Measuring long‐term trends in policy coherence for development

This article measures long term trends in policy coherence for development. Based on result chains, it develops a counterfactual methodology, and then applies it to assess changes in inputs, outputs and outcomes over time. While the literature does not indicate any significant change in policy coherence for development over the last decade, this research finds that, if the time scale is lengthened to 50 years, an overall increase in policy coherence for development of the Dutch government, vis‐à‐vis the DR Congo, in the domains of finance and security, can be detected. These changes in policy coherence for development inputs seem to have contributed, in conjunction with similar policies from other countries, in some instances, to positive outcomes in the DRC.     

LGBTQI-identified human rights defenders: courage in the face of adversity at the United Nations

The role of LGBTQI human rights defenders in the international arena at the United Nations (UN) is a particularly risky and insecure one, especially for those who themselves identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, transgender, two spirit, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI). This article focuses on the anecdotal experiences of LGBTQI-identified human rights defenders and their work at the UN, observed and noted during a research study examining the degree of recognition and legitimacy LGBTQIs have at the UN. Much courage is required on the part of LGBTQI-identified human rights defenders who, while defending others in their communities, themselves face opposition from those within the UN who hold traditional, religious, and culturally based values, as well as a result of state sovereignty and state-sanctioned criminalisation of their gender and sexual diversity.     

贵州黔南州传统民族特色村寨保护与开发利用研究

贵州省黔南州布依族苗族乡村聚居区在传统民族特色村寨保护与开发利用工作中取得了较大的成效，积累了大量的成功经验，但也存在一些问题及不足：民族特色村寨保护与开发意义的认知有待提升；政府对民族特色村寨保护与开发利用的刚性规划缺失；开发的民族特色村寨功能单一；黔南少数民族传统特色文化的总体情况呈现复兴、衰退和变异并存；民族特色文化精品的培育顶层支撑不足；民族特色村寨开发与传统民族文化融合度不够；对传统特色老旧民宅价值认识不足。针对以上问题，首先应着力提升黔南州民族特色村寨保护开发格局，争取纳入国家改革试验规划；其二，抓住大数据与智慧乡村建设的时机，率先推进民族地区乡村治理现代化示范；其三，创新投融资体制机制，构建“民族特色村寨资源资本化金融服务平台”；其四，探索乡村房屋租赁权跨区域流通的体制机制，不断提升农民的物权收益；其五，加大民族特色村寨品牌建设力度，增加特色村寨旅游产品附加值；其六，完善村寨文化资源资产化经营监管体系，构建村寨文化资源保护利用长效机制。     

Enacting reflective and deliberative practices in action research

ABSTRACT

We consider action research as a form of deliberative policy analysis. This analysis explores a “reconstruction clinic” in which stakeholders and public officials engaged memories, hopes and obligations as they sought to resolve controversies over details of policy implementation. We ask how institutional design shaped participants’ reflective and deliberative progress. Reflection in action can prompt not only changes in cognitive frames, but new behavioural capacities for action. Deliberative practices can shape new relationships between parties through the work of apology, recognition, appreciation, and emergent collaboration.     

Payment by results in international development: Evidence from the first decade

Payment by results is a relatively new way of giving development aid, where a recipient's performance against pre‐agreed measures determines the amount of aid they receive. Advocates for the mechanism argue it provides donors with both a ready justification for maintaining aid budgets and better results through innovation and autonomy. It has proved popular, with most bilateral aid donors having at least experimented with the mechanism and the variety of measures stretching from individual health workers being paid for each procedure, to national governments being paid for students' test scores. However, there has not been a robust assessment of whether Payment By Results (PbR) achieves its aims for greater effectiveness. I synthesize the evidence from eight projects fully or partially funded by DFID, the recognized world leader on PbR. This represents the best evidence currently available, and is critically analysed using the leading theoretical framework that breaks each agreement into its constituent parts. I find no evidence that PbR leads to fundamentally more innovation or autonomy, with the overall range of success and failure broadly similar to other aid projects. This may partly be due to the current use of Payment by Results, with no readily identifiable examples of projects that truly meet the idealized PbR designs. Advocates of PbR may thus conclude the idea is yet to be tested. I argue PbR does not deal with the fundamental constraints that donors face, and so it is unsurprising that PbR is subject to the normal pressures that affect all aid spending.     

