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Q&A with Ivanka Puigdueta | Head of Polis Development

Posted by / 2nd February 2015 / Categories: Polis / Tags: , / -

Ivanka Puigdueta’s background lies with environmental sciences and issues surrounding climate change and pollution (Université de Rouen, 2007). After working as a lab-scientist for several years, she decided to mix her expertise with social and developmental issues, studying International Relations and African Studies at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Her focus has since been on development issues in sub-Saharan Africa, with research and consultancy in Guinea-Bissau.

Did your experience in Guinea-Bissau lead you to The Polis?

Yes, it very much influenced my thinking. In Guinea-Bissau I had the chance to discover all kinds of different projects financed and organised through international cooperation programs. Observe them was interesting, often encouraging, but also painful at times. A lot of effort goes into improving social and economic conditions in that country, with amazing professionals- both local and expatriates- working on important and difficult challenges. But unfortunately there were also a lot of things that went wrong, often caused by systemic failure. Like most people employed locally in the development sector, it made me feel a strong urge to find more effective ways to have an impact. It was obvious that work needed to be much more locally focused; that was one thing that was crystal clear.

So what do you like most about The Polis, when you look back at your personal experiences?

The Polis method answered my doubts (and ambition) about how to turn international cooperation into a local led path. That was the very first thing that attracted me about The Polis and the one that still amazes me. It uses a radically local led approach, and it ends the often well intended but ultimately mistaken interventionist impulses. It recognises the importance of local populations to choosing and designing the projects and their impact, and also the ways in which these projects will be done. External intervention only enters in the system when it is requested by local people and according to the basic terms they themselves set.

Could you please describe your role in The Polis? What do you do exactly?

As Head of Development my role is to design, improve and implement different aspects of the Polis model. Our model depends on various local and global actors, each with a specific role in the process of creating Local Led Connections. It is my role to develop each step in the process, starting at the local idea and finishing with a connection. I focus on understanding what makes local led processes successful and adapting this knowledge to different situations and realities.

And in doing so, which types of organisations inspire you?

There are many. For example, PUM’s expert services to local entrepreneurs, Peace Direct’s work with local peace building initiatives, or the BoP Innovation Center’s market inclusion methods. But it is not only from the development sector that The Polis takes its inspiration. The Polis is also inspired by many private sector initiatives and activities; we don’t just look at traditional development actors. To summarise in general terms: we take inspiration from what we observe works for people when it comes to connecting local to global and vice versa.

So how is The Polis different from these and other development projects?

We are not a development project. The Polis model simply connects local ideas to the resources they need. We don´t offer money and we don’t tell people what to do; there´s no developmental agenda. We just offer local ideas a platform so they can connect with organisations and expertise to bring their ideas to life.

Typical development projects work the other way around; external ideas are created before locals come into play. Even development projects that use local led strategies get the order wrong; they don’t impose ideas, but they do still approach carefully selected locals with a bag of money in their hand and.

Can you expand on that?

Typically, projects either try to “pick winners” or look to create change based on specific political or ideological values.  Humans tend to have difficulties in controlling our impulse to guide others towards what we think is right. At The Polis we believe that this filtering is not compatible with what we understand by “local led”. It is not up to us to decide what a bad or a good idea is. Even those organisations that actually put locals behind the steering wheel fail to see this. Yes, they motivate local actors to identify their own problems and to find their own way, but they still put locals in charge of spending previously lined-up money.

And how does the Polis method deal with that problem?

We do two things: the first thing that The Polis does to turn the cycle around is that local initiatives come before any money or solutions come into play. The second one is that global actors don´t select local partners; local actors select the global partners they want to work with. This forces global actors to truly serve local agendas. After all, you can´t give initiative; it´s something people take. The only role of The Polis is to look for partners willing to support local initiatives. Global actors should see The Polis as a gateway to local opportunities, while for local actors The Polis is a bridge between their ambitions and the global tools they need.

What does that bridge look like on the ground? And how do people find it?

Through Local Connectors (LCs); LCs are trained local Polis representatives who listen to local initiatives and make them visible for the global community, something they typically lack.  So LCs are in contact with local individuals and groups and gather their project ideas and requests, only making sure that proposals are legal and feasible; they do not impose or suggest ideas; they do not write proposals. They simply make sure that initiatives are sincere and complete before they are presented to potential partners, and then they introduce these initiatives into the Polis platform.

What will The Polis look like by late 2015?

