Doctoral Degrees (Development Studies)

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Civil society, dams and underdevelopment of the Democratic Republic of Congo : a study of communities affected by the Inga Hydropower Projects.
(2015) Amisi, Baruti Bahati.; Bond, Patrick Martin.
This research examines development aid, development agencies, international financial institutions, successive governments of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Congolese civil society organisations as well as their transnational advocacy network allies in conflicts surrounding the Inga Hydropower Projects. The contradictory roles of these actors in the development of the DRC are considered through the lens of the Inga Hydropower Projects’ impact on affected communities and Congolese citizens at large. The study supports the argument that the failure of development initiatives in the DRC is caused by a combination of internal and external factors. The domestic factors consist of the incapacity of the state to build on the fragile economic foundations left by colonialism, and the attitudes of local post-independence elites and ordinary people who do not support or promote inclusive and sustainable development initiatives. The external factors consist of western powers and aid agencies which have provided military, economic, and ideological support to DRC governments, including dictatorships, thereby strengthening their patron-client relationships. This study contends that positive aid outcomes in mega-development projects depend on prevailing economic policies, donor agencies’ political interests, the capacity and contribution of civil society to promote public accountability, and the ability of a state to efficiently allocate resources where they are needed. Sustainable solutions to failed development efforts are mainly emerging from within civil society. This study makes three main contributions. It documents the impacts of the IHPs on affected communities and the DRC at large, the strengths and weaknesses of the IHPs as high-modernist projects, and the stakeholders’ understanding of the IHPs. The study also explains why the increase of CSOs paradoxically sustained Mobutu Sese Seko’s dictatorship, the role of CSOs in Inga 1 and Inga 2, and how civil society is addressing further developments of the IHPs. Lastly, this research reveals the responsibility of individuals, development aid, and multinational corporations involved in Inga 1 and Inga 2 to predict the outcomes of further development of the IHPs through Grand Inga in the DRC.
Exploring the challenges of implementing the rights-based approach to development : the case of the right to water in peri-urban Zambia.
(2007) Horman, Chitonge.; Bukurura, Sufian Hemed.; Bond, Patrick Martin.
Water is an essential element of life. On average, 60 to 70 percent of a human body mass is water . In order to perform its functions properly, it is estimated that a human body needs about 2 to 3 litres of clean water per day2. For this reason, access to adequate, clean and safe water is indispensable to achieving human well-being, and securing human freedom and dignity. Given the important role water plays in sustaining human life, enhancing human dignity, freedom and development, it has been widely submitted that access to clean water should be recognised as an inalienable right. Ironically, although water is a basic requirement for life, access to water has not been adequately proclaimed and treated as a human right, especially in domestic law. Other than the international human rights instruments, there are very few countries which have explicitly protected access to water in the national constitutions and other major pieces of legislation. Arising from this is the question of whether explicit recognition of the right to water makes a difference for people living without access to safe sources of water. The main argument persued in this study is that although explicit recognition of the right to water can make a difference in the lives of millions of people who have no access to clean sources of water, mere recognition of the right to water does not constitute a 'magic bullet' for the challenges of access to clean water. Realizing the right to water requires moving beyond mere recognition to deeper levels of commitment which includes taking appropriate measures and implementing them. Moving beyond mere recognition, in turn, requires adequate and responsive institutions through which the rights can be asserted, contested and effectuated. In this context, civil society constitutes an important component of the institutional set up through which the right to water can be effectuated. The importance of civil society in realizing the right to water lies in the fact that human rights are not just given on a silver platter, they must be asserted, sufficiently contested for, and claimed. While the deployment of a rights-based approach to issues of access to water is in its infancy stages, it is apparent from the evidence gathered in this study that the rights-based approach is weak in unlocking and hooking into the real-politik, despite its rhetorical strength. This study explores the challenges faced in implementing the right to water. Focus in the study is on processes that produce situations where the right to water is, first of all, not well recognized as a human right; and secondly, processes that lead to the right to water not being fulfilled for millions of people. What the Zambian case has revealed is that failure to ensure that people have access to clean sources of water is not solely a question of lack of or inadequate resources as the situation is often made to appear in conventional political discourse. There are multiple factors involved, including inappropriate management of processes, systems and resources, which often is a consequence of lack of political will and commitment. Given the nature of the issues under investigation, a multi-method approach, which is a combination of different research methods and strategies, has been employed. Field work for the study was conducted in three different peri-urban communities in Zambia.
Integrated water resources management and the manufactured scarcity of water in Africa.
(2014) Nojiyeza, Innocent Simphwe.; Bond, Patrick Martin.; Mottiar, Shauna.
