F1ID 5025 - Development, Development Banking and Official Development Agencies

Despite massive investment of money flows and research aimed at ailing poverty in developing countries, the development strategies of the international financial institutions over the past few decades have been the object of strong criticism. Under the tutelage of the World Bank, developing countries have experienced lower growth and rising inequality, far from intended targets. Long-established organizations have been accused of being controversial institutions, plagued by a neoclassical mindset focusing on individual rationality, strong abidance to New Public Management principles and downplaying social and political contexts that can either facilitate or impede development.

Drawing on the examples of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and transitional European economies, this course proposes an alternative vision of institutional development with applications to finance, state formation, infrastructure and services to provide a holistic, contextualized solution to the problems of developing nations. In the light of an ever shifting institutional setup, can strategies for a durable and sustainable development be enforced and which are the possible arrangements available for developing nations? Is there a specific role to be played by development organizations, taking into account significant sovereignty and capture-risk bias? How can we navigate the web of complex interactions that shape the playing field of these organizations, their recipient countries and their major stakeholders?

A special focus this course will be to introduce two very important dimensions of development programs in the global South today: infrastructure and low carbon transitions. As these objectives are increasingly becoming global -albeit with some exceptions- numerous countries in the Global South engage in multi-year plans that seek to officially promote these objectives. The course will have two main goals: it will present first a thorough mapping of developing banking related institutions, from the more encompassing ones like WB, IDB, ADB, AIIB, towards more technical ones like USAID, GIZ, JICA and AFD. It will look in particular to understanding how these different organizations present unique varieties of technical assistance, supporting specific ad hoc arrangements where firms, governments and consulting experts intertwine. The second objective will be to address development programs showcasing major infrastructure overhauls, green regions/city transformations and explain how co-financing mechanisms, capacity building and overall policy outcomes of these programs alter the way the promotion of this goals is carried out at a local level.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

• A thorough understanding of the current state of developing banking at the global scale
• An understanding of development programs and their policy and financial operational frameworks
• An introduction to Environmental and Social Impact Assessments methodologies.

PROFESSIONAL SKILLS

-Policy Network analysis applied to development programs

-Infrastructure risk analysis

A background in Macroeconomics, Development Studies, Public Policy Analysis, Urban Planning while not mandatory, is welcome

Through Moodle on a 1 week limit basis

• Class participation 10%
• a short reading presentation 25%
• one class projects 30%
• Final paper 35%

Students will be expected to have read the readings made available on the google drive of the seminar and the presentation of the readings will be graded

• Attendance: 2 hours a week / 24 hours a semester
• Online learning activities: 1 hours a week / 10hours a semester
• Reading and Preparation for Class: 4 hours a week / 44 hours a semester
• Research and Preparation for Group Work:/ 24 hours a semester
• Research and Writing for Individual Assessments: 36 hours a semester