At the end of 2015 I want to see Local Connectors becoming integrated in our human infrastructure, and actively working with Connected Local Communities (CLCs) to bring local project ideas to the Polis platform and the global community. I also expect the Polis team to acquire a better understanding of local-global dynamics through the interaction with local actors, global partners, and other local led initiatives in our network. In doing so, I am convinced The Polis can contribute to making local led development cooperation more successful and widespread.

Last question: what are your ambitions with respect to your own future? Do you plan to go back to Africa, to Guinea-Bissau for The Polis perhaps?

Going back to Guinea-Bissau is definitely on the cards, but it may have to be to simply visit. The Polis doesn’t let non-locals work locally like that; it’s not the way we do things. A pity.

 

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Polis Paper | Turning Aid into Effective Cooperation: Connecting Local to Global

Posted by / 26th January 2015 / Categories: Polis, Reports / Tags: , , / -

A Polis Publication by Balder Hageraats and Isadora Loreto.

Instruments based on traditional development aid-thinking suffer from inherent flaw: their focus on governments and institutions rather than people. This leads to unsatisfactory outcomes. International cooperation is supposed to be about local actors and global actors coming together to achieve a common goal, typically improving the lives of people. In reality, the development sector is often too inward looking, institutionalised and unilateral to create such cooperative relations between global and local actors. In this essay we propose a model in which there exists direct and true cooperation between donors and local actors. It considers any further institutional or NGO support as service providers within that cooperative alliance between funders and populations.

Photo Polis Paper - Turning Aid into Effective Cooperation

Full PDF

 

 

 

 

 

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2015 – Time to Rethink Global Decision Making

Posted by / 15th January 2015 / Categories: Analysis, Opinion, Polis / Tags: , , , / -

As harbingers of a troubled 2015, last week’s events in Paris were a stark reminder that the world is facing a year desperate for clear and benign leadership: the ever increasing complexity of our societies requires thoughtful and wise decision making. Any balance in the globalised world is easily disturbed, and difficult to restore. While humanity as a whole possesses resources as never before, the ways those resources have been allocated in recent times does not bode well. This is particularly visible in international policy making. With organisational bureaucracies bloated, it is increasingly unclear who is responsible for global politics and choices on war and peace, poverty and prosperity, destruction and creation. The world is inevitably turning into a system where no one is in control, and no one is responsible for centralised decisions. The necessary response to this is one of stimulating natural checks and balances, thereby ensuring flexible response mechanisms to disasters and global opportunities alike.

2014 was a year in which the flaws of international decision making processes were painfully exposed, ranging from continued violence around the globe to failing global economic policy and ever present local hardship. The fundamental problem is not one of lack of potential, or of large scale conspiracies, nor of conscious manipulation by those in power. It is one of system creep, in which the answers that human structures provide no longer coincide with the reality of the problems. The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq only exacerbated the position of Western nations, causing destruction and mayhem along the way. Huge budgets spent on fundamental issues such as European and global governance, on development cooperation, on human security and economic stimuli show very little bang for their buck.

Those who benefit are people working within the system, within the tools that supposedly serve the wider population; they make a living- and therefore are the primary beneficiaries- by spending money on taxpayer’s behalf to provide specific services. And yet, the productivity of such expenditure is typically alarmingly poor. Trust in European institutions is at an all time low, and the UN is increasingly farcical, with workers and consultants all around the world facing increasing moral dilemmas about their own standard of living compared to those local populations that they are supposed to serve. The Pentagon has consistently failed to show how its actions make the world safer for the average American, but on the flip-side, it does have over 200 golf courses.

The issue is not even limited to the public sector. Share and stakeholders are increasingly left out of the loop in ever-expanding private companies, with internal benefits to be reaped from expansion, even if it makes the general outcomes of operations less effective. One of the main causes of the economic crisis of the past decade was a private sector run amok, without any counterbalance to internal interests and system creep into competitive enterprise. CEO-employee wage ratios are higher than they ever have been in modern society,  without any proven increase of CEO importance in company success. That is not the sign of an evil elites, but of a system not working properly.

Humanity is currently suffering from its own structures, its own institutions; their added value is too low for the resources we spend on them, while their costs are still increasing. System creep is eating away at our structures, and the most fundamental challenge for 2015 will be to halt that trend.

