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Book Chapter
Nicaragua’s puzzling pandemic responsePart of Book How States Respond to Crisis
This project considers how international actors and states in low-income countries interact across diverse contexts, and how and why state authority, capacity, and legitimacy may change through such interaction.
More than 80 per cent of the world’s poorest people live in fragile states. This project considers how states become more resilient, and the role of international assistance therein. It explores how international actors and states in low-income countries interact across diverse contexts, and how and why state authority, capacity, and legitimacy may change through such interaction.
The project’s work is divided into three main components:
- Statebuilding and local legitimacy: This component focuses on case studies of externally-supported institution building across diverse countries from the Second World War to the present and considers the mechanisms through which aid works and the conditions under which it has been most and least effective. It explores this topic with a particular emphasis on ‘local ownership’ in the process of building resilience and legitimacy, especially in contexts where who speaks legitimately for the ‘local’ can be unclear.
- COVID-19 and the state: This component explores the state response to the pandemic in low- and middle-income country cases and the international, national, and subnational aspects of this response. Attention is paid to the relationship between national policies and implementation, subnational variation, state capability, and international policy influence. Research considers how and why such policy measures and their implementation have varied across and within countries, and why some countries have been more effective than others in responding to the global pandemic. A group of studies explores the variation in the COVID-19 response across Indian states.
- Subnational institutional performance across Ghana’s districts and regions – variation and causes: This initiative develops a new measure of institutional performance in Ghana at the district level, and explores the correlates, causes, and implications of such variation.
This project builds from previous UNU-WIDER work on institution building in fragile contexts to explore processes of state-building in weak institutional environments, with particular attention to the interaction between international and local institutions.
Key questions
- How have states become more ‘resilient’ and escaped fragility traps? What has been the role of international assistance therein?
- How does external intervention interact with local institutions and endogenous processes to influence change in state institutions?
- What can international development actors do to better support legitimate and effective states in fragile contexts and weak institutional environments? What are the conditions under which international assistance has been most and least effective?
- How can local ownership be understood in such contexts when there are multiple and conflicting ‘local’ perspectives on core policy issues? How do and should international actors understand and approach ‘local’ ownership and legitimacy in such contexts?
- Given standard international public health guidance, how and why have countries adopted similar/different responses to the COVID-19 pandemic?
- Why have some countries been more effective than others in responding to the global pandemic? Does variation in state authority, capacity, and legitimacy help us to understand variation in response?
Watch this space
All papers, events, briefs, blog posts, and opportunities to engage relating to the project will be available on this webpage.
UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
The enhancement of state capability in fragile countries supports the achievement of SDG 16, Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions.
Team
Focal point: Rachel Gisselquist
Core researchers: Durgesh Solanki, Andrea Vaccaro, Michael Danquah, Kunal Sen, Daniel Chachu, Anustup Kundu
Project support: Iina Kuuttila
Communications: Timothy Shipp
99 articles, publications, projects, experts...
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Book Chapter
The devasting effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on PeruPart of Book How States Respond to Crisis
Book Chapter
Decentralization, state capacity and inequality:Part of Book How States Respond to Crisis
Book Chapter
Local governance and COVID-19's health impactPart of Book How States Respond to Crisis
Book Chapter
Pandemic populism amid weak state capacity in the PhilippinesPart of Book How States Respond to Crisis
Working Paper
Statebuilding in fragile countriesSupporting state capacity is a priority for the international community, yet the record of internationally supported statebuilding to date has been mixed at best. A key question for continuing research concerns the factors influencing more versus...
Working Paper
From empire to aidFor decades now, Western development agencies and donors have been castigated for their colonial biases in providing aid to Africa. It is well established that donors provide considerably more foreign aid to their former colonies relative to other...
Working Paper
The experimented society: interventions, social science, and the failure of post-conflict reconstruction in AfghanistanThis paper critically examines the shortcomings of post-conflict reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2021, arguing that an overemphasis on measurable results and causal inference led to overly narrow, community-driven development...
Report
Bolivia: desk study on aid and democracyThis study is part of a series of ten country-focused desk studies on aid and democracy prepared under the project The state and statebuilding in the Global South. They are prepared under the guidance of Rachel M. Gisselquist as background to a...
