This book investigates the uneasy coexistence of two current policy pathways within international development: to monetize aid and simultaneously to localize it.It explores these paths through the experiences of the development experts who are treading them, notably those who hail from aid recipient countries, and those who engage with for-profit instruments and institutions. In focus are the institutional realms of consulting firms, development finance institutions and foreign state aid agencies involved in both for-and non-profit work. Based on over 100 interviews with development practitioners from Kenya, Tanzania and Sweden, as well as a range of other OECD-DAC countries, the book inquires into these professionals’ everyday work, voice and authority, employment terms, career trajectories, moral convictions and professional drivers. It synthesizes these empirical findings with a rich collection of internal aid documentation that rarely reaches public eye. Together, these inquiries offer a multi-layered exploration of capitalism, poverty alleviation and global North–South inequalities within contemporary foreign aid. Addressing fundamental shifts within global development, this book will be an important read for researchers and students within qualitative social scientific studies of global development and international aid.Written accessibly and to the point, the book also highlights possibilities for change which would be relevant for public and private sector development practitioners and policymakers.

This book explores the state in post-genocide Rwanda through an ethnography of a state-run civic education program and everyday forms of government. In 2007, the Rwandan government introduced a nationwide civic education program, called Itorero, to teach all inhabitants about its vision of the model Rwandan citizen. Since then, this ideal has been pursued through remote training camps, village assemblies, and daily government practices. Based on ethnographic research of the life and workings of Itorero camps and the day-to-day administration of a local neighborhood in Kigali, this book investigates how such a pursuit has come to affect Rwandans’ relation to the state and what it may tell us about modern forms of authoritarian rule.

This book investigates the uneasy coexistence of two current policy pathways within international development: to monetize aid and simultaneously to localize it.It explores these paths through the experiences of the development experts who are treading them, notably those who hail from aid recipient countries, and those who engage with for-profit instruments and institutions. In focus are the institutional realms of consulting firms, development finance institutions and foreign state aid agencies involved in both for-and non-profit work. Based on over 100 interviews with development practitioners from Kenya, Tanzania and Sweden, as well as a range of other OECD-DAC countries, the book inquires into these professionals’ everyday work, voice and authority, employment terms, career trajectories, moral convictions and professional drivers. It synthesizes these empirical findings with a rich collection of internal aid documentation that rarely reaches public eye. Together, these inquiries offer a multi-layered exploration of capitalism, poverty alleviation and global North–South inequalities within contemporary foreign aid. Addressing fundamental shifts within global development, this book will be an important read for researchers and students within qualitative social scientific studies of global development and international aid.Written accessibly and to the point, the book also highlights possibilities for change which would be relevant for public and private sector development practitioners and policymakers.

This book explores the state in post-genocide Rwanda through an ethnography of a state-run civic education program and everyday forms of government. In 2007, the Rwandan government introduced a nationwide civic education program, called Itorero, to teach all inhabitants about its vision of the model Rwandan citizen. Since then, this ideal has been pursued through remote training camps, village assemblies, and daily government practices. Based on ethnographic research of the life and workings of Itorero camps and the day-to-day administration of a local neighborhood in Kigali, this book investigates how such a pursuit has come to affect Rwandans’ relation to the state and what it may tell us about modern forms of authoritarian rule.