The African version of the neo-liberal system known as Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) has had especially dubious results in Ghana, Malawi and South Africa. Two factors – cost recovery and decentralisation of responsibilities without resources – are the primary means by which the poor are financially squeezed, in a manner not unlike other neo-liberal strategies in development policy and projects. The IWRM framework was accepted as best practice during the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit of 1992 (and included as chapter 18 of Local Agenda 20), integrated into the 1992 International Conference on Water and Environment (commonly known as Dublin Principles), and taken forward in the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation during the World Summit on Sustainable Development of 2002. Since then, many countries that agreed at the WSSD to formulate IWRM policies by 2005 have begun to do so. IWRM quickly became the favoured strategic approach of development agencies, international financial institutions, donors, state water officials and some NGOs. Civil society has had uneven engagements with IWRM. An important early critique emerged from Ghanaian civil society, during the early 2000s, when IWRM led to commercialisation and even privatisation of water in urban areas. There was growing concern about excessive cost-recovery and self-management of water in rural areas without the benefit of state subsidies. Water commodification and decentralisation – meaning in practice, fewer resources and more responsibilities for lower tiers of government – also emerged as a problem elsewhere on the continent, where governments are abdicating their responsibilities to supply water and sanitation using the rubric of IWRM. Using household interviews and focus group discussions in the Densu area of Ghana, in the Balaka, Ntcheu and Mangochi areas of Malawi, and in areas of Durban, South Africa where Urine Diversion toilets were supplied to rural and peri-urban households, and basing my analysis on framings provided in theories of water and sanitation governance, new institutional economics and environmental economics, I conclude that implementation of IWRM results in a ‘manufactured scarcity’ of water in rural Africa. The reforms required are extensive, and civil society has only begun to make an impact with its own vision: moving from manufactured scarcity to genuine abundance.
Zimbabwe's trade negotiations with the European Union : state shortcomings and civil society advocacy, 2000-2013.
(2013) Kamidza, Richard.; Bond, Patrick Martin.
The dissertation interrogates the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) negotiation between the European Union (EU) and Zimbabwe, covering trade in goods, trade in services, trade-related rules and development cooperation. Within the African-Caribbean-Pacific (ACP) configuration, Zimbabwe belongs to eastern and southern Africa, and used this base to extend the 1980 Lomé Conventions and 2000 Cotonou Agreement with the EU. But EU-Zimbabwe trade relations have reflected changing motives of the EU as the dominant development partner. Since the Lomé Conventions, Zimbabwe has exported diverse agriculture, manufacturing and mining products, especially beef, leather, vegetable products, beverages, spirits and vinegar, flue-cured tobacco, sugar (raw and refined), cotton (raw and lint), fermented tea and coffee, cut flowers, precious or semi-precious metal scrap/stones, articles of base metals, nickel and ferro-alloys. In turn, the country has been importing machinery and mechanical appliances, electrical equipment, vehicles, aircraft and associated transport equipment, and products of chemical and allied industries. But notwithstanding generous access to the EU market under Lomé, Zimbabwe (and other ACP economies) could not improve economic growth or broaden development through trade. As a result, many civil society organisations (CSOs) were critical of recent free trade agreements, although their critiques reflected extreme ideological division. Zimbabwe’s EPA debate reflected two distinct groups: ‘collaborators’ who emphasised direct interaction with the state in their engagement and participation in the process, and ‘resisters’ who repudiated any formal interaction and consultation, instead, opting for confrontational tactical engagement. This not only prevented a collective, strategic CSOs engagement on the process, but also created dilemmas in pursuit of a fair EPA outcome. Likewise, the post-2009 Government of National Unity was confronted with neo-liberal versus protectionist struggles and related tensions, resulting in disunity in economic policy-making and EPA negotiation processes. The study interrogates Zimbabwe’s state-stakeholders and their fault-lines in a context of EU dominance, as well as the bilateral-related sanctions imposed against the Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front leadership during the negotiation process. Subsequently, an economically weak and vulnerable Zimbabwe signed and ratified an asymmetrical interim EPA with an economically powerful EU. The 31 July 2013 election may alter the power balance sufficiently to lead to a reconsideration of the deal, as Zimbabwe continues to ‘look East’ in its economic orientation. The study’s contribution to the field of bilateral trade negotiations is in exploring theoretical concepts of ‘guerrilla negotiating approaches, strategies and tactics’ employed by negotiating parties and CSOs that have extreme ideological differences between liberal and redistributive interpretations. The possibility of coherence is increasing, given the unsatisfactory politics of EU-Zimbabwe trade.

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Browsing Doctoral Degrees (Development Studies) by Author "Bond, Patrick Martin."