Knowledge-based aid: a four agency comparative study

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Abstract

Part of the response of many development cooperation agencies to the challenges of globalisation, ICTs and the knowledge economy is to emphasise the importance of knowledge for development. This paper looks at the discourses and practices of “knowledge-based aid” through an exploration of four agencies: the World Bank, DFID, Sida and JICA. It seeks to analyse whether knowledge-based aid leads to greater focus on agencies’ own needs rather than those of Southern partners. It also questions whether it makes them better at learning from these partners or more intent on a one-way, North–South transfer of knowledge.

Section snippets

What is knowledge-based aid?

Since 1996, there has been a remarkable growth within development cooperation agencies of an interest in knowledge-based aid. Most agencies have launched projects that seek to make their work better and more explicitly grounded in the knowledge they already possess within their organisations and to explore more effective ways of acquiring external knowledge related to development. At the same time, there has also been a growth in concerns with more effectively disseminating this knowledge to

The structure of this paper

Given the nature of academia, it is not surprising that knowledge is one of the most written about subjects in academic literature. However, when it comes to the workings of aid, such introspection and theorising are far less valued. In studying the new discourse of knowledge-based aid, we work from the premise that it is important to uncover meanings through the evolving discourse of how knowledge is spoken of and enacted in the aid field rather than from neat (and, thus, practically

Methodology

We discuss the methodology of the research project on which this paper is based in considerable detail in King and McGrath (2003). Our discussion here, therefore, will be a summary. The analysis in this paper arises from a project funded by the British Economic and Social Research Council. As such, the research was freed from a dependence on the agencies being studied for funding. Nonetheless, we were concerned throughout the project to develop a dialogue with the agencies under study and to

Where does knowledge-based aid come from, and is it just a passing fashion?

In King and McGrath (2003), we explore the origins of knowledge-based aid at length. Here, we will summarise our argument briefly in terms of trends internal and external to aid.

Does knowledge-based aid work?

In providing a summary analysis of knowledge-based aid, we shall begin by taking it on its own terms. That is to say, we shall examine it whilst assuming that it is a worthwhile and genuine attempt to improve aid. We shall turn later to more fundamental questions about the whole aid project.

A widely understood set of new tools has emerged for both internal and external aspects of knowledge-based aid, as we shall discuss below. Different agencies draw upon the internal and external tool kits in

Can knowledge-based aid transform the aid paradigm?

In King and McGrath (2003), we consider the debate about the transformatory possibilities of knowledge-based aid through the different perspectives of Steve Denning and David Ellerman, two prominent figures in the first years of the Knowledge Bank. It is worth repeating this argument here.

Steve Denning, the original coordinator of the core knowledge bank activities, is optimistic about the radical potential of knowledge-based aid. He argues that technological and economic changes will

Some concluding thoughts

Knowledge-based aid is not yet firmly embedded in the agencies and will probably never become as all-pervasive as its evangelists apparently believe. Nonetheless, it can make positive contributions to understanding and practices of knowledge, aid and development. It is raising awareness within the aid community that knowledge is complex and contextual. There is a new and growing understanding of knowledge as tacit and community-based. There is even a heightened sense of its relationship to

Acknowledgements

This article arises out of research under the ESRC Future Governance Programme, Grant Number L216252023.

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