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China's New Role in Africa and the South: A search for a new perspective

China's global expansion is much talked about, but usually from the viewpoint of the West. This unique collection of essays, written by scholars and activists from China and the global South, provides diverse views on the challenges faced by Africa, Latin America and Asia as a result of China's rise as a significant global economic power. Chinese aid, trade and investments - driven by the needs of its own economy - present both threats and opportunities for the South, requiring a nuanced analysis that goes beyond simplistic caricatures of 'good' and 'evil'

http://www.focusweb.org/china-s-new-role-in-africa-and-the-south-a-search-for-a-new-perspective-2.html?Itemid=111

(Added: Thu May 22 2008   Hits: 158)

OECD DAC Development Cooperation Report 2006

2006 has seen another year of growth in income per head for most poor countries at rates which are above those of OECD countries, in many cases significantly so. This growth has been robust for some years now, and is gradually changing the realities of development. Despite these encouraging results, three important questions remain: are such rates of growth sustainable? Can they - in some cases - even be increased? And are the benefits of growth reaching the poor? Aid has a role to play in achieving all these goals. This year's Report looks at the prospects for increased aid; the issue of aid dependence; the need for greater domestic accountability; and the Aid for Trade agenda. It also provides preliminary results from the baseline survey which monitors the Paris Declaration aid effectiveness indicators, as agreed by the High Level Forum in March 2005. The Report notes some real progress on key goals set by the UN Millennium Assembly, but also notes the heavy toll of continuing crises on the aid programmes of the donor community. (OECD, 2006)

http://caliban.sourceoecd.org/vl=4967794/cl=16/nw=1/rpsv/dac/

(Added: Thu Mar 08 2007   Hits: 246)

"From Stockholm to Ottawa: a progress review of the Good Humanitarian Donorship initiative" [PDF -88KB]

HPG Briefing Paper 18 • October 2004 Adele Harmer and Lin Cotterrell "As financiers and increasingly as strategic actors in their own right, official donor governments exert a significant influence over the outcome of humanitarian action. Yet until a year ago, there was no consensus regarding how donor governments could and should use their influence and harmonise their procedures to improve humanitarian response. Donor policy and approaches to decision-making and resource allocation were criticised for being weakly articulated, ad hoc and uncoordinated. Driven by political interests rather than according to need, funding allocations were often inequitable, unpredictable and untimely in responding to crises. The humanitarian activities of donors were weakly linked into mainstream development administrations, and remained outside formal intergovernmental donor processes. Overall, there were weak accountability mechanisms and transparency in relation to donor action."

http://www.odi.org.uk/hpg/papers/HPGbrief18.pdf

(Added: Thu Mar 03 2005   Modified: Thu Aug 25 2005   Hits: 98)

Adventist Development and Relief Agency of New Zealand

The Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) is an independent humanitarian agency established in 1984 by the Seventh-day-Adventist Church for the specific purpose of providing individual and community development and disaster relief.

http://www.adra.org.nz

(Added: Wed Jun 01 2005   Modified: Tue Aug 23 2005   Hits: 92)

Afghanistan, Inc: A Corpowatch Investigative Report (pdf)

Fariba Nawa, an Afghan-American who returned to her native country to examine the progress of reconstruction, uncovers some examples of where the money has (and hasn't) gone, how the system of international aid works (and doesn't), and what it is really like in the villages and cities where outsiders are rebuilding the war-torn countryside. (Fairba Nawa, CorpWatch, May 2006)

http://corpwatch.org/downloads/CorpWatch%20Afghan%20report.pdf

(Added: Thu May 04 2006   Modified: Tue Jun 27 2006   Hits: 358)

African Development Report 2007

The African Development Report is an annual publication prepared by the Research Department of the African Development Bank Group and has become an important source of analysis and information on developments in Africa. Each year, the Report provides an update on key macroeconomic and sectoral developments and provides an in-depth analysis of an important development topic critical for Africa's development prospects (ADBG,

http://www.afdb.org/pls/portal/docs/PAGE/ADB_ADMIN_PG/DOCUMENTS/ECONOMICSANDRESEARCH/ADR%20SUMMARY-2007.PDF

