SDC-33806 Policy, Projects and Programs for Development

Course

Credits 6.00

Language of instruction:

English

Contents:

The course provides a broad overview of development thinking and administration since the Second World War. It consists of two parts. In the first part the history of development aid is discussed and the principal approaches to program/project planning are reviewed. Development aid and planning have come to encompass a series of preoccupations that manifest themselves in separate areas of expertise. The following topics are discussed: the learning approach to development planning, the environment and sustainable development; organizational reform and decentralization; the role of participation in development; gender and development; the importance of evaluation in development. The contemporary debates on the success and failure of development aid are reviewed from economic and anthropological/sociological perspectives. In the literature radically different political positions are adopted concerning development aid. The debate among economists is about the possibilities to combine market mechanisms with development interventions, while the debate among sociologists is about the modernist (or western) provenance of the very idea of development and its effects on Third World people. On the negative side, neo-liberal economists decry development planning as incompatible with the market (and thus as a hindrance to economic development), while so-called post-developmentalist sociologists see development projects and programs as intent on shaping the world to its own image. Pro-aid economists are positive about the possibility to promote development through appropriate projects and programs, while pro-aid sociologists insist that development can only become meaningful to local people if knowledge about their livelihoods is included. This first part of the course ends with a discussion forum in which students explain and defend these differing positions.
The second part of the course has a more methodological and applied character. Conservation and resource management issues have become central to development programming. Two case studies will be reviewed from anthropological and environmental perspectives. The first case is about the recently promoted international design of a carbon reduction programme (REDD) and the question about how different sectors of society may profit from its implementation. The second case deals with the establishment of Marine Protection Areas, and the complexities of the interface between the different perspectives on MPA of fishers, government administrators, environmentalist NGOs, and other stakeholders. The course ends with a project appraisal exercise of a virtual project. After reviewing the technical, managerial and political aspects of the project planning process four groups of students will prepare and present an alternative to the initial design. Each of these alternatives represents one of the above-mentioned positions vis-à-vis development.

Learning outcomes:

After successful completion of the course students are expected to be able to:
- assess, from a historical perspective, the inter-relationships between development thinking, development aid and development policies, programs and projects;
- appraise the various debates concerning the impacts and effectivity of development aid and planning, as well as assessing the arguments in favour of or against development as a modernist project;
- compose a strategy for presenting and defending a given perspective on development aid and planning in public;
- apply the acquired knowledge and skills to specific cases in the domain of natural resource management (i.e. forestry and coastal management);
- develop and apply basic analytical skills to critically read planning documents, and to formulate alternative designs;
- design and defend a development project proposal in public.

Activities:

Lectures, workshops.

Examination:

- written exam with open questions (70%);
- 3 small group assignments (30%).
To pass the course the written exam requires a minimum mark of 5.50.
A bonus arrangement for the written exam applies.

Literature:

Book and reader. The reader will be available on MyPortal.