IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/wdevel/v126y2020ics0305750x19303808.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Aid projects: The effects of commodification and exchange

Author

Listed:
  • Freeman, Scott
  • Schuller, Mark

Abstract

International aid work has been increasingly oriented around the administrative form of the aid project. Aid projects are financial and temporal delineations used for the planning, implementation, and reporting of aid work. Originating as a budgetary reform, the project has grown to become an important unit of conceptualization for donors, subcontracting NGOs, aid workers, and the recipients of development projects. As the project has become the dominant form of disbursing aid, what effects does this administrative form have on contemporary humanitarian and development work? A growing literature on the project form combined with ethnographic research on humanitarian and development aid in Haiti demonstrates how the project is not only an administrative unit but has become a principal product of aid work. Framing the project as a commodity produced within the aid industry illuminates the centrality of exchange, rather than donation, at the heart of the aid industry. Project documents, produced in order to account for implementation, assume the form of a commodity as they are exchanged for aid funding. Accordingly, project documents have a particular exchange value within the aid industry. One of the more prevalent effects of project-based aid is that for NGOs and subcontractors, this exchange value can take precedence over services provided to beneficiaries. In order to compete in the market for projects, sub-contracting organizations seek visibility and documentation, which may come at the expense of service provision. This affects the way in which projects are both implemented and evaluated. By illustrating the impacts of the administrative form of aid, this research argues for a more focused line of research interrogating the politics of the project.

Suggested Citation

  • Freeman, Scott & Schuller, Mark, 2020. "Aid projects: The effects of commodification and exchange," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:126:y:2020:i:c:s0305750x19303808
    DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2019.104731
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X19303808
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.worlddev.2019.104731?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martens,Bertin & Mummert,Uwe & Murrell,Peter & Seabright,Paul, 2008. "The Institutional Economics of Foreign Aid," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521055390, October.
    2. White, Thomas A., 1992. "Peasant Initiative For Soil Conservation: Case Studies Of Recent Technical And Social Innovations From Maissade, Haiti," Working Papers 11882, Environmental and Natural Resources Policy Training Project.
    3. repec:bla:devpol:v:22:y:2004:i:1:p:5-29 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Abhas K. Jha & Jennifer Duyne Barenstein & Priscilla M. Phelps & Daniel Pittet & Stephen Sena, . "Safer Homes, Stronger Communities : A Handbook for Reconstructing after Natural Disasters," World Bank Publications, The World Bank, number 2409, September.
    5. Krause, Monika, 2014. "The Good Project," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226131221, October.
    6. Bazoumana Ouattara & Eric Strobl, 2008. "Aid, Policy and Growth: Does Aid Modality Matter?," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 144(2), pages 347-365, July.
    7. David Lewis, 2002. "Civil Society in African Contexts: Reflections on the Usefulness of a Concept," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 33(4), pages 569-586, September.
    8. Bebbington, Anthony, 2005. "Donor-NGO relations and representations of livelihood in nongovernmental aid ahains," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 937-950, June.
    9. Fox, Jonathan A., 2015. "Social Accountability: What Does the Evidence Really Say?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 346-361.
    10. Morrissey, Oliver, 2015. "Aid and Government Fiscal Behavior: Assessing Recent Evidence," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 98-105.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Carruth, Lauren & Freeman, Scott, 2021. "Aid or exploitation?: Food-for-work, cash-for-work, and the production of “beneficiary-workers” in Ethiopia and Haiti," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    2. Anthony J. DeMattee & Alasdair C. Rutherford, 2021. "Biases in low‐information environments: Understanding for‐profit and non‐profit salary differentials in Haiti," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(7), pages 1141-1165, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jean-François Brun & Sèna Kimm Gnangnon, 2019. "Tax reform, public revenue and public revenue instability in developing countries: Does development aid matter?," CERDI Working papers halshs-02089734, HAL.
    2. Haley J. Swedlund & Malte Lierl, 2020. "The rise and fall of budget support: Ownership, bargaining and donor commitment problems in foreign aid," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 38(S1), pages 50-69, May.
    3. Jean-François Brun & Sèna Kimm Gnangnon, 2019. "Tax reform, public revenue and public revenue instability in developing countries: Does development aid matter?," Working Papers halshs-02089734, HAL.
    4. Brun, Jean-François & Gnangnon, Sèna Kimm, 2017. "Does trade openness contribute to driving financing flows for development?," WTO Staff Working Papers ERSD-2017-06, World Trade Organization (WTO), Economic Research and Statistics Division.
    5. Gnangnon, Sèna Kimm & Brun, Jean-François, 2018. "Is the impact of development aid on government revenue sustainable? An empirical assessment," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 311-325.
    6. Dean Neu & Gregory D. Saxton & Abu S. Rahaman, 2022. "Social Accountability, Ethics, and the Occupy Wall Street Protests," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 180(1), pages 17-31, September.
    7. Anheier Helmut K. & Toepler Stefan, 2019. "Policy Neglect:The True Challenge to the Nonprofit Sector," Nonprofit Policy Forum, De Gruyter, vol. 10(4), pages 1-9, December.
    8. Anheier, Helmut K. & Lang, Markus & Toepler, Stefan, 2018. "Civil society in times of change: Shrinking, changing and expanding spaces and the need for new regulatory approaches," Economics Discussion Papers 2018-80, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    9. Lars Waldorf, 2017. "Legal empowerment and horizontal inequalities after conflict," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2017-50, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    10. Joshi, Anuradha, 2017. "Legal Empowerment and Social Accountability: Complementary Strategies Toward Rights-based Development in Health?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 160-172.
    11. Asteris Huliaras & Sotiris Petropoulos, 2016. "European Money in Greece: In Search of the Real Impact of EU Structural Funds," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(6), pages 1332-1349, November.
    12. Robert K. Fleck & Christopher Kilby, 2006. "World Bank Independence: A Model and Statistical Analysis of US Influence," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(2), pages 224-240, May.
    13. Sharon Barnhardt & Erica Field & Rohini Pande, 2017. "Moving to Opportunity or Isolation? Network Effects of a Randomized Housing Lottery in Urban India," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 1-32, January.
    14. Mayka, Lindsay & Abbott, Jared, 2023. "Varieties of participatory institutions and interest intermediation," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    15. Langlotz, Sarah & Potrafke, Niklas, 2019. "Does development aid increase military expenditure?," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 735-757.
    16. Pablo Selaya & Rainer Thiele, 2010. "Aid and Sectoral Growth: Evidence from Panel Data," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(10), pages 1749-1766.
    17. Knack, Stephen, 2013. "Aid and donor trust in recipient country systems," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 316-329.
    18. Ernesto Crivelli & Sanjeev Gupta, 2017. "Does Conditionality Mitigate the Potential Negative Effect of Aid on Revenues?," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(7), pages 1057-1074, July.
    19. Federica VIGANO & Andrea SALUSTRI, 2015. "Matching profit and Non-profit Needs: How NPOs and Cooperative Contribute to Growth in Time of Crisis. A Quantitative Approach," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 86(1), pages 157-178, March.
    20. Ogbe, Michael & Lujala, Päivi, 2021. "Spatial crowdsourcing in natural resource revenue management," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:126:y:2020:i:c:s0305750x19303808. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.