(Added: Mon Jul 21 2008   Hits: 56)

Aid effectiveness after Accra

'This Briefing Paper by David Booth examines aid effectiveness and the impact of the Paris Principles in the run-up to the Third High Level Forum, in Accra in September 2008.' (ODI, July 2008)

http://www.odi.org.uk/publications/briefing/bp39-july08-aid-effectiveness.pdf

(Added: Thu Jul 24 2008   Hits: 35)

Aid, Economic Reform and Public Sector Fiscal Behaviour in Developing Countries (PDF)

By Mark McGillivray, Centre for Research in Economic Development and International Trade, University of Nottingham, (2002). This paper looks at interactions between foreign development aid, economic reform and public sector fiscal behaviour. It proposes a model of the public sector fiscal response to aid inflows, which allows for changes in structural relationships due to an exogenously imposed program of economic reform. This model is applied to 1960-97 time series data for the Philippines, which embarked on an IMF- and World Bank-funded liberalisation program in 1980. Estimates of structural and reduced-form equations paint a very dismal picture of the effectiveness of foreign aid in general and liberalisation in particular in the Philippines. Both bilateral and multilateral aid inflows, and the presence of an economic reform program, are associated with decreases in public fixed capital expenditure, decreases in taxation and other recurrent revenue and decreases in public sector saving. Multilateral aid also appears to be highly fungible.

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/economics/credit/research/papers/CP.02.11.pdf

(Added: Mon Mar 31 2003   Modified: Thu Aug 25 2005   Hits: 182)

An Index of Donor Performance [PDF] 504 KB

By David Roodman (2004). This Working Paper, published by the Center of Global Development, discusses the Commitment to Development Index, which rates 21 rich countries on the "development-friendliness" of their policies. The quantitative and qualitative measures used to generate these ratings are reviewed. The ratings reflect positively on Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden, whereas the United States and Japan are in the bottom third.

http://econwpa.wustl.edu/eps/dev/papers/0412/0412004.pdf

(Added: Mon Aug 01 2005   Hits: 66)

Assessing World Bank Support for Trade 1987-2004: An IEG Evaluation

The evaluation was carried out by the World Bank's Independent Evaluation Group (IEG)to assess the effectiveness of the Bank's development efforts. It analyzes the Bank's contribution to freer trade in developing countries, finding that the World Bank's trade programmes may have helped open markets over the last two decades but they have not done enough to tackle poverty and boost growth in developing countries' exports, or expended enough effort to cushion poor countries and help them adapt to the effects of trade liberalization. The report makes concrete recommendations on how to boost trade opportunities to better alleviate poverty in the future. (World Bank, 2006)

http://www.worldbank.org/ieg/trade/report.html

(Added: Fri Mar 31 2006   Hits: 144)

AusAID: Rapid Review of Project Quality [PDF -2791 KB]

In February and March 2002 AusAIDs Quality Assurance Group conducted a rapid review of project quality at entry. The review was a follow-up to the first quality-at-entry survey conducted in 1999.

http://www.ausaid.gov.au/publications/pdf/rapid_review_aug.pdf

(Added: Wed Oct 09 2002   Hits: 169)

Capacity Development: Empowering People and Institutions - UNDP Annual Report 2008

This 2008 Annual Report of the UNDP provides an overview of the UNDPs work in developing the capacity of developing countries and their peoples to deliver greater overall human development.

http://www.undp.org/publications/annualreport2008/pdf/IAR2008_ENG_low.pdf

(Added: Tue Jun 24 2008   Hits: 79)

Development Co-operation Report 2007

DAC, OECD. On 14 February 2008, the DAC launched the 2007 edition of its annual Development Co-operation Report (DCR). In this report, Richard Manning (DAC Chair from June 2003 to January 2008) looks at the 12 measures of success he formulated in 2003, when he began his mandate.

http://www.oecd.org/document/32/0,3343,en_2649_33721_40056608_1_1_1_1,00.html

(Added: Fri Mar 14 2008   Hits: 44)