A problem as old as civilisation itself

Throughout history, civilisations ended when clear lines of responsibility faded. During the heyday of the Roman Empire, its bureaucratic bulwarks were unable to react to new threats, leading to unresponsive policy making. These ills were later inherited by the Byzantine Empire, which was also unable to cope with autonomous organisational growth, with systemic interests crowding out effective leadership. China’s Ming dynasty fell from grace in large part because of quarrelling, inward looking bureaucrats and corrupt eunuchs. Tsarist Russia had been in steady decline for decades before revolution finally struck administrative incompetence.  Similar explanations have been used to explain the decline of Babylonian, Egyptian and Classical Mayan empires.

The pattern here is one familiar in current global society: steady growth of social structures and economic welfare, followed by a rapid boom signifying the zenith of society, which then leads to failing checks and balances on ever-growing human organisations. Initially these institutions have clear purpose and add value to society’s growth and wellbeing, but once a certain peak has been reached, they tend towards slow endemic corruption of their original purpose and nature. They begin to hog resources and stifle critical thought, while becoming vehicles for internal interests rather than tools in the hands of political and social leadership. Personal interests by insiders begin to trump social interests, and growth of the system becomes a primary objective, regardless of whether this caters to the needs of its wider environment.

The problems that this systemic expansion brings often remain hidden when social and economic conditions are favourable. They only rear their ugly head when crisis strikes. Then, all of a sudden society is confronted with an inability to react to barbarians at the gates, environmental collapse or internal strife, with institutions consuming the resources necessary to face such existential challenges. Having grown fat and lazy through economic boom, the ability to deal with unexpected downturn evaporates. What is even worse is that these once proud institutions not only have lost purpose, but typically resist attempts to bring back political strength and leadership. They have become hijacked by countless individual, mall-scale agendas that will resist personal loss of status or income. The role large scale organisations play is too abstract to be able to compete with the livelihoods its employees count on. There is no general decision-making process anymore; the initial tool for greater purpose has come to life, and has turned into an independent creature no longer be controlled by its original masters.

The beginning of the end…

The events after 9/11 and the War on Terror were not those of institutions solving existential threats, but rather of using such threats to remain relevant, despite their tremendous costs and long-term destruction. The UN and European Union, having started off with clear direction and purpose, are now mere shadows of their former selves, inhabited by anonymous employees whose livelihoods depends on ever-expanding departments and institutional agendas. Original purpose be damned, the main objective of transnational organisations is their own survival, like an aging male lion increasingly monopolising food supplies to stay alive while the pride that it was supposed to protect starve.

Other global challenges, such as climate change, violent conflicts and lacklustre economic trends, remain largely unsolved, without any serious attempt to deal with such existential threats. Some are even fed to the beast in order to satisfy its hunger. Eisenhower’s warning of the dangers of the military-industrial complex is as valid as it has ever been. Companies, conferences, academic departments and armies of specialists and consultants work on the issue, but they become part of the very same animal that is starving the system. Instead of serving societal needs, they endanger them.

The problem can even be seen at a national level, especially in Western countries. After decades of social and economic growth and steady improvements in democratic and welfare structures, the peak seems to have been reached- perhaps sometime in the 1990s- and the state has well and truly started to move downhill. Governments seem rudderless, managing rather than leading their country. Populism and centric mediocrity compete for favour. Beholden to special interests, and living in fear of losing influence or power, politicians feed the institutional beast rather than putting it on a diet. Après nous le déluge.

…Or the end of the beginning?

Despite similarities with past civilisations, not everything in history repeats itself, and there are a number of fundamental differences between then and now. Firstly, 20th and 21st century globalisation and technological advances increasingly allow for global dynamics, and therefore global responses. This ability to globally communicate, analyse and find solutions dramatically changes the range of options available. Secondly, unlike historical cases, there is no clear antagonist, no barbarians at the gates, attempting to spur on our civilisation’s decline. Thirdly, we have come to understand and appreciate the strength and elegance of natural, decentralised dynamics without heavy handed interference from above, even in societies that emphasise social cohesion and the welfare state. Fourthly, we have the benefit of hindsight. More than ever before we understand the past, and know how and why societies collapsed.

Unlike empires of the past, human society in 2015 is much closer, much more united through natural flows than it has ever been. Even if this increase in scale of operations may have contributed to the system creep discussed above, it also allows for a reversal of such dynamics. Unlike other ages, the current world is in it together; there are no new tribes ready to sack and pillage a decaying empire. No one benefits from collapse, and people all over the planet are facing very similar challenges.

