Aid projects and programmes are pulled in two directions. On one side, recipients want to control the development priorities of their country and communities. On the other, donors wish to control how aid money is spent, and to report that it has been “spent well”, even though they know that aid works best when there is “ownership” by recipients. Does this mean the recipients’ fate is sealed? Under which conditions and at what transaction cost can they increase their agency over aid?
This research conceptualises the different coordination forms and mechanisms used to adjust recipients’ and donors’ preferences. These are depicted as markets, which operate through self-interest, hierarchies which function via rules and authority, and networks which are based on trust. The workings of these mechanisms are then qualitatively examined in three programmes devoted to the reincorporation of former combatants in Colombia: Arando la Educación, funded by Norway and implemented by NRC; Entornos, financed through the UN Multi-Partner Trust Fund; and the budgetary support provided by the EU.
To foreshadow the conclusions, the thesis finds that the choices market-type coordination can provide, the rules and authority on which hierarchies are based, and the trust embedded in networks can each make a difference to how much ownership recipients exercise. The battle for control is a more equal one when recipients enjoy a degree of choice over donors (i.e. there are alternatives), when ex ante rules set a level playing field with donors, and/or when trust is the basis for exchange.
About Viscarra
Diego Dewar Viscarra is a DPhil Candidate in Public Policy in the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford. His academic interests include foreign aid coordination, financing of the UN Development System, and reincorporation of former combatants.
As member of the Mexican Foreign Service, he has been posted in Norway, Poland, and the UN in New York. In capital, he served as Advisor to the Foreign Minister and worked in the Departments for Human Rights and International Development Cooperation.
He has been consultant for the UN Environment Programme and the Mexican Council on Foreign Relations. He holds an MA in Conflict, Security and Development from King’s College London and completed his BA in International Relations at El Colegio de México. He was also a Fox International Fellow at Yale University.