Centre for Social Policy Studies
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Item Why national development experts are not included in development policy-making and practice: The case of Ghana(Development Policy Review, 2022) Kamruzzaman, P.; Kumi, E.Motivation: This article contributes to the debate around understanding whether and how the identity of aid workers (e.g. nationality, race, etc.) can contribute to inequality within various aid relationships. As “decolonizing development” is often employed either as a slogan or genuine goal, it is imperative that the politics of exclusion among/within development experts is critically scrutinized. Purpose: This article explores the processes of and the motivations behind how national development experts (NDEs) are frequently excluded in development policy-making and practice in Ghana. Methods and approach: This article relies on qualitative research methods and draws from semi-structured interviews conducted in two phases in 2017 and 2018 in Ghana. We focus on the narratives of the NDEs in Ghana are perceived to be well placed to elucidate the different mechanics of exclusionary processes and practices. Findings: International development experts (IDEs) are able to set agendas and exercise development decision-making power as their governments or organizations provide funding for many development projects. projects. This allows IDEs to influence development policies and practices in a way that eventually excludes NDEs from development policy-making in Ghana. We also reveal internal competition and power relations between NDEs and local actors (i.e. bureaucrats and politicians) can also exclude the NDEs from development policy-making processes, a feature that is non-existent in current scholarship. Policy implications: The exclusion of NDEs from national development decision-making processes undermines efforts to promote national ownership. It is important to adopt a holistic approach that does not just focus on one particular aspect (e.g. power inequality among different actors) of exclusionary practice in international development but also looks into local political and cultural settings as well as possible internal competition for resources.Item Hybridisation Of Institutional Logics And Civil Society Organisations' Advocacy In Kenya(Public Administration and Development, 2022) Kumi, E.; Saharan, T.Managerialist logic has become dominant in development policy and practice. However, in recent years, the Dutch government has seeking to adopt social transformation approaches to development interventions. The implementation of social Transformation ideas take place in an environment dominated by managerialism. However, our understanding of how the logic of social transformation and managerialism collide or come into conflict and the pathways through which managerialist principles dominate social transformation principles is limited. Drawing on qualitative data from the Strategic Partnerships (SP) and Accountability Fund (AF) policy instruments for civil society organisations in Kenya, we find that in practice, the social transformation principles underpinning the SP and AF ‘vaporise’ or get lost during implementation due to the wider aid system within which they are embedded. We highlight the implications of the broader aid system on attempts by donor agencies to shift from managerialism towards a social transformation perspective on development.Item How internationally funded NGOs promote gender equality in horticulture value chains in Kenya(Third World Quarterly, 2022) Kumi, E.; Elbers, W.This article contributes to the literature on global value chains by examining how non-governmental organisations (NGOs) promote gender equality. NGOs have been instrumental in setting social standards that seek to institutionalise gender-sensitive governance structures. However, relatively little is known about their roles in doing so. Using in-depth empirical research on the Women@Work Campaign in the cutlery sector in Kenya, the article examines how a coalition of Kenyan NGOs and an international NGO push for gender equality in global value chains. While the Kenyan NGOs do most of the actual work on the ground, the international NGO uses its position to facilitate and empower the local NGOs to do their work. Yet, we see that funding conditions hamper the local NGOs’ efforts to promote gender equality. Overall, our analysis highlights that NGOs fulfil important roles in promoting gender equality in horticulture value chains but the requirements of the international aid system act as a constraintItem Domestic Resource Mobilisation Strategies Of National Non‐Governmental Organisations In Ghana(Public Administration and Development, 2022) Kumi, E.National non‐governmental organisations (NNGOs) in Ghana are confronted with declining external donor funding, arising in part from the country's graduation to a lower–middle‐income status, but also more complex changes in donor funding modalities. This presents incentives the for mobilisation of alternative domestic resources to ensure organisational sustainability. Drawing on 62 qualitative in terviews with NNGOs' leaders, donor representatives and key informants, this article presents findings on how NNGOs in Ghana are responding to this chal lenge. Using Edwards' idea of funding ecosystem, this article finds that NNGOs mobilised five main domestic resources: (a) volunteer support; (b) individual donations; (c) commercial activities; (d) corporate philanthropy and (e) government funding. The findings shed useful insights on the applicability of democratic, commercial and institutional elements of the funding ecosystem in contexts experiencing aid reduction and donor exit. This article concludes that while external donor funding is an immediate threat to civil society space in Ghana, social innovations in domestic resources in response to it offer limited potentials for NNGOs' financial sustainability due to capacity challenges and the absence of an enabling environment that promote domestic philanthropy. Implications of the research findings for NNGOs' sustainability and domestic philanthropy are discussedItem Pandemic democracy: the nexus of covid-19, shrinking civic space for civil society organizations and the 2020 elections in Ghana(Taylor & Francis Group, 2022) Kumi, E.In Ghana, civil society organizations (CSOs) play significant roles in promoting democratic development. However, the space within