit sectors emerge, what forms do they take? More specifically, how do organizational forms and strategies reflect political and market structures at the time? Chinese nonprofit sectors re-emerged in the late 1990s, and their relationships with the state have been contentious. The rapid transformation of the nonprofit sectors provides a unique opportunity to look at the emergence of a new organizational field. Using strategic action fields (SAFs) theory, I examine how organizations within the field of nonprofit organizations attempted to establish and defend their positions vis-à-vis the state and market. I conducted comparative case studies of two leading China's NGOs –Civil Society Center (CSC) in the city of Guangzhou and Excellence Promoter (EP) in the city of Shanghai. I traced the histories and current development of CSC and EP and their connected organizations and used ethnographic, interview, and survey data to triangulate the emerging urban nonprofit sectors in the context of an authoritarian state. I argue that, in different periods, the nonprofit organizational fields of Guangzhou and Shanghai reflected political and market structures at the time. In the early 2000s, Guangzhou’s nonprofit organizations were grassroots-driven, and a State Avoidance Autonomous field arose as large organizations decentralized into smaller organizations to decrease state scrutiny and intervention. In contrast, in Shanghai, where the state promoted nonprofit organizations as an extension of governmental programs, a State Alliance Social Market Field developed. This State Alliance Social Market Field prioritized business values and practices to guide organizational strategies rather than the ethical commitments that had been the center of the State Avoidance Autonomous field. By partnering with government, EP was able to rapidly expand while its Guangzhou counterpart, CSC, remained small and marginal. Powerful e-commerce companies such as Tencent, however, have been changing the rules and norms that used to govern the field. They entered the nonprofit field through the creation of a new fundraising platform that opened up alternative resources for Chinese NGOs. The involvement of the market through corporate foundations and new technologies has provided alternative funding for grassroots NGOs under the attack from the state. My study contributes to nonprofit studies and China studies by providing insight into how NGOs interact with different state and market players and the consequences of such interactions on organizational strategies.

Matthias Helble, Zulfiqar Ali, Jera Lego

To what extent do the World Health Organization, the World Trade Organization, and the World Bank remain central today and how much influence do they still wield in shaping the global agenda? While several studies have traced the development of various intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), charting their growth and influence in international affairs, and assessing their prospects, few if any have compared IGOs across various fields. This paper aims to fill this gap by taking a closer look at three different policy fields to better understand the current architecture of global governance, the centrality of IGOs, the role of new and other actors, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of this "new" architecture. The authors find that, first, the emergence of new private players has significantly eroded the centrality of IGOs such that the course of global governance in health, trade, and development finance has changed irreversibly. Second, regional arrangements have overtaken global ones and nonstate actors have assumed more prominent roles. Third, this multiplicity of powerful players has led to some positive outcomes but also greater inefficiencies and redundancies. Fourth, developed countries have been pivotal in eroding the centrality of IGOs, but developing countries are taking on a greater role in global governance. Fifth, the new architecture can be described as one of diversification in global health governance, fragmentation in global trade, and variation in multilateral development finance. Global governance in the 21st century is thus characterized by a proliferation of actors and a decentralization of authority, an erosion of IGO centrality accompanied by a greater role for nonstate actors, developing countries, and by increased regionalism. Depending on the sector of governance, its inherent aims, and the nature of the actors involved, the new architecture may be one of variation, fragmentation, or diversification. While this new architecture is complex and might possibly lead to inefficiencies and redundancies, it allows a greater number of actors to participate, making it more representative of the current world order and making it possible to mobilize more resources to promote development.

