The Work Plan

Stating the Problem: foreign aid (WB, IMF, USAID, etc) and large NGO's top-down/trickle down decision making affects and consequences on people or areas they 'help'

looking at:
voice of the people
role of foreign gov't interests
role of host gov't (corruption/ineffective bureaucracy)
top down/trickle down concepts (use of outside "experts" vs grassroots effort)
success/failure and the history of aid donation
economic effects/strings attached or conditionality
alternatives-bottom up approaches, priority of the people, community based
statistics: money spent vs current situation (success, collapse, stagnation)
case studies or livelihood data: "Life and Death"

Relevant disciplines to my Interdisciplinary research:

- history: look at past aid donations and affects they have had on economy, social aspects, politics, culture

-political science- role role do politics play, domestic and foreign, how does it affect politics?

-Economics- how does aid effect development, trickle down/top down decision making look at alternatives to mainstream economics and critiques ofneoliberal approaches

-sociology- how social relationships are affected, culture, traditions, collective movements, etc

Beginning of Literary Research:

-The White Man's Burden by William Easterly
-Friction by Anna Tsing (maybe)
-Theories and Practices of Development by Katie Willis
-Mountains beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder
-The Sweat of their Brow by McCreery
-Anti-Capitalism by Tormey (maybe)
-African Renaissance in the New Millennium by Udogu

with more work to come