Hvordan kommer vi videre med en bedre bistand til verdens u-lande?

Time: Wednesday 6 October at 15 – 17 hours

Venue: Danish Institute for International Studies, Main Auditorium, ground floor, Strandgade 71, Christianshavn, 1401 Kbn K

Foreign aid is increasingly being delivered in accordance with general guidelines based on international agreements like the Millennium Development Goals and the Paris Declaration on aid effectiveness.

Time: Wednesday 6 October at 15 – 17 hours

Venue: Danish Institute for International Studies, Main Auditorium, ground floor, Strandgade 71, Christianshavn, 1401 Kbn K

Foreign aid is increasingly being delivered in accordance with general guidelines based on international agreements like the Millennium Development Goals and the Paris Declaration on aid effectiveness.

According to political scientist Göran Hydén, this orientation has tied aid to goals that have little to do with the development potential on the African continent. Moreover, aid has not become more effective.

The result is that despite the official donor rhetoric about national ownership by the recipient country, aid is programmatically conditioned in such ways as to perpetuate (forlænge/fordybe) aid dependency.

In Africa, the global poverty reduction effort becomes an extra burden because there are few of those drivers of economic growth that in other regions of the world have made foreign aid superfluous. In addition, African countries are being judged on the basis of standards and indicators that elsewhere have been the result of, not the condition for, development.

Good governance historically has been the fruit of development, not something that can be imposed from the outside regardless of socio-economic conditions.

According to Göran Hydén, time has come to ask some basic questions about the relationship between foreign aid and development in the African context, and to go beyond official development assistance to Africa.

Donors need to draw attention to substantive issues rather than managerial issues. What is development and how does it come about? How is aid being delivered and with what societal effects? How can Africa get a new start?

In his presentation Göran Hydén will draw upon his ongoing work and contributions to the debate on aid and development, e.g. at the Nordic Africa Development Policy Forum.

He will also comment on the the new Danish Strategy on Development Assistance: Freedom from Poverty – Freedom to Change from the perspectives of reconsidering aid and development.

Speakers

* Göran Hydén, Distinguished Professor, University of Florida, USA
* Anne Sørensen, Chief Coordinator, DDRN
* Lars Engberg-Pedersen, Senior Researcher, DIIS

PROGRAMME

15.00-15.10
Welcome and Introduction by Anne Sørensen, Chief Coordinator, DDRN

15.10-15.45
Rethinking Foreign Aid: Where Do We Go from Here? by Göran Hydén, Distinguished Professor, University of Florida, USA

15.45-16.00
Coffee Break

16.00-17.00
Comments and Discussion by Lars Engberg-Pedersen, Senior Researcher, DIIS

Chair: Anne Sørensen, Chief Coordinator DDRN

The seminar will be held in English.

Participation is free of charge, but registration is required. Please use our online registration form on http://www.diis.dk/sw99513.asp

And do so no later than Tuesday, 5 October 2010 at 12.00 noon.

Please await confirmation by e-mail from DIIS for participation.

Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), The Conference Section, Strandgade 56, 1401 Kbn K, tlf. 32 69 87 51 og e-mail: [email protected] – web: www.diis.dk