Report
Benin: desk study on aid and democracyThis study is part of a series of ten country-focused desk studies on aid and democracy prepared under the project The state and statebuilding in the Global South. They are prepared under the guidance of Rachel M. Gisselquist as background to a...
Report
Liberia: desk study on aid and democracyThis study is part of a series of ten country-focused desk studies on aid and democracy prepared under the project The state and statebuilding in the Global South. They are prepared under the guidance of Rachel M. Gisselquist as background to a...
Report
Tunisia: desk study on aid and democracyThis study is part of a series of ten country-focused desk studies on aid and democracy prepared under the project The state and statebuilding in the Global South. They are prepared under the guidance of Rachel M. Gisselquist as background to a...
Blog
Taking localisation beyond labels and lip serviceDonors increasingly speak of locally led aid response, but often do not walk the walk. Case in point is the United States Agency for International...
Report
Central African Republic: desk study on aid and democracyThis study is part of a series of ten country-focused desk studies on aid and democracy prepared under the project The state and statebuilding in the Global South. They are prepared under the guidance of Rachel M. Gisselquist as background to a...
Report
Comoros: desk study on aid and democracyThis study is part of a series of ten country-focused desk studies on aid and democracy prepared under the project The state and statebuilding in the Global South. They are prepared under the guidance of Rachel M. Gisselquist as background to a...
Report
Nicaragua: desk study on aid and democracyThis study is part of a series of ten country-focused desk studies on aid and democracy prepared under the project The state and statebuilding in the Global South. They are prepared under the guidance of Rachel M. Gisselquist as background to a...
Report
Malawi: desk study on aid and democracyThis study is part of a series of ten country-focused desk studies on aid and democracy prepared under the project The state and statebuilding in the Global South. They are prepared under the guidance of Rachel M. Gisselquist as background to a...
Report
Mali: desk study on aid and democracyThis study is part of a series of ten country-focused desk studies on aid and democracy prepared under the project The state and statebuilding in the Global South. They are prepared under the guidance of Rachel M. Gisselquist as background to a...
Report
Burundi: desk study on aid and democracyThis study is part of a series of ten country-focused desk studies on aid and democracy prepared under the project The state and statebuilding in the Global South. They are prepared under the guidance of Rachel M. Gisselquist as background to a...
Journal Article
Do the principles of effective development co-operation improve development outcomes?Elaborated in their current form in Busan in 2011, and reiterated in Geneva in 2022, the four Principles of Effective Development Co-operation comprise country ownership, focus on results, inclusive partnerships, and transparency and mutual...
Blog
Local governance in Ghana is more complicated than central versus regionalMeasuring the effectiveness of local government in Ghana is hampered by incomplete records, but despite that there are still visible patterns, write...
Working Paper
Using remote tracking technologies to audit and understand medicine theftMedicine theft is a leading cause of inadequate healthcare. Audits of public health supply chains suggest that up to a third of medicines go missing in low-income countries, disproportionately affecting those facing greater health risks and poverty...
Working Paper
Aid and violence reductionAlthough the provision of security to all their citizens is a state’s fundamental duty, over 50 countries experienced armed conflict in 2021. The international development community has identified armed conflict as an impediment to development and...
Book Chapter
Subnational governance in GhanaIn this chapter, we conceptualise an ideal framework that captures three reinforcing levers for measuring local government performance in sub-Saharan Africa, specifically Ghana, namely policy pronouncement, political processes and internal operations...
Working Paper
Aiding education? The effect of international aid on local educational enrolment in NigeriaEducation is associated with a range of positive micro and macro effects. It is hence no surprise that donors have recently increased the amount of official development aid specifically focused on restoring and maintaining education in less-developed...
Blog
Why the Aid Effectiveness Principles are important for developmentDemonstrating empirically the Aid Effectiveness Principles' global impact on development is a challenge. But according to Rachel M. Gisselquist...
Blog
Climate resilient development needs effective co-operation
The rise of resilience policy in sustainable development Climate resilience is an increasingly popular response to development in a time of polycrisis...
Journal Article
COVID-19 and the stateDuring the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was wealthier countries with stronger institutions that suffered the highest numbers of cases and fatalities. Many weaker countries were instead praised for more effective pandemic response. What...
