domestic resource mobilisation
April 30, 2025
Resuming blogging after completing my PhD studies, I find myself confronted with a deep crisis in the aid sector. The dismantling of US foreign aid, coupled with severe funding cuts by major European donors, is an unprecedented blow to international cooperation. Without a doubt, the current situation is a cause of major concern for the future of humanitarian and development aid as we know it. Yet, it also offers a rare opportunity for practitioners and policymakers to rethink the foundations of the aid system altogether. What strikes me, though, is that most opinions tend to come from professionals based in the Global North. Far fewer voices from the Global South have spoken up on the aid funding crisis. Why, I wonder?
December 17, 2017
The development literature of the 1980s and 1990s gave considerable attention to participation in development – engaging local people, the “beneficiaries”, in decisions relating to their own development. This school of thought quickly drew criticism as the question was asked: what are they participating in? Of course, the answer was frequently that participation was little more than mobilising people in implementing an outside agenda, however well-meaning that may have been.
June 21, 2017
I continue to explore how developing countries go about increasing their tax revenues as a way to escape from poverty, reducing the need for aid and other forms of international co-operation. In jargon, we call these efforts domestic resource mobilisation. This time I have spoken with Huong Nguyen, Non-Executive Director of the Vietnam Initiative Social Enterprise (VNI), a leading Vietnamese think-tank based in the country’s capital, Hanoi...
May 18, 2017
Strengthening a developing country’s finances by increasing its tax revenues, rather than depending exclusively on aid, is widely seen as the way forward in the development community. Yet, few people actually know first-hand what it takes to generate support for increasing tax revenues in a developing country – particularly at community level...