Theories and Empirical Data

In an effort to create a discussion forum for African and Africanist scholars, IDEA will provide up-to-date theories and empirical data on African development and education. See examples below:

Alan Rogers, Cultural Transfers in Adult Education: The Case of Folk Development Colleges in Tanzania, International Review of Education, Vol. 46, Nos. 1-2

Abstract – this paper examines the issues surrounding the cultural transfer of educational practices and institutions between industrialized countries and developing societies. It pays particular attention to adult education, and using – the case study of the Folk High Schools of Sweden and the Folk Development Colleges of Tanzania between 1975 and 1996 – it tries to develop an argument about the conditions under which such transfers may be successful. It suggests that there needs to be something of a match between the ideologies, discourse and functions of the educational institution within both societies; that the transfer is more than one element of any educational system would assist take-up; that the issue whether the transfer is top-down or bottom-up one is also important; and that such transfers are most successful when the receiving society takes control of the transfer and comes to own it and to adapt it to their own usages. The case study is based on a two-year evaluation of the Tanzanian Folk Development Colleges under the aid Programme of the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA)

Kenneth King and Lene Buchert, Changing International Aid to Education: Global Patterns and National Contexts, UNESCO Publishing/NORRAG, 1999

Kenneth King, The emergence of the new partnership discourse

Despite the evidence of continuing aid reduction from the North, a second trend, which has become evident in the North in recent years, is an expressed desire to develop more symmetrical interrelations or partnerships between the North and South. The Thinking about these new partnerships takes place different forms in different OECD countries and has perhaps gone furthest in the Nordic countries, and especially in Sweden, with the work it has generated, collaboratively with Africa, in the report Partnership with Africa (Sweden, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1997). There is a parallel discussion about new relationships evident in the British White Paper Eliminating World Poverty (United Kingdom, DFID, 1997), as well as in Japan’s Official Development Assistance Summary. Multilateral agencies and organizations, such as the World Bank and the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of OECD, have also adopted the discourse about partnership, most notably in World Bank’s president Wolfensohn’s New Directions and New Partnerships (1995) in DAC’s Development Partnerships in the New Global Context (OECD, 1996). The thrust of these initiatives is to imply that beyond the older world of agency conditionalities and forced structural adjustment policies, there is a brave new situation where ‘genuine’ partnerships (United Kingdom. DFID – Department For International Development, 1997 and ‘a more equal and respectful relationship’ (Sweden, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1997a, p. 22) between North and South can be anticipated. This new language of symmetry suggests that the aid relationship is going to change. For example, Sweden has proposed that there be a new code of conduct for itself as aid provider (Sweden, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1997a, p. 21) and even the World Bank in Wolfensohn’s words, has accepted the idea of listening to recipients in what sounds like a new moral economy: “to be a good partner, we must be ready to criticism and respond to constructive comment. There is no place for arrogance in the development business.”      

Tuesday, February 24, 2004