Journal Article
Income inequality in authoritarian regimesIn recent decades, there has been an institutional shift in the literature on authoritarian regimes, with scholars investigating the role of political institutions, such as elections and political parties, in shaping regime stability and economic...
Blog
Development programmes must capture local insightsIn the paper 'Aid reimagined: results from an elite survey on perceptions of progress, capacity, and development co-operation', we tabulated responses...
Blog
Aid fungibility, ownership and the effectiveness agenda
For many people, aid fungibility is a misunderstood topic—it is mostly confused with the idea of corruption. Aid fungibility, on the other hand, is...
Journal Article
Measures of state capacityThis study provides a systematic comparative analysis of seven common cross-national measures of state capacity by focusing on three measurement issues: convergent validity, interchangeability, and case-specifc disagreement. The author fnds that the...
Working Paper
Digging deeper into the state–democracy nexusThe growing body of research on the relationship between the state and democracy has remained inconclusive both in terms of causal direction and sign. One key factor contributing to this inconclusiveness is the lack of precision in the...
Working Paper
Forced migration, aid effectiveness, and the humanitarian–development nexusBridging the gap between humanitarian assistance and development cooperation has been a contentious issue in academia and development practice for decades. Drawing on an evaluation of Germany’s ‘Partnership for Prospects’ initiative, this paper...
Working Paper
Do the effectiveness principles matter for development?The Principles of Effective Development Co-operation provide an important reference point for foreign aid and international development assistance. Although the principles—country ownership, focus on results, inclusive partnerships, and transparency...
Working Paper
More information, better knowledge? The effects of information campaigns on aid beneficiaries’ knowledge of aid projectsAid beneficiaries know very little about development interventions in their own communities. This lack of transparency and information is likely to reduce beneficiaries’ ability and willingness to become active in local development. It may also...
Working Paper
International development assistance and the inclusivity paradox in fragile and conflict-affected statesThe principle of inclusive development lies at the heart of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and in particular Goal 16, with its focus on inclusive societies backed by inclusive institutions. Yet despite its ubiquity across the SDGs...
Working Paper
Politics, policies, and the effectiveness of foreign aid in fragile statesInternational development cooperation has evolved since the 1960s. The effectiveness of aid is still topical, but studies have not paid adequate attention to the relationship between sectoral aid, politics, institutions, and aid effectiveness in...
Working Paper
European aid to the MENA region after the Arab uprisingsEuropean official development assistance to Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) countries increased sharply after 2011, ostensibly in support of the social, economic, and above all political changes demanded by the Arab uprisings. The subsequent...
Working Paper
India’s development cooperation in AfricaThis paper examines multiple facets of New Delhi’s development cooperation with countries in Africa and argues that grassroots organizations in India that find innovative, low-cost technological solutions to developmental challenges can help...
Working Paper
The institutions and policies of aid-recipient countries and aid effectivenessThe aid effectiveness principles have limits if the recipient is fragile. The problem of relevance exists if the recipient has an authoritarian or totalitarian regime. In situations of weak statehood and fragility, a large portion of aid would likely...
Working Paper
Aid reimagined: results from an elite survey on perceptions of progress, capacity, and development cooperationDevelopment effectiveness is an ever-growing concern for development partners. Particularly in a world of increasing budget constraints and trade-offs, it is crucial for development partners to maximize the results of any development intervention...
Working Paper
Building resilience knowledge for sustainable developmentThis paper explores how the concept of resilience has been used in development studies. Set amidst the rise of resilience in sustainable development, it offers insights for scholars and policy-makers, alike. Sampling 419 resilience-oriented journal...
Working Paper
Assessment of institutional set-up of results measurement and reporting systems for non-sovereign operations in development finance institutionsDevelopment finance institutions (DFIs) foster sustainable development through financing, advisory services, and technical assistance. They complement public investments in developing and underserved markets to unlock development opportunities and...
Working Paper
Development aid in fragile statesDrawing from a growing body of literature on development aid in fragile contexts, this paper investigates the effectiveness of COVID-19 aid in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The paper uses the OECD’s Principles for Good International...
Working Paper
Unpacking ‘ownership’ in development co-operation effectiveness‘Country ownership’ continues to grow more as an idealized requirement than an operational concept for effective development co-operation. Provider countries often shy away from taking onboard recipient countries’ development priorities, public...
