Navigating the dilemmas of politically smart, locally led development: the Pacific-based Green Growth Leaders’ Coalition

Abstract

Iterative approaches to development under banners such as ‘thinking and working politically’ and ‘doing development differently’ build upon decades-old commitments to fostering locally led and -owned development. These approaches are increasingly popular with academics and development practitioners. In this paper we argue that outsiders seeking to deliver locally led, politically smart programmes need to either accept that competing priorities, results and values will work to limit the extent of true local ownership, or be sufficiently committed to true local leadership to accept that this may well cut against organisational imperatives. Using the example of the Pacific-based Green Growth Leaders’ Coalition, we discuss how politically tricky partnerships challenge tenets of local leadership and ownership.

Keywords:

• adaptive development
• dilemmas
• locally led development
• Pacific development
• thinking and working politically
• action research

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the members and secretariat of GGLC for their time and commitment to the action research process. We are grateful to the two anonymous reviewers whose comments markedly improved this paper. Any errors are our own.

Disclosure statement

The authors of this article were employed as action researchers of GGLC from 2016 to 2017 through the auspices of PLP. They have continued as unpaid advisors to GGLC since 2018.

Notes

1 Lopes, “Should We Mind the Gap?,” 139.

2 Nyamugasira, “Genuine North–South Partnerships,” 17.

3 Honig and Gulrajani, “Donors’ Desire to Do Development Differently,” 70.

4 McCulloch and Piron, “Thinking and Working Politically.”

5 Booth and Unsworth, Politically Smart, Locally Led Development, 70.

6 McCulloch and Piron, “Thinking and Working Politically”; Dasandi et al. “What Does the Evidence Tell Us.”

7 Donais, “Empowerment or Imposition”; Paris and Sisk, Dilemmas of Statebuilding.

8 Kilby, “Accountability for Empowerment.”

9 Cooke and Kothari, Participation: The New Tyranny.

10 Booth and Unsworth, Politically Smart, Locally Led Development.

11 Ibid.

12 Ibid, 1.

13 Ibid, 3–4.

14 Dasandi et al. “What Does the Evidence Tell Us.”

15 McCulloch and Piron, “Thinking and Working Politically,” O8.

16 Honig and Gulrajani, “Donors’ Desire to Do Development Differently,” 76.

17 Ferguson, The Anti-Politics Machine.

18 Booth and Unsworth, Politically Smart, Locally Led Development; Hudson and Marquette, “Mind the Gaps.”

19 Denney and McLaren, Thinking and Working Politically.

20 Halapua, “Talanoa Process.”

21 Ibid., 2.

22 Halapua, “Talanoa in Building Democracy.”

23 Halapua, “Talanoa Process.”

24 Mellor and Jabes, Governance in the Pacific; Ravuvu, Development or Dependence.

25 Although sovereignty was achieved by some Pacific states prior to 1970 – and despite the region being home to what Fraenkel described in “Postcolonial Political Institutions” as ‘a range of hybrid political arrangements between island territories and former colonial rulers’ (139) – the 1970s is generally recognised as the peak period of the Pacific independence movement. See Fry, “Regionalism and International Politics of the South Pacific,” and Ratuva, Contested Terrain, for example.

26 Mara, Pacific Way.

27 O’Keefe, et al., Using Action Research, 6.

28 Valters and Whitty, Politics of the Results Agenda, 8.

29 Douglas, “Rank, Power, Authority”; Corbett, “Everybody Knows Everybody.”

30 Torney and Cross, “Environmental Climate Diplomacy.”

31 Cowen and Shenton, Doctrines of Development.

32 Government of Vanuatu, Vanuatu 2030, 3.

33 Craney and Hudson, Green Growth Leaders’ Coalition.

34 Burns, Harvey, and Aragon, “Introduction: Action Research for Development”; Neely, “Complex Adaptive Systems as a Valid Framework.”

35 Craney and Hudson, Green Growth Leaders’ Coalition

36 Government of Fiji Islands, Green Growth Framework for Fiji.

37 Tarte, “New Pacific Regional Voice.”

38 Dornan et al., “What’s in a Term?”

39 Booth and Unsworth, Politically Smart, Locally Led Development, 7.

40 McCulloch and Piron, “Thinking and Working Politically.”

41 Booth and Unsworth, Politically Smart, Locally Led Development, 6.

42 Burns, Harvey and Aragon, “Introduction: Action Research for Development,” 5.

43 Honig and Gulrajani, “Donors’ Desire to Do Development Differently”; Hummelbrunner and Jones, Guide for Planning and Strategy Development.

44 Dornan et al., “What’s in a Term?”

45 Denney and McLaren, Thinking and Working Politically.

46 Dietrich and Winters, “Foreign Aid and Government Legitimacy.”

47 Ibid.

48 Booth and Unsworth, Politically Smart, Locally Led Development, 4.

49 Corbett, “Two Worlds.”

50 Chatham House, “Chatham House Rule.”

51 Denney and McLaren, Thinking and Working Politically.

52 Dakuvula, “Rituals of Planning”; Ravuvu, Development or Dependence.

53 Fry and Tarte, New Pacific Diplomacy.

54 McLellan, Transforming the Regional Architecture, 2.

55 Corbett, Australia’s Foreign Aid Dilemma.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Aidan Craney

Aidan Craney is an Honorary Research Fellow with the Institute for Human Security and Social Change and a Lecturer in the Department of Social Inquiry at La Trobe University, as well as an international development consultant. His research looks at youth livelihoods and adaptive development practices in the Pacific islands region.

David Hudson

David Hudson is Professor of Politics and Development at the University of Birmingham and Director of the Developmental Leadership Program (DLP) and Co-Director of the Development Engagement Lab (DEL). He has written widely on the politics of development, in particular on the role of coalitions, leadership and power in reform processes and how development actors can think and work politically; the drivers of global migration, finance and trade and how these processes shape national development; and how people in rich countries engage with global development issues.