Perception and practice: Participation, evaluation and aid harmonisation in Ethiopia

Abstract

This thesis explores the role which culture and belief systems play in influencing perceptions and practice of participation in evaluation in aid-funded development. The research followed the programmes of three bilateral donors in Ethiopia, a pilot country for aid harmonisation, which has a Revolutionary Democratic government. The New Aid Architecture (NAA) assumes that recipient countries will adopt liberal democracy and New Public Management, recognising them as superior to their own ideology and institutions. Donors’ assumptions, and the implied consensualism of the NAA, were fractured when the government demonstrated it had not accepted democratic pluralism and donors withdrew budget support, designing a new modality with greater controls in response.

The two ideological approaches share a consensual rhetoric in which citizens are expected to participate - voluntarily/individually in liberal democracy, and obligatorily/collectively in revolutionary democracy. The meaning and purpose of participation and evaluation were strongly shared in northern Ethiopia, where government community interaction synthesises with customary practices of participation and evaluation. In contrast, donors’ understanding of participation and evaluation was partial and uncertain, differentiated most clearly by professional background and nationality. By employing Denzau and North’s ‘shared mental models’ as an analytical tool within an underlying social actor perspective, it was possible to trace elements of culture and belief systems, from which mental models are formed, through to the development values and practice of all four countries (Ethiopia and the three donors).

The research proposes a normative approach to development management which engages constructively with policy formulation and management practice, recognising the role that culture and belief (religion and/or ideology) play in countries’ differential development values, objectives and practice. This requires greater interrogation of the political systems which underpin development policy formulation, and a more comparative approach, involving greater reflexivity, to the development management approaches of other countries, whether like- or differently-minded.

Date of Award	1 Jul 2010
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bath
Supervisor	James Copestake (Supervisor)