Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-m9kch Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-30T12:34:58.526Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

International Assistance: Its Variety, Coordination, and Impact Among Public Corporations in Kenya and the East African Community

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Ira Sharkansky  and
Dennis L. Dresang
Ira Sharkansky
Affiliation:
Members of the Department of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The authors wish to acknowledge gratefully the generous support of William H. Young, the Center for Development (University of Wisconsin-Madison), and the Midwest UniversitiesConsortium for International Activities.
Dennis L. Dresang
Affiliation:
Members of the Department of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The authors wish to acknowledge gratefully the generous support of William H. Young, the Center for Development (University of Wisconsin-Madison), and the Midwest UniversitiesConsortium for International Activities.
Get access

Extract

The diverse interests of donors and the desires of recipients to shop for the best deals mean that coordination of projects in international assistance causes problems along with promises of greater efficiency. Evidence from East Africa indicates that political competition and lack of candor and comparability in donors' reports limit the effectiveness of efforts at donor coordination. On the other hand, the policies of Kenya and the East African Community permitting virtual autonomy to profitable public corporations in their dealings with foreign governments and businessmen compromise the opportunity to optimize the use of assistance available in a multi-donor situation.

Type
Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , Spring 1974 , pp. 207 - 231
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1974

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Little, I. M. D. and Clifford, J. M., International Aid (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1965), p. 202.Google Scholar

2 Morgenthau, Hans, “A Political Theory of Foreign Aid,” American Political Science Review 56 (June 1962): 301–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nelson, Joan, Aid, Influence, and Foreign Policy (New York: Macmillan, 1968)Google Scholar; Liska, George, The New Statescraft (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960)Google Scholar; Mikesell, Robert, Economics of Foreign Aid (Chicago: Aldine, 1968)Google Scholar; and Montgomery, John, Foreign Aid in International Politics (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1967).Google Scholar

3 The corporations studied for the purposes of this article are, for the East African Community, East African Airways, East African Harbours, East African Posts and Telecommunications, East African Railways, East African Development Bank; and, for Kenya Agricultural Finance Corporation, Kenya Tea Development Authority, Kenya Meat Commission, Maize and Produce Board, Agricultural Development Corporation, and Industrial and Commercial Development Corporation (including its subsidiaries).

4 Little and Clifford, p. 259.

5 For the varieties of transnational economic relationships, see, for example, Keohane, Robert O. and Nye, Joseph S. Jr., eds., Transnational Relations and World Politics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Our survey was limited to those foreign donors having projects with the public corporations listed in footnote 3.

7 See Baldwin, David A., Economic Development and American Foreign Policy, 1943–62, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966), especially pp. 32–50.Google Scholar

8 Cited in High Ripman, B., “Project Supervision,” Finance and Development 10 (June 1973): 16.Google Scholar

9 Harbeson, John, Nation-Building in Kenya (Evanston, III.: Northwestern University Press, 1973).Google Scholar

10 Another major component of OSAS was compensation to those who lost their jobs because of the achievement of African independence. See: Great Britain, Colonial Office, Service with Overseas Governments, Command Paper 1193, October 1960.

11 A major official in CDC is R. M. N. Swynerton, the author of a report that inaugurated colonial programs emphasizing the peasantry as the focus of development efforts. See Colony and Protectorate of Kenya, A Plan to Intensify The Development of African Agriculture in Kenya (Nairobi: Government Printer, 1955). For the origin of the Commonwealth Development Corporation, see Lee, J. M., Colonial Development and Good Government (London: Oxford University Press, 1967), pp. 122–25.Google Scholar

12 “Sweden's Policy for International Development Cooperation,” Swedish International Development Authority, 1972, p. 7. (Pamphlet.)

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid., p. 15.

15 This and following quotations from officials come from a series of interviews that the authors conducted during February to July 1972 when doing research for this article.

16 Mikesell, pp. 277–80.

17 Morgenthau, p. 304.

18 Chandavarkar, Anond G., “Technical Cooperation within the Third World,” Finance and Development 9 (December 1972): 17–22; and Mikesell, p. 15.Google Scholar

19 The Bank's prestige and financial resources can act as devices to influence major political decisions as well as administrative reforms. Chile and Tanzania were unable to secure Bank funding until they made reparations for nationalized property. In a more subtle fashion, development priorities and political choices are affected by the availability of Bank funding for some projects and programs but not for others. At present, countries must include smallholder participation in development schemes to secure Bank support.

20 See A Study of the Capacity of the United Nations Development System (Geneva: United Nations, 1969).

21 Cited in Arnold, Harry John Philip, Aid for Development: A Political and Economic Study (Chester Springs, Pa.: Dufour Editions, 1966), p. 230.Google Scholar

22 Dresang, Dennis L. and Sharkansky, Ira, “Public Corporations in Single-Country and Regional Settings: Kenya and the East African Community,” International Organization 27 (Summer 1973): 303–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 John Montgomery makes this point in his discussion of the difficulties in assessing and measuring the impact of foreign aid; see Montgomery, pp. 68–86.

24 Nelson, pp. 69–70.

25 In another paper being prepared for a forthcoming book, we document variations between public corporations that have a bearing on their accomplishment of stated goals.