Working Paper
Connecting national ownership and local participation in aid recipient countriesThis paper examines previously under-explored links between two aid-nurtured ideals. ‘National ownership’ and ‘local participation’ both aim to increase recipient influence and thereby address the inherent inequality of the aid relation. Questioning...
Working Paper
Aid effectiveness in fragile and conflict-affected contextsThe objective of this paper is to focus on fragility research findings and examine what works or does not work in development aid and development cooperation in fragile and conflict-affected contexts. We draw on our own research findings as well as...
Policy Brief
Building evidence around the effectiveness principlesThis policy brief draws on the studies presented at the International Research Conference on the Effectiveness of Development Cooperation on 17–18 November 2022, in Brussels, Belgium and jointly organized by UNU-WIDER and the European Commission (DG...
Working Paper
Evidence on aid (in)effectiveness in highly fragile statesThis working paper provides a summary of three systematic reviews on the effectiveness of aid in Afghanistan, Mali, and South Sudan between 2008 and 2021. These three countries, like all other highly fragile countries, suffer from bad governance...
Working Paper
Development narratives in a post-aid eraThis paper argues that the crisis facing the development effectiveness agenda is fundamentally derived from limited collective commitment to a singular model of development, one where a developed North serves as model and funder for a developing...
Working Paper
Humanity over economy: biopolitical responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in GhanaThis study posits that pandemics should be regarded as complex, open-ended phenomena that cannot be reduced to biology and epidemiology. The research assesses Ghana’s effectiveness in governing the COVID-19 pandemic contrary to apocalyptic...
Working Paper
Does project-level aid for water and sanitation improve child health outcomes?Empirical studies on the effectiveness of aid to the water, sanitation, and hygiene sector (WASH aid) have focused primarily on access to these services as the benchmark for evaluating the effectiveness of aid in this sector. Given the importance of...
Working Paper
Good for now but not forever: officials’ perspectives on the relevance of the effectiveness agenda and the need for changeThis paper investigates whether the current effectiveness agenda—agreed during the 2011 Busan High Level Forum on Development Effectiveness—continues to define best practice in development amidst a rapidly changing development landscape. To do so, we...
Working Paper
Understanding Somalia’s social contract and state-building effortsBuilding on a World Bank regional study in Africa aiming at measuring social contracts concepts and within the framework of reflecting on future donor interventions, this paper applies social contracts measurement and complements with qualitative...
Working Paper
Can fungibility of development aid lead to more effective achievement of the SDGs?In this paper, we explore the relationship between foreign aid fungibility and aggregate welfare. Using panel data from 35 low-income and lower-middle-income countries, we first check the presence of sectoral aid fungibility in our sample and find...
Working Paper
The pandemic and the stateCOVID-19 has brought to the fore the issue of state preparedness in mitigating health emergencies. This paper problematizes the received wisdom of greater state capacity in mitigating the severity of the pandemic. Based on a case study of West Bengal...
Working Paper
Peruvian response to COVID-19 pandemicWhy does a state like Peru, dedicated to fulfilling development goals and sustained good macroeconomic performance, appear incapable of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic? Using the case of maternal mortality, this paper argues that the tremendous...
Working Paper
Duterte’s pandemic populismThe outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic undermined the populist legacy of Philippine president Rodrigo R. Duterte. Despite implementing one of the longest and strictest lockdowns globally, the country has struggled with controlling the pandemic. While...
Working Paper
Does an effective government lower COVID-19’s health impact?Government effectiveness has played an important role in tackling the crisis caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. This paper discusses the different aspects of government effectiveness in explaining the variation in the COVID-19 confirmed...
Working Paper
The social foundations of (in)effective statesA rich and growing literature illustrates the paradox of COVID-19 responses by governments across the world. States with higher levels of authority and capacity have struggled to respond effectively to COVID-19, while states with low capacity and...
Working Paper
Management of the COVID-19 pandemic in Kerala through the lens of state capacity and clientelismDuring the first wave of COVID-19 infections, Kerala, a state in southern India, successfully managed to contain the pandemic. As a result, the Kerala model of managing the COVID-19 pandemic was celebrated as a success across the globe. However, at...
Working Paper
Governance and COVID-19 in BoliviaOn 10 March 2020, the Bolivian government identified two COVID-19 cases in Bolivians returning from Italy. The national government responded swiftly and sent the country into one of the world’s strictest lockdowns on 22 March 2020. However, low state...