Without downplaying substantial differences in agendas between specific human groups, there is no reason to believe that the general masses around the world are in opposition to each other. There is no such thing as Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations, however much certain self-serving institutions and small groups of violent fanatics would have us believe exactly that. The dynamic nature of a planet facing success and failure together means a constant stream of new ideas and alternatives to reverse global society’s fortunes. Dynamic competition and cooperation between ideas, projects and outcomes tend to stimulate the best in human beings. As long as there are no stifling institutional monopolies and systemic beasts starving global society of resources, its modern worldwide nature is in a unique position to bounce back. If society can make institutions work for them, rather than being beholden by institutions’ insatiable appetite, global civilisation could benefit tremendously from technological progress and opportunities.

All of this requires from politicians and social leaders an adjusted set of priorities; not the kind that bloats the circles around them, but the kind that strengthens micro dynamics in their respective societies. We must return to smaller-scale lines of responsibility, with dynamic cooperation and competition in which outcomes, rather than size, are recognised. This also reduces the margin of error, as small scale mistakes, failures or corruption are much more quickly corrected by other micro dynamics than large, centralised, error prone bureaucracies can ever hope to do. Encouraging  institutional cultures in which small is beautiful, and effective outcomes are all that matter, is therefore an absolute priority. The inverse relationship between organisational size and purpose must be understood and recognised. It is a matter of taking pride in small-scale success, and taking responsibility for personal outcomes. It is about not letting the eunuchs get in the way of our civilisation’s survival. Eugene O’Neil sagely wrote that “there is no present or future- only the past, happening over and over again -now”. It is time to prove him wrong.

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Happy Holiday Season

Posted by / 22nd December 2014 / Categories: Polis, ReSeT News / Tags: , , , / -

holiday season 2014

As we are about to part with 2014 and usher in the new year, we can proudly look back at the past year and the progress that we made. It has been a great pleasure to work on the Polis as well as other projects. Now, at the dawn of 2015, we are ready to implement the practical application of the Polis, an important and exciting step for all of us. The model is fully developed, we have an enthusiastic network of local and global partners, and a lot of ideas on how to implement our project on the ground.

We therefore very much look forward to 2015 being a successful year full of opportunities and challenges. For now, however, our thoughts turn gratefully to those who have made our progress possible. Thank you all for your continued support, collaboration and trust throughout 2014.

All of us at ReSeT and the Polis Project wish you a Happy Holiday Season and all the best in the new year.

The ReSeT Team

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Discover The Polis: When ideas turn into reality

Posted by / 17th November 2014 / Categories: Polis, ReSeT News / -

The world is full of amazing ideas. It is also full of tools and resources to make those happen. The problem is bringing these two sets together: the world is not always very good at doing that yet. This is especially true in economically developing societies where access to global services and opportunities can be hard to find. In fact, it is also harder than it seems even in European or North American countries. Despite technological miracles and globalisation, there remains a lot of human potential to strengthen lives and livelihoods that goes unseen by those who can provide the services to turn people’s ideas into successful reality.

This is where our work comes in: The Polis connects the ideas with the tools.

Since this summer we have a full time team- with further support from other ReSeT researchers and our wider network- working to bring the project to life. The model is very simple in both its basic idea as well as its execution: it connects ideas from people to the resources needed to turn those ideas into reality. Specifically, it connects local ambitions in developing communities to global expertise and funding. There is no complicated framework, and no political agenda. The Polis connects demand and supply, and that’s about it.

We call such connections LLCs (“Local-led Connections”), reflecting the fact that it is always about local people who demand services. This happens through human infrastructure: a representative (“Local Connector”, or LC) listens to local communities and people, and takes the received information back into The Polis. There, people with access to global resources and networks (rather unoriginally called “Global Connectors”, or GC) offer the resources needed to make the ambition work. Once they have come back with sufficient alternatives, the initial local actor chooses their preferred solution. After that moment, the Polis’ work ends and all that is left is a relationship between local client and global supplier(s). Naturally we will continue to keep an eye out, ensuring that we will learn and grow through practical application.

There are of course a number of details that we are skipping here: where do Local and Global Connectors come from? How do they interact? How do you select connected communities? Where do you get the money from? How did you come up with such utter genius? You will just have to trust us that we have the details covered. Right now we only want to give you a general idea of where we are going with this.

Simple and effective, The Polis is an outcome focused method that brings together actors that complement and need each other, one type local and the other global. It does this through simple communication flows with basic online connectivity to support communications and information exchange.