Technical and vocational education and training in Uganda: A critical analysis

This article undertakes a diagnostic study of the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) sub‐sector in Uganda, with a view to characterizing the sub‐sector and identifying its potential strengths and weakness. We undertook a cross‐sectional pre‐survey of purposively selected key stakeholders in the TVET sub‐sector. We selected performance indicators following their importance in influencing the TVET reform process. Both qualitative and quantitative data was solicited from the stakeholders. Quantitative data was collected through stakeholder‐specific structured questionnaires, whilst qualitative data was collected through desk review and field visits, individual focused interviews and focus group discussions. Our findings indicate that financing and planning constraints have resulted in poor quality equipment, under‐ and ill‐trained staff, limited adoption of a competence‐based education and training (CBET) curriculum, not to mention the supervision inadequacies of TVET institutions. Besides, the limited TVET sub‐sector interaction with the private sector has incapacitated TVET curriculum development to nurture skills demanded by the private sector. Furthermore, backward technology use in the private sector has equally inhibited the success of student attachment programmes. Finally, legal ambiguities have perpetuated a qualification jungle and overlapping curricula.     

Promoting sustainable development through civil society: A case study of the EU’s NSA/LA thematic programme in Kyrgyzstan

The article focuses on the contribution of the European Union (EU) in promoting sustainable development through the involvement of civil society in partner countries. More specifically, it analyses the main features and outcomes of the projects implemented by civil society organizations (CSOs) in Kyrgyzstan under the EU thematic programme Non‐State Actors and Local Authorities in Development (NSA/LA). Despite its importance—this is the only EU programme providing direct support to non‐state actors and local authorities engaged in poverty reduction—to date, there has been very little research on the functioning of this instrument on the ground. This article seeks to fill this gap in the literature by examining the EU’s contribution to sustainable development through a case study on Kyrgyzstan. The study is based on primary data: 10 semi‐structured interviews conducted with the EU‐funded organizations implementing the NSA/LA programme. The NSA/LA projects were analysed by considering two major fields of engagement of non‐state actors in the development process: as service providers and as advocates (Banks & Hulme, 2012). Overall, the organizations awarded EU support were not only focused on fulfilling short‐term needs but also sought to introduce new ways of dealing with poverty and inequality, positioning themselves between the “Big‐D” and the “little‐d” approaches to development (Bebbington, Hickey, & Mitlin, 2008). Nonetheless, the EU‐funded projects were too limited and fragmented to be able to sustain long‐term structural change. Therefore, the EU should place new emphasis on creating synergies between new and old structures at the grassroots level and establishing mechanisms and bodies that could merge and co‐ordinate their efforts. In addition, the calls for proposals could highlight the need to share the lessons learnt by “obliging” the beneficiaries to act as multipliers and to pass on their positive experience to neighbouring communities. Finally, the EU could stimulate the funded organizations to experiment with innovative mechanisms of involvement in the policy‐making process, by making this aspect a mandatory requirement of the projects implemented with its support.     

The “Absence” of Asian Regional Economic Integration and the Development Orientation of the Belt and Road

Asia has a special significance in China’s neighborhood strategy. Geographically, the Belt and Road Initiative faces the countries of Asia or China’s neighbors in the first place. Asia is clearly marked by an imbalance in and “absence” of regional economic integration. This “absence” is two-fold: it is expressed on the one hand as a lack of unified institutional arrangements for regional economic integration, and on the other as the inability of underdeveloped countries in the region to truly participate in regional economic integration and thereby gain opportunities for development. Compared with the rule-oriented nature of existing regional economic integration mechanisms, the Belt and Road Initiative, as a new type of regional cooperation mechanism, displays an orientation towards development. All existing regional economic integration arrangements, regardless of their form, establish specific rules on access thresholds, the rights and duties of member countries, schedules and roadmaps, dispute resolution mechanisms and so forth. This is not the case for the Belt and Road, which is not predicated on specific rules, but establishes its overall framework by orienting itself towards development. Overall, the development orientation of the Belt and Road is helpful not only in overcoming the inherent defects of Asian regional economic integration, but in responding to the new challenge of anti-globalization. This is an institutional public good that China offers to Asia and to the world.     

从教师专业实践能力发展反观高校与幼儿园的双向融合

当前，打通高校教师理论研究与基层一线教师专业发展瓶颈是总体提升我国教育质量的高效之举，教育的实践性本质也决定了高校教师的理论研究与一线教师的教育实践必须坚持双向融合的道路。实现校园双向融合既要积极构建教师发展共同体，还要积极探索有深度和广度的教研机制，并搭建开放、多元、创新的资源平台。     

Uneven and combined development and sub-imperialism: the internationalization of Brazilian capital

This paper examines the political-economic outgrowth of Brazilian capitalism in the global south after the outset of the global financial crisis. In analysing the public-sector finance policy of the Workers’ Party (PT) during the crisis, I argue that a structuration of investment was established. Utilizing theoretical premises of uneven and combined development and sub-imperialism, this paper traces the motions of the industrial financing processes that perpetuate Brazilian capitalism outside of the boundaries of the nation-state to shed light on the relationship between ‘emergent’ economies, their state structures, and the developing world. I argue that such structures represent a policy to accelerate capital accumulation abroad.