which they operate is increasingly becoming restricted. Coupled with this, COVID-19 inspired legislations are disrupting civil society, increasing existing threats to civic space, and creating uncertainties for Ghana’s 2020 elections. Yet, our understanding of how the COVID-19 pandemic influences civic space and elections remains limited. Drawing on media reviews and 22 semi-structured interviews with CSO representatives and key informants, we find that the pandemic poses threats to civic space in terms of curtailment of freedoms of expression, movement and peaceful assembly. We also demonstrate that while the COVID-19 pandemic created uncertainties with the processes leading to the 2020 general elections, it had minimal effects on the elections due in part to the proactiveness and preparedness of the Electoral Commission in election administration. Notwithstanding, our findings show that the pandemic heightened and created opportunities for promoting polarized online campaigns characterized by hate speech and the propagation of fake news as political parties resorted to the use of social media in reaching out to voters. This undermines efforts for promoting democratic development and open civic space. Implications of the research findings are discussed.Item Understanding the motivations and roles of national development experts in Ghana: ‘We do all the donkey work and they take the glory’(Taylor & Francis Group, 2021) Kumi, E.; Kamruzzaman, P.National development experts (NDEs) play unique roles as knowledge brokers, translators and gatekeepers between governments, intended beneficiaries and donors on various development policies and practices. Due to their local contextual knowledge, they influence development activities at national levels by engaging in formulation and implementation of development policies. However, discussion of their motivations and roles has been particularly limited in the existing development literature. Drawing on 25 semi-structured interviews with the local staff of donor agencies and non-governmental organisations, independent consultants, civil servants and academics in Ghana, this article presents findings on their motivations and roles within Ghana’s development landscape. We argue that while the motivations and roles of NDEs are similar in many ways to those of Western development experts, except their contextual understanding of national development issues, their contributions to development are so far excluded within the development literature. This article contributes to the emerging aid ethnography literature by providing a more comprehensive perspective on NDEs and deepens the scholarship by asking whether the exclusion of this group is a deliberate choice or unintended mistake. The article further highlights the perspectives of NDEs on their engagement with foreign experts and its implications for national development and future research.Item Friend or Patron? Social Relations Across the National NGO–Donor Divide in Ghana(Springer, 2021) Kumi, E.; Copestake, J.The article examines the institutions governing relations between grant using national NGOs and grant giving international donors in three regions of Ghana (Upper West, Northern and Greater Accra Region). Formal procedural rules and professional norms can be viewed as necessary to minimise opportunities for informal patronage, rent-seeking and corruption made possible by the unequal access to resources. However, semi-structured interviews, life histories and observation high light the positive role informal networks, connections, personal contacts and friend ship play in enhancing collaboration between donors and national NGOs. Friend ships originating in kinship and ethnicity, school links and past collaboration offer opportunities for infuencing and resource mobilisation, but can also weaken NGO sustainability. Informal contacts and face-to-face interactions also build trust and strengthen lines of accountability, with non-adherence to shared norms resulting in sanctions and reputation loss. These findings affrm the positive role of informal relations, and highlight how they can complement formal rules and professional norms governing NGO–donor relations rather than undermining them. It throws a very different light on the role of informal institutions than that fostered by a discourse of clientelism and provides a more nuanced conceptual foundation for assessing ‘formalisation’ as a normative strategy.Item Negotiating Organizational Access as a Multifaceted Process: Comparative Research Experiences With Three Advocacy NGOs in Kenya(SAGE, 2021) Saharan, T.; Matelski, M.; Kumi, E.Although research with Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) has become an established practice, the process and politics of gaining access to such organizations often remains implicit in methodological literature on qualitative research. Drawing on a systematic comparison of research experiences with advocacy NGOs in Kenya, this article discusses organizational access as a multifaceted process. Based on three case studies that were comparable in set-up and context but yielded different outcomes, we argue that the process of obtaining and maintaining access to NGOs is influenced and shaped by researcher positionality, internal and external gatekeepers, organizational characteristics and research topic, and that these factors should be studied in interaction rather than in isolation. Taken together, these factors determine the process of obtaining and maintaining research access, and consequently the outcome of ethnographic fieldwork with NGOs.Item Strategic responses of microfinance institutions to the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) crisis in Ghana(Taylor & Francis Group, 2021) Yeboah, T.; Antoh, E.F.; Kumi, E.This paper examines the impacts of COVID-19 on MFI operations and the response measures taken by MFIs in Ghana. Data from interviews shows that MFIs are faced with operational difficulties as a result of the crisis: inability to disburse new loans and collect loan repayments which is leading to increase in portfolios at risk, increased operational costs, and bottlenecks with non-financial service delivery. Reduction in lending and rescheduling of outstanding loan repayments, adoption of flexible working arrangements, and use of digital technologies are key response measures taken by the MFIs although the scale of implementation differed considerably by contextual factors.