Nabeela Asghar

(ProQuest: ... denotes formulae omitted.)IntroductionThe existing literature have concluded that foreign resources have played significant role in raising the pace of economic development in developing countries. Most of the developing countries have been facing shortage of resources failing to meet the rising demand of capital over time. In order to overcome this problem these countries have been receiving heavy doses of external resources in the form of loans and grants from developed countries and international financial institutions World Bank, IMF and Asian Development Bank. The developing countries depend on foreign aid due to the desire of achieving rapid pace of economic development in the shortest period of time. Furthermore, for bridging their saving investment gap and export import gap these countries are forced to receive foreign aid from foreign sources. On the other side, developed countries provide loans and foreign assistance to developing countries keeping in view that developing countries cannot borrow from commercial sources due to their limited debt servicing capacity.Oates (1972) stressed that decentralization is one of the important factors which helps the donor countries in transferring resources because the government officials of recipient countries can make correct and appropriate decisions regarding the development projects as decentralization helps in bringing government and people closer. There are two serious problems which may come up in this regard. Firstly, it is very difficult to know about the real needs of the society. Secondly, allocation of the resources under political pressure to meet these requirements is not an easy task.The resource allocation in developing countries remained controversial due to the political pressure and conditions attached to foreign aid. The need for decentralization, comes up because of the existence of gap between spending needs and availability of revenue. There are three levels of government working in Pakistan and the allocation and distribution between them remained under debate. There exists a well-defined process through which resources are redistributed to provincial government by the federal government through National Finance Commission (NFC).The introduction of new formula in 2009 for the share of all provinces in the dividable pool has altered significantly. In the 1990 the Punjab's share was 57.87 according to NFC award based on the population, while there was an insignificant decline observed in 2006. There is decline in the share of Punjab recorded from 57.37 percent in 2006 to 51.74 percent in 2009. The share of Sindh has gone up from 23.71 percent in 2006 to 24.55 percent in 2009. The share of KPK has gone up from 13.82 percent in 2006 to 14.62 percent in 2009. The Baluchistan's share has increased to 9.09 percent on the basis of the revised formula.Several studies have analyzed the effect of foreign aid, fiscal decentralization on economic growth but there is no consensus among the researchers regarding the role of decentralization in economic growth.Easterly (2003) concluded that corrupt institutions having weak policies had adverse impact on foreign aid in achieving its desired objectives. Morrissey (2006) stressed that private investment has appeared to be inversely related to imports and directly related to foreign aid. Aurangzeb (2010) failed to find the evidence related to the impact of foreign aid on economic growth in Pakistan. Javid (2011) concluded that foreign aid may have positive effect on economic growth in Pakistan only in the presence of sound economic policies. The present study is highly important as the results of this study would help the policy makers to formulate and implement better policies consistent with the economic and political conditions prevailing in Pakistan.The rest of the study is organized as follows. Section-II presents theoretical framework. Model specification and interpretation of results are presented in Section-III. …

Yasuo Takao

The collaborative relationship between Shiga Prefecture and the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) to create the International Lake Environment Committee (ILEC) was Japan’s earliest experience of sub-national participation in international cooperation with counterparts from the developing world and international organizations. The ILEC is an international nongovernmental standing committee, which has been hosted by Shiga’s prefectural government since 1986. One of its key missions is to support environmentally sound lake management activities, which UNEP promotes in developing countries. The objective of this chapter is to examine the local government’s autonomous capacity to mobilize resources across institutional boundaries of polity and independently participate in transnational environmental governance. From a state-centric view, a sub-national level of participation at the international level can only be feasible if it is an active part of national policy. In the case of the Shiga prefectural government’s initiative for international lake-environmental cooperation, however, as Table 5.1 indicates, sub-national actors came to see themselves as direct players in the absence of national policy. The chapter examines under what conditions and in what ways such a sub-national level of participation takes place by conducting a case study of Shiga’s collaboration with UNEP over lake-environment risk reduction. It reveals the formation process of transnational governance networks involving a sub-national government that is not operating on behalf of the national government. Shiga’s cooperation with UNEP was primarily driven by the ad hoc, bottom-up political mobilization of sub-national actors. In general, without institutionalized channels for subnational governments to participate in the international level, sub-national governments need to mobilize resources on such an ad hoc basis and pioneering sub-national actors need to be capable of effectively engaging in the formation process of transnational governance in unfamiliar territory. This chapter is about the management story of Lake Biwa in Shiga prefecture. The lake is completely located within Shiga prefecture, situated across most municipalities in the prefecture, with its surface area of 674.4 square kilometers occupying one-sixth of the prefecture’s total area. In the environmental policy area of Japanese history, as environmental impacts were manifested locally and adaptive capacity determined by local conditions, municipal governments became the first movers. Given the geographical setting of the lake, however, the initiatives for environmental policy were taking place at the prefectural level. The Shiga prefectural government reached out for international environmental cooperation on behalf of voters who found it impossible to ignore the severity of lake pollution and whose concern with it prevailed over pro-development policies in electoral processes. While the worsening eutrophication of the rivers and lakes became known as a worldwide problem, local knowledge and experience in Japan was not sufficient to cope with the Lake Biwa’s environmental stresses. This led the prefectural Environmental Bureau to develop a lake environment policy network with overseas counterparts, which provided them with the process of learning about lake environments.1 These actors transnationally engaged in policy innovation and coordination by diffusing ideas and influencing the policy measures adopted in other countries.2 In the process of policy networking, the under-funded and overloaded UNEP3 began to work with Shiga prefecture to meet the need to decentralize environmental governance functions, in order to pave the way for future environmental problem-solving.4