Evaluating the Principles of Good Governance in the Reports of Finnish Bilateral Development Cooperation
Hyle, Maija (2003)
Kuvaus
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Tiivistelmä
Development cooperation has been part of the world politics already for 50 years. Also Finland has a long and varying history in this field. After the economical recession in Finland in the 1990’s the development cooperation allocations dropped dramatically. This change draw attention to the effectiveness of development cooperation – evaluation became important.
My aim in this research is to examine what the principles of good governance are and how they are taken into consideration in Finnish bilateral development cooperation; in addition I put a special emphasis on the Development Assistance Committee principles for evaluation, which are detailed guidelines for evaluation. Finnish development cooperation policy is based on both of the above-mentioned principles, which are as well the base of my empirical study. I seek answers to the following questions: is Finnish development cooperation policy in line with the practice, i.e. does the theory support the practice, how visible are the principles of good governance in Finnish development policy and are the DAC principles for evaluation implemented in the evaluation of Finnish development cooperation?
Development administration discussion forms the theoretical framework of this study. In the contemporary development administration the principles of good governance are crucial and that is as well the focus in this research. In the evaluation of development cooperation Finland is committed to the DAC principles.
I evaluate evaluation reports and thus the nature of this research is metaevaluative. I seek general understanding of a phenomenon, here Finnish development cooperation. The research material consisted of 80 evaluation reports commissioned by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Department for International Development Cooperation. After careful consideration I restricted the data to 43 reports. On the basis of the theory I formed the criteria that served as the frame for metaevaluation of the reports. The criteria includes: female participation, rule of law, sustainability, accountability, transparency and responsiveness.
Finnish development cooperation has its strengths and weaknesses. In the results of this research the weaknesses come across very strong. Female participation, accountability and transparency are all just partly met in Finnish development cooperation according to this research. Sustainability is problematic in Finnish development cooperation – Finland has not been able to reach such results, which would bear fruit also after the termination of a project. The criterion rule of law was conspicuously absent; most of the reports had ignored the issue. Responsiveness was the only criterion, which was successfully met in most of the reports. The research results show that Finnish development cooperation policy and practice do not fully correspond. The principles of good governance and the DAC principles are noted, yet they are not implemented in practice very often. Reasons for the rather negative results of Finnish development cooperation are numerous. Poor utilization of the evaluation results produces negative effects, as does the trend of donor ownership of the development projects. In order to improve the quality of development cooperation studies like this are needed also in the future.
My aim in this research is to examine what the principles of good governance are and how they are taken into consideration in Finnish bilateral development cooperation; in addition I put a special emphasis on the Development Assistance Committee principles for evaluation, which are detailed guidelines for evaluation. Finnish development cooperation policy is based on both of the above-mentioned principles, which are as well the base of my empirical study. I seek answers to the following questions: is Finnish development cooperation policy in line with the practice, i.e. does the theory support the practice, how visible are the principles of good governance in Finnish development policy and are the DAC principles for evaluation implemented in the evaluation of Finnish development cooperation?
Development administration discussion forms the theoretical framework of this study. In the contemporary development administration the principles of good governance are crucial and that is as well the focus in this research. In the evaluation of development cooperation Finland is committed to the DAC principles.
I evaluate evaluation reports and thus the nature of this research is metaevaluative. I seek general understanding of a phenomenon, here Finnish development cooperation. The research material consisted of 80 evaluation reports commissioned by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Department for International Development Cooperation. After careful consideration I restricted the data to 43 reports. On the basis of the theory I formed the criteria that served as the frame for metaevaluation of the reports. The criteria includes: female participation, rule of law, sustainability, accountability, transparency and responsiveness.
Finnish development cooperation has its strengths and weaknesses. In the results of this research the weaknesses come across very strong. Female participation, accountability and transparency are all just partly met in Finnish development cooperation according to this research. Sustainability is problematic in Finnish development cooperation – Finland has not been able to reach such results, which would bear fruit also after the termination of a project. The criterion rule of law was conspicuously absent; most of the reports had ignored the issue. Responsiveness was the only criterion, which was successfully met in most of the reports. The research results show that Finnish development cooperation policy and practice do not fully correspond. The principles of good governance and the DAC principles are noted, yet they are not implemented in practice very often. Reasons for the rather negative results of Finnish development cooperation are numerous. Poor utilization of the evaluation results produces negative effects, as does the trend of donor ownership of the development projects. In order to improve the quality of development cooperation studies like this are needed also in the future.