Development Indicators

Accurate, timely and unbiased information is crucial to sound public policy decisions. In particular statistical indicators are indispensable. It is possible to conduct an objective assessment of the extent to which goals have been achieved only if benchmark data and reliable indicators are available.

http://www.un.org/Depts/unsd/indicators/indic2a.htm

(Added: Sat Dec 04 1999   Modified: Thu Aug 25 2005   Hits: 232)

EU aid: Genuine leadership or misleading figures? An independent analysis of European aid figures

New official figures released by the European Commission in March show that European Member States are fulfilling their promises to increase overseas development and are actually ahead of their collective target and doing better than expected. However, as this NGO briefing shows, nearly one third, of the reported European ODA in 2005 did not provide any new aid resources for developing countries. This vast amount of apparent aid spending was in fact money for debt cancellation - which was primarily firstly issues to subsidise European companies operating in devloping countries - and for refugees and students costs in donor countries. Thus European aid is doing less than it could to fight world poverty. The report - to be realease in full at the end of April - calls for clean up in aid reporting to ensure that the only aid that is counted is aid that saves lives and not simply saves face. (Various European NGOs, 3 April 2006)

http://www.eurodad.org/uploadstore/cms/docs/NGOBRIEFINGEUaidgenuineleadershipormisleadingfigures.pdf

(Added: Tue Apr 04 2006   Hits: 87)

Eurodad brief analysis of the OECD Paris

More than one hundred countries - both aid donors and recipients - signed up to the Paris declaration in 2005 in recognition of the need to make aid work better to address the needs of poor people and for development. In 2006 the OECD coordinated a baseline survey of donor and recipient country performance as a way to monitor progress against commitments from then until 2010 for when targets had been set. In May 2007 the OECD published the overview of their results obtained from the 2006 Survey on Monitoring the Paris Declaration. The Paris Declaration is an important step in achieving better quality aid and the publication of this report is a positive step in following up on the commitments that have been made. (Eurodad).

http://www.eurodad.org/uploadedFiles/Whats_New/News/Eurodad_graphic_analysisPD.survey.pdf

(Added: Fri Jun 22 2007   Hits: 76)

Evaluation of the Pilot Stepping Stones Program

Carried out by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community in Fiji, this is an evaluation of a pilot Stepping Stones (SS) Programme that was carried out by the Pacific Regional HIV/AIDS Project in an effort to improve Fijians' sexual health and to decrease HIV/AIDS in that country through community participation and local-level decision making. The 60-page document reflects how 2 different evaluation approaches - the "Gemscale Model" and the "Most Significant Change Technique" - have been used to gather information about future plans for the use of SS in the Pacific...

http://www.dev-zone.org/downloads/Evaluation%20of%20the%20Pilot%20Stepping%20Stones%20Program%3B%20Fiji.pdf

(Added: Thu May 15 2008   Hits: 49)

Joint Evaluation of the International Response to the Indian Ocean Tsunami: Synthesis Report [pdf]

Our efforts to respond to the tsunami have placed in sharp relief both strengths and weaknesses in the way we organize ourselves when faced with such massive challenges. This report includes both praise and uncomfortable reading, it identifies important lessons and an agenda for reform that deserve careful analysis and an appropriate response (Tsunami Evaluation Coalition, July 2006)

http://www.reliefweb.int/library/documents/2006/tec-tsunami-14jul.pdf

(Added: Mon Jul 17 2006   Modified: Tue Sep 19 2006   Hits: 149)

Lots of rhetoric, few specifics: DFID defends its policy on the World Bank

The UK's Department for International Development (DFID) has sheepishly defended its decision to hand over a fifty per cent increase in funding for the World Bank without sufficient analysis of whether or not this is good value for money.

http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/art-561694

(Added: Fri May 23 2008   Hits: 31)

Making Philippine Cities Child Friendly: Voices of Children in Poor Communities [PDF 2849 KB]