The strength of The Polis lies in its dogged focus on being local-led. Unlike many developmental projects, the agenda is at no point set by global actors or large organisations. The Polis mechanism ensures that resulting projects always respond to local ideas, and never to global ideology or interests. Moreover, overheads and organisational pressures are minimal, and the model exhibits no external imposition of any kind: ideas are local, decisions are local, evaluations are local. Benefits are global.

(Editor’s note: Our marketing department worked very hard on this local/global slogan, so be prepared to find it scattered across all our publications from now on.)

Impact is global not just because the model is so simple and easy to implement, and therefore can be replicated in any potential community worldwide. It also benefits everyone involved. This is not just the group of local people who are in charge of their projects, but also the global actors who compete to supply their services and expertise, as well as observers of Polis dynamics interested in understanding underlying dynamics.

The group of interested observers would of course also include us, the ReSeT team that is so enthusiastically developing the Polis at the moment. By seeing what kind of activities and relationships grow out of the resulting dynamics, we get invaluable insights into local-global dynamics. This is one of the fundamental questions facing human society worldwide, and we, the Polis team, will have first rank seats. It allows us to better understand the nature of our work- international relations and cooperation- as well as further strengthen the method of the Polis itself.

If you would like to know more about The Polis, or if you would like to contribute ideas or connections, please contact us at info@resetweb.org.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

The Polis Team

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An expert opinion on development: Dr. Stephan Klingebiel

Posted by / 17th November 2014 / Categories: Opinion, Polis / -

Dr. Stephan Klingebiel is head of the department for Bi- and Multilateral Development Cooperation at the German Development Institute (DIE). His work areas include aid effectiveness and the political economy of aid, international cooperation and global public goods as well as the nexus of security and development. He is also a regular visiting professor at Stanford University.

Joanna Klever – Head of Communications at The Polis Project: Could you please tell us your experiences with, and current connection to, the development sector?

Stephan Klingebiel: I have been working on development issues since my years as a student at university. That was still the time of the classical North-South divide – just think about the Brandt Report in 1980 which was written by an independent international commission.

In my professional carrier I research development topics,  teach courses on the subject and am also involved in policy advice, for example, at the level of the European Commission, the European Parliament, the OECD and the German and other governments. In addition, I gained much experience as a development practitioner when I was head of the German Development Bank (KFW) office in Rwanda for four years.

In terms of main areas of research, I especially deal with topics from three perspectives – quite often with overlaps: First, I like to study the basics of foreign aid and the political economy aspects of aid. For example: What is the rationale of donors in giving foreign aid? What are the unintended consequences of aid? Increasingly, I find myself dealing with the broader question of how international cooperation can address global challenges more adequately. Secondly, I have a strong focus on governance and conflict issues: How do development actors interact with non-state armed groups, for instance – even if they claim that they are not in contact with any of them? Thirdly, my main area of expertise is related to the sub-Saharan African region. I am not only very familiar with several countries of the region but also with regional and continental institutions. Having said that, I also work on countries outside the African region.

JK: How do you define successful international development?

SK: International cooperation can serve quite different objectives. However, we are increasingly seeing a need to contribute to the provision of global public goods or to avoid ‘global public bads’. Thus, cooperation is a way of organising collective action at an international level. From what we know, it is not at all easy to provide incentives in favour of global collective action and to avoid difficulties like ‘free riding’.

JK: What – in your opinion – are the biggest failures and successes of development cooperation thus far?

SK: In a general sense it is interesting to see that development actors have built up quite substantial knowledge about ‘best practises’ and ‘good aid’. This has led not least to the aid effectiveness agenda – including the Paris Declaration. At the same time, however, we know that donors have only been willing to implement their own agenda to a limited extent. For example, the fragmented landscape of donor approaches has to do with interests such as visibility. If you go to a country like Myanmar where donors have only started to work fairly recently, you will find strong motivations for each donor to rush in, rather than following best practices.

JK: In the “Beyond Aid” series of papers, the need to reform aid and transform development cooperation is recurrent. Could you briefly explain why this change is essential in the current context?

SK: In the face of a changing global context, development cooperation needs to redefine its role. The phrase “Beyond Aid” sums up the pressure to innovate as well as to develop ideas for reform. Conventional development issues still need to be addressed, as goals such as the eradication of poverty have not been achieved. At the same time, the development landscape is changing radically. Over the past few decades, the number of aid-receiving countries has decreased sharply. By 2030 it is estimated that another 28 countries with an aggregate population of 2 billion will no longer be eligible for development cooperation. Other fundamental features are also changing. Aid no longer serves only to reduce poverty; it is also being used to tackle challenges such as climate change, inequality and insecurity.

