The success of building self-reliant states is directly tied to the effective management of complex development partnerships. ISE’s work on development and foreign aid focuses on how those partnerships can be maximized, taking into account lessons from past cases. ISE’s work draws on the experiences of practitioners in the field as well as policy experts to redefine development partnerships that build capacity, leverage existing assets, foster context-specific policies, and support country-led strategies. Additionally, our Development Practice Note series presents new and innovative practitioner-focused ideas across a variety of fields in development.
Over the past twenty years, the international community has agreed again and again that traditional aid effectiveness practices – which often drain local capacity, fragment projects, and spurn national strategies – are not working, but have made little progress at improvements. ISE’s Re-examining the Terms of Aid (RTOA) project is reviewing components to develop an operating model to more effectively implement these commitments. ISE is taking stock of its own experience and research, conducting interviews in Rwanda, Colombia, Afghanistan, and Somalia, along with engaging host governments, donor agencies, civil society, and the security sector to examine best practices, analyze incentive structures, and bridge the gap between country-level implementation and international frameworks. Read the full report here.
The goal of development in fragile states is well established: to help forge pathways out of fragility towards self-reliance and to deliver inclusive and sustainable social, economic, and security outcomes for citizens. The way to…
Rooted in its experience and expertise in state institutions, ISE has developed asset maps as a reframed perspective in which a country’s assets and opportunities are recognized as tools of progress, not static demonstrations of…
Afghanistan’s Citizens’ Charter program is national in scope, which means that the core model of facilitation must be able to adapt to a tremendously broad range of socioeconomic environments. This is particularly important as the…
In the allocation of scarce public resources, good budgeting is an art and a skill. It is a core function of government, and as such, it is fundamentally a political process with many competing objectives.…
The conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Libya have caused untold levels of damage, resulted in significant loss of life, decimated the physical assets of the countries, and ripped apart social fabrics. Under the most…