Working Paper
The COVID-19 pandemic and the state in BiharThis paper presents a critical analysis of official data related to COVID-19 in Bihar state, India, which points to the manipulation of data for political ends. The ruling party’s claim that the state managed the COVID pandemic brilliantly seems more...
Working Paper
Pandemic precarity and the complicated case of MaharashtraThe state of Maharashtra and the city of Mumbai have been referred to as the epidemic epicentre of India since the time of the plague of 1896 and influenza epidemic of 1918. During the COVID-19 pandemic too, the state experienced the highest cases...
Working Paper
Residual capacity and the political economy of pandemic response in GhanaOn the whole, poor countries in Africa and elsewhere seem to have weathered the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2, or COVID-19) pandemic better than wealthier countries with superior healthcare systems. Using the Ghanaian case, this paper draws on newspaper...
Working Paper
COVID-19 and the state: Nicaragua case studyUnlike Latin American peers, and contrary to World Health Organization recommendations, Nicaragua eschewed lockdowns and other common strategies to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Analysts have since demonstrated how Nicaraguan authorities...
Blog
COVID-19 in India: cases, deaths, and vaccinationsThe Omicron variant resulted in a third major wave of Covid-19 in India, with the number of cases exceeding those in the second wave, albeit causing...
Working Paper
The Tanzanian state response to COVID-19Tanzania received significant global attention for its COVID-19 response during the first year of the pandemic. It did not share pandemic statistics, require masks, implement lockdowns, or close borders; it questioned testing and vaccine efficacy...
Journal Article
Fiscal decentralization and efficiency of public services delivery by local governments in GhanaWe estimate the efficiency of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) in Ghana, and investigate the impact of fiscal decentralization on the efficiency of local public goods and services delivery by MMDAs. Using data from composite...
Book Chapter
Foreign aid and peacebuildingForeign aid is a core component of peacebuilding and among the largest external financial flows to fragile states and conflict-affected areas. Nevertheless, troubling critiques have been raised about its overall impact and effectiveness. Some of the...
Working Paper
The dynamics of state–business relations between the Ethiopian state and Chinese private firmsDespite the Ethiopian government’s commitment to attracting foreign direct investment to its emerging manufacturing sector and its shared interests with Chinese private businesses in building profitable investments, relations between Chinese private...
Blog
Why countries best placed to handle the pandemic appear to have fared the worstDuring the first year of the pandemic, it was wealthier countries, with their comparatively stronger health systems, civil services, legal systems and...
Working Paper
Fiscal decentralization and efficiency of public services delivery by local governments in GhanaIn this paper, we estimate the efficiency of Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies (MMDAs) in Ghana, and investigate the impact of fiscal decentralization on the efficiency of local public goods and services delivery by MMDAs. Using data...
Working Paper
COVID-19 and the stateWe expect effective state institutions to matter in a country’s ability to respond to crises. Yet notably in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, what has stood out in simple global snapshots is that wealthier countries with stronger institutions...
Background Note
Review of sub-national institutional performance in GhanaIntroductionThe literature on the concept, measurement, causes, and correlates of sub-national institutional governance is not new. From the seminal work of Putnam et al. (1993) to recent attempts by Iddawela et al. (2021), several authors have...
Blog
Clientelism – another reason to worry about US democracy
The last several months have given us many reasons to worry about US democracy – not least the riot at the US Capitol and the president’s refusal to...
Blog
Coronavirus: five ways some states have used the pandemic to curtail human rights and democracyIn the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, at least 95 countries declared a national emergency, empowering governments to act in ways they would not...
Blog
Headline data suggests low-income states are coping better with the pandemic than high-income states. But is this true?States with fragile state health systems have been commended for effective responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. But if we take into account factors...
Working Paper
State–market–society allianceWhile mainstream economics since the 1980s has been largely characterized by neo-liberal ideology, the past decade witnessed the rise of nationalism and protectionist policies globally. The latest COVID-19 pandemic has further refocused attention on...
Blog
Unpacking 'country ownership': four messages from the fieldThe new and improved Global Partnership monitoring framework for effective development co-operation, launched in 2022, is now fully in motion, with...
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Theme: 2019-23, Transforming states