Doing aid chains differently: Evaluating the potential of Multi‐Stakeholder Partnerships

Motivation Donors have increasingly disbursed funds using aid chains, whereby work is subcontracted to organizations socially and geographically closer to recipients. Aid chains reduce scope for opportunism in contracting. They do, however, enable donors to distance themselves from the messy work of engaging the politics of interventions—“ethics dumping”—with negative impacts on project outcomes. Purpose How can aid chains—and project outcomes—be improved? This article investigates what can be learned from global value chains (GVCs). In particular, it examines Multi‐Stakeholder Partnerships (MSPs)—currently considered the gold standard for governing GVCs—and evaluates their potential fit for aid chains. Methods and approach The article describes aid chains' drivers and challenges, and theoretically links the fragmentation of public‐sector service provision to the fragmentation of global production processes. By reviewing MSP case studies and thematically analysing their scope to transform power asymmetries, it empirically evaluates MSPs' potential by assessing the case of the Australian NGO Cooperation Program. Findings While MSPs offer an ambitious framework, their application is weakened by, first, the lack of a consumer role, and second, their central focus on relational practices in transforming power asymmetries. The article's conclusion that MSPs offer limited policy transferability furthers nascent literatures on ethical public‐sector procurement; power asymmetries in MSPs; and how aid chains might be improved. Policy implications Aid chains reduce the scope for opportunism in contracting, however their power asymmetries have negative impacts on project outcomes that cannot be ignored. MSPs offer an ambitious but problematic policy option for improving aid chain governance. Their lack of effective measures to address power asymmetries limits their potential, calling into question their status as the gold standard for GVC governance and their policy transferability.