The “Beyond Aid” debate is quite diverse. It is about any actual or apparent reform in this policy area. Nonetheless, some dimensions have become obvious. The transformation is specifically evident in connection with actors, finance, regulation and knowledge. In our papers we discuss those four dimensions in detail.

In our view, the debate may lead to two different options or models. In a first model, development cooperation would focus on the steadily shrinking group of poor countries. Poverty reduction would remain the primary goal. […]

In a second model, development cooperation would become part of international cooperation in general. It would help to address challenges that many countries have in common. Such challenges include rapid urbanisation, demographic change, and the provision of global public goods such as the protection of the climate, biodiversity, food security and the prevention of pandemics. While poverty reduction would remain a major goal in this scenario, it would no longer be the main focus. Moreover, distinguishing ‘developed’ from ‘developing’ countries would no longer be crucial. On the contrary, policies would concern not only fragile and conflict-torn states but middle- and high-income countries as well. Development cooperation would thus contribute to collective action at the global level.

JK: With the post 2015 approaching, developing countries are asking to have their voices heard more in the process. How do you envision their participation with developed countries? What do developing nations need most to achieve true partnership, rather than the perceived imposition?

SK: I think we really need to see a universal development agenda. The current MDG agenda is unbalanced because it is mainly focused on development challenges in poor countries. However, an agenda with a universal character would address development need in all regions and countries. Just think about CO2 emissions in industrialised countries or inequality issues not only in developing regions but also in the USA, Germany or Spain. If the main momentum of the future agenda is to be its universal character, developing countries will play a much stronger role, for example, in the implementation of the agenda.

JK: Envisioning true cooperation, how can local populations be more included in the reformed development cooperation system? How can local development be supported?

SK: In my view the principle of ‘using country systems’ is an important starting point for this issue. The best way for a local population to contribute through local NGOs and CSOs is not the isolated approach to aid. Instead, we need to focus on issues like: What is the role of local NGOs in the budget planning and execution process of district X or Y? This is the key question. In the best case, donors would use precisely those national mechanisms. If this is not possible, for instance because of poor governance or a conflict situation in a country, at least transparency is a crucial factor for the local population. How much money is being provided by a donor? How much money is really reaching the district? How much money is paid for overheads and consultants? Those are important aspects of information which are required if the local population is to be involved.

JK: You state in your “Beyond Aid” papers series: “Knowledge to drive the new development agenda and to meet partner countries’ differentiated needs is becoming more and more specialised and is generated by many institutions that are outside the realm of development cooperation. The challenge is to identify and share that knowledge and apply it to specific contexts.” How can this challenge be met with new technologies?

SK: New technologies are indeed key for all aspects of knowledge. Whether the focus is on updating farming methods, improving public finance or taking action to mitigate climate change, knowledge is the key to development. The transfer of knowledge is likely to become increasingly dissociated from financial transfers and technical advice.

JK: New alternatives and approaches are developed in the sector, which aim at turning aid into effective cooperation. How can they be heard and effectively contribute to today’s development discourse?

SK: Results-based approaches are not a ‘silver bullet’ to development cooperation but rather a fairly innovative way of how to provide aid. Those approaches aim to identify outputs or outcomes that can be measured and quantified, that is, results that can be directly linked to development activities. The key feature is the link between the aid intervention and strong incentives to encourage results. Not least NGOs are increasingly exploring those instruments, for example in the educational sector in Tanzania.

JK: How do you envision development cooperation in twenty years? Will it still exist, and what will its activities look like?

SK: I think it is quite likely that we will see two parallel mid-term trends: First, development cooperation will still exist for a shrinking number of poor countries. Aid will remain important in those cases, in support not only of the social sectors but also of other prime infrastructures. Emerging countries will also contribute concessional resources in support of development objectives. Secondly, we will see an increasing demand for new types of international cooperation which is different from development cooperation – just think about the quite different rationale in the case of Ebola. Those areas of international cooperation will need to address global challenges, for instance in terms of security, climate change and health.

 

This is the first edition of our new series of interviews with experts from the field of dcvelopment cooperation. Within this series The Polis team will explore different themes and perspectives on international development cooperation. These interviews will appear in our bimonthly newsletter as well as on this website.

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