Knowledge for Development?

Please login to access download links.

Comparing British, Japanese, Swedish and World Bank aid The first detailed critique of an important new fashion in the world of development aid. A detailed study of four of the most influential development agencies - including the World Bank. Essential reading for development specialists and of interest to comparative educationalists. In 1996, the World Bank President, James Wolfensohn, declared that his organisation would henceforth be "the knowledge bank". A new discourse of knowledge-based aid has since spread rapidly across the development field. This book is the first detailed attempt to analyse this new discourse and practice. Through an examination of four agencies - the World Bank, the British Department for International Development, the Japan International Cooperation Agency and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency - it explores what this new approach to aid means in both theory and practice. It argues that too much of the emphasis of knowledge-based aid has been on developing capacity within agencies rather than addressing the expressed needs of Southern partners. Moreover, it questions whether knowledge-based aid increases agency certainty about what constitutes good development.

1. Researching knowledge-based aid

2. The new aid agenda

3. Knowledge for development

4. The World Bank or the knowledge bank?

5. From information management to knowledge sharing: DFID’s unfinished revolution

6. Knowledge, learning and capacity in the Swedish approach to development cooperation

7. Experience, experts and knowledge in Japanese aid policy and practice

8. Conclusions and implications for knowledge, aid and development

Bibliography

Index

KENNETH KING is professor of international and comparative education and director of the Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh.

SIMON MCGRATH was a research fellow at the Centre of African Studies, and became research director at the Human Sciences Research Council in October 2002.

Both have published extensively in African studies and international comparative education.