Search results for "international development"

Exploring the application of blockchain to humanitarian supply chains: insights from Humanitarian Supply Blockchain pilot project

2021

PurposeSome studies and reports have recently suggested using blockchain technology to improve transparency and trust in humanitarian supply chains (HSCs). However, evidence-based studies to display the utility and applicability of blockchains in HSCs are missing in the literature. This paper aims to investigate the key drivers and barriers of blockchain application to HSCs and explore whether evidence could support that the application of blockchain improves transparency and trust in HSCs.Design/methodology/approachThis paper puts forward a two-stage approach to explore the blockchain application in HSCs: an initial exploration of humanitarian practitioners and academicians interested in b…

International development aid and young people's participation in societal development of the global south

2018

International development aid has in recent years sought to strengthen youths’ societal participation by cooperation between international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) and local youth associations. In this paper, we address and conceptualise some of the underlying causes that may enable and/or limit such efforts to support youth participation in the global south. We seek to contribute to the growing literature exploring the multiple scales of young people's political agency. A core argument proposed is that notions of generational relationality, as seen in the case of international development aid targeting youth, must include conceptions of power as a topological relation across …

Mode of Delivery and the Effectiveness of Foreign Aid: The Example of Missionary Work

2010

Conventional development aid, typically a service from government to government, has been a relatively poor determinant of economic growth or human development in developing countries. In this paper we test whether a distinctly grass-roots delivery mode, as is the case with missionary work, leads to a more effective dispersion of foreign aid. In addition to its mode of delivery, missionary work is also of interest as there is a known positive correlation between the growth rate of Christianity and economic development. We estimate the economic growth impacts of development aid versus missionary work variables by using empirical data from 119 countries and discuss several explanations for ou…

The early childhood care and development mission and the institutional circuit of evidence

2019

Early childhood care and development has increasingly become a part of the global development agenda. Fueled by a threefold rationale, rooted in development psychology, social economy, and human rights, the arguments for investing in early childhood care and development are virtually unassailable. However, this rationale is somehow at odds with insights developed within the sociology of childhood, emphasizing childhood as a social construction amendable to context and children’s own agency. Inspired by the methodological approach known as institutional ethnography, we explore how development aid workers respond to and enact the early childhood care and development mission. Building on inter…

Contesting the Global Development of Sustainable and Inclusive Education

2020

The European Union’s Development Policy: A Balancing Act between ‘A More Comprehensive Approach’ and Creeping Securitization

2016

More than a decade after the release of the European Security Strategy (ESS) in 2003, its affirmation that development and security policy should work together is still one of its most discussed features. The vision of a more comprehensive — if not integrated — approach to security and development was underwritten by substantial changes to the EU’s external relations bureaucracy following the 2009 Lisbon Treaty. This ambition raises several important questions regarding the potential ‘securitization’ of EU development policy and foreign aid. Have security concerns had a growing influence on EU development policy and aid allocation? Do key concepts that have become prominent since the ESS wa…

Relativistic international development and its potential for implementing self-determination in Ethiopia: Policy recommendations

This paper is an abstract of policy recommendations based on my presentation to the 2019 Annual Conference of Oromo Studies Association. It is included in the official Proceedings of the Conference. A longer paper was published open access in Archivio Antropologico Mediterraneo, XXII, n. 21 (2), 2019, title: 'The relativistic attitude in development: reflections on the implementation of the Ethiopian multinational Constitution'.

Emerging trends

2007

Selection of 50 articles on the 50-year life of the International Development Review

Internationalization of knowledge-intensive SMEs: The role of network relationships in the entry to a psychically distant market

2009

Abstract Current research emphasizes the role of extant network relationships in the international development of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Inevitably, these relationships are there, most likely, to provide linkages with and facilitate entry into psychically and geographically close markets. But what of firms entering psychically distant markets, for strategic reasons, as is usually the case with knowledge-intensive SMEs? Will existing network relationships remain important, and will they operate in a similar way. In this exploratory case study, in which eight Finnish software SMEs enter the Japanese market, the decision to enter these markets is found to be for strategic …

Using self-controlled case series to understand the relationship between conflict and cholera in Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo

2021

Abstract Background Cholera outbreaks contribute significantly to diarrhoeal disease mortality, especially in low-income countries. Cholera outbreaks have several social and environmental risk factors and extreme conditions can act as catalysts for outbreaks. A social extreme with known links to infectious disease outbreaks is conflict, causing disruption to services, loss of income and displacement. Methods Here, we explored this relationship in Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), by fitting publicly available cholera and conflict data to conditional logistic regression models. We used the self-controlled case series method in a novel application, to understand if an exposu…