In the early 1980s, the Government of the Philippines, UNICEF, and local NGOs developed the community-based Child Friendly Cities (CFC) program to address those needs pertinent to children living in poor neighborhoods. The concept of Child Friendly Cities is anchored on nine building blocks: (1) children as active participants in decisions affecting them - with participation cross-cutting all the building blocks, (2) child friendly laws, (3) city-wide children's rights strategies, (4) children's rights units in government structures, (5) regular evaluations of the impact on children of city ordinances, policies and practices, (6) budget sections earmarked for children, (7) state-of-the-city report children, (8) programs disseminating awareness children's rights, and (9) strong advocacy for children by civil society, government and other groups. This report analyses the Child Friendly Cities strategy and finds that where it was adopted, greater attention is paid to the most excluded and vulnerable groups and interventions are developed on a wider spectrum of children's rights. (Institute of Philippine Culture (IPC), Ateneo de Manila University, UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, 2005)

http://www.unicef-icdc.org/publications/pdf/philinsight.pdf

(Added: Thu Mar 30 2006   Modified: Thu Jun 01 2006   Hits: 96)

Measuring the impact of humanitarian aid (pdf 580 KB)

HPG Report 17, June 2004. By Charles-Antoine Hofmann. This report is concerned with how the impact of humanitarian aid can be measured, why this is increasingly being demanded and whether it is possible to do it better.

http://www.odi.org.uk/hpg/papers/HPGReport17.pdf

(Added: Thu Aug 26 2004   Modified: Tue Jan 10 2006   Hits: 545)

Playing Politics With Aid: The Unholy Trinity of Defense, Diplomacy and Development in the War on Terrorism (pdf)

This report examines the Bush administration's efforts to bring the administration of aid under the control of the State Department and tie foreign assistance to U.S. strategic military interests. At a time when the U.S. foreign aid has been made a central team member of the Bush administration's war on terrorism, the policy brief advocates that it is in the interest of the United States to ensure that each dollar of development aid is invested in building self-reliant societies abroad instead of subjecting them to its short-term foreign and military policy goals. Development assistance constitutes only 30 percent of the U.S. foreign aid budget, while military and economic aid for strategic allies constitutes more than half of the same budget. The 2007 foreign operations budget further reduces poverty-focused development assistance programs, including cuts in Child Survival and Health Fund, Development Assistance, Disaster and Famine Assistance, by over $400 million. (Anuradha Mittal, The Oakland Institute, 27 April 2006)

http://www.oaklandinstitute.org/pdfs/anu_web.pdf

(Added: Wed May 17 2006   Hits: 304)

Progress in Haiti projects

This Article by the Inter-American Development Bank argues that its projects in Haiti have been making progress in a number of key sectors (IDB, 18, July 2008).

http://www.iadb.org/NEWS/articledetail.cfm?artid=4690&language=En

(Added: Mon Jul 21 2008   Hits: 11)

Reaching the Poor with Health, Nutrition and Population Services: What works, what doesn't, and why

This report from the World Bank provides eleven case studies from around the developing world that document how health, nutrition and population programmes have performed in reaching disadvantaged groups. Topics examined include: health, nutrition, and population topics related to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs): nutrition; infant and child health; reproductive health; and AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis. While the authors conclude that it is possible for programmes to reach the poor more effectively than they are doing at present, they found that there is no one strategy that would be appropriate in all cases. Instead there is a need to find better and more feasible approaches to service delivery for the poor to be reached effectively and to ensure flexibility. Doing this would include: studying approaches of successful programmes; adapting to local conditions; experimenting with adapted approaches in various and multiple settings; monitoring these experiences; and adjusting approaches according to findings. (World bank, 2005)

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPAH/Resources/Reaching-the-Poor/complete.pdf

(Added: Thu Mar 30 2006   Modified: Thu Jun 01 2006   Hits: 330)

Report of DFID's reponse to the Indian Ocean Tsunami (pdf)

In the National Audit Office's report, Britain's Department for International Development was praised for its speed in response to the tsunami. However, DFID is committed to learning lessons from what was done in order to improve future efforts. To that end the department has asked advisors and independent experts to undertake an extensive review process, culminating in this report. (DFID, March 2006)

http://www.dfid.gov.uk/pubs/files/report-dfid-response-tsunami.pdf

(Added: Fri May 05 2006   Hits: 138)

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