C9059 - ATTORI E STRATEGIE DELLA COOPERAZIONE INTERNAZIONALE

Learning outcomes

Through a historical aproach, the course provides a systematic understanding of the actors of international cooperation and of the strategies through which they plan, finance and implement interventions in development, crisis and transition contexts.

By the end of the course, students will be able to: a) map actors in a given context, distinguishing their mandates, incentives and capacities; b) compare and justify strategic choices in relation to objectives, risks and constraints; c) design partnership and governance architectures consistent with criteria of effectiveness and accountability; d) interpret calls for proposals, country strategies and programming frameworks in order to align actors, resources and expected results.

Course contents

The course analyses international cooperation through its actors: who decides, who funds, who implements, who coordinates, who evaluates and who is held accountable for results. The aim is to provide students with tools to understand the institutional, political and organisational structure of the international cooperation system, distinguishing the mandates, sources of legitimacy, financial resources, operational instruments, bureaucratic incentives and political constraints of its main actors.

The course builds on the formative background provided by Issues of Development in the Global South, which introduces students to the historical, political and theoretical debates on development. In contrast, Actors and Strategies of International Cooperation shifts the focus from general development debates to the mapping of the international cooperation field: its organisations, bureaucracies, donors, partnership networks, coordination mechanisms and accountability structures. The course also provides an analytical basis for the Laboratory on Project Analysis in International Cooperation, which represents the subsequent applied space where students will work on cases, projects and organisations, also through group activities and interaction with experts and practitioners.

The course is structured into three parts.

Part I – The field of international cooperation: genealogy, architectures and categories of actors

The first part introduces international cooperation as an institutional, political and organisational field. After a brief historical reconstruction from the post-war period to the 2030 Agenda, it examines the main transformations of the aid architecture: from bilateral and multilateral cooperation to South-South and triangular cooperation; from the aid effectiveness agenda to global partnerships; and from the distinction between development and emergency to the humanitarian-development-peace nexus.

This part aims to provide students with a basic understanding of international cooperation actors: mandates, resources, incentives, instruments, accountability, operational capacities and power relations.

Part II – Families of actors: mandates, resources, instruments and organisational models

The second part is the core of the course and provides a comparative analysis of the main groups of international cooperation actors. It will examine bilateral donors and development agencies; Italian cooperation, with particular attention to MAECI, AICS, CDP, local authorities and civil society organisations; the European Union, the Commission, DG INTPA, DG ECHO, DG NEAR, EU Delegations and Team Europe; the United Nations system; multilateral development banks; vertical funds and global partnerships; humanitarian organisations; international and local NGOs; philanthropic foundations; the private sector, contractors and blended finance; cities, regions, diaspora networks and decentralised cooperation; and actors involved in South-South and triangular cooperation.

For each group of actors, the course will discuss institutional history, mandate, funding sources, geographical and sectoral priorities, operational instruments, accountability mechanisms, visibility strategies, partnership modalities and main criticisms.

Part III – Seminars on strategies, partnerships and coordination arenas

The third part will have a seminar format. Students, organised in groups, will present and discuss scientific readings and documents produced by international cooperation actors. Seminars will focus on how actors build intervention strategies, select geographical and sectoral priorities, access resources, produce programming documents, define partnerships and position themselves within multi-level governance architectures.

Country strategies, calls for proposals, programming documents, partnership frameworks, annual reports, evaluation reports and policy documents will be analysed not as technical project-design exercises, but as sources for understanding the institutional and strategic logics of actors: which priorities they select, which problems they make visible, which partnerships they incentivise, which accountability criteria they adopt, and which actors they include or exclude.

The course will also address cross-cutting themes such as localisation, decolonising aid, coordination in fragile contexts, the humanitarian-development-peace nexus, accountability to affected populations, asymmetries in partnerships and contemporary transformations of the international cooperation system.

Readings/Bibliography

The bibliography combines reference texts, scientific articles and primary documents produced by agencies, donors and international organisations.

Reference text:

Chaturvedi, S., Janus, H., Klingebiel, S., Li, X., de Mello e Souza, A., Sidiropoulos, E. and Wehrmann, D. eds. (2021), The Palgrave Handbook of Development Cooperation for Achieving the 2030 Agenda: Contested Collaboration, Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

Compulsory and recommended readings will be selected from:

Lancaster, C. (2007), Foreign Aid: Diplomacy, Development, Domestic Politics, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

de Haan, A. (2009), How the Aid Industry Works: An Introduction to International Development, Sterling: Kumarian Press.

Barnett, M. (2011), Empire of Humanity: A History of Humanitarianism, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Lewis, D. and Kanji, N. (2009), Non-Governmental Organizations and Development, London: Routledge.

Mawdsley, E. (2012), From Recipients to Donors: Emerging Powers and the Changing Development Landscape, London: Zed Books.

The course will also use primary documents and operational materials produced by MAECI/AICS, the European Commission, OECD-DAC, the United Nations, the World Bank, OCHA, IASC, humanitarian organisations, major international NGOs, foundations and decentralised cooperation networks. These materials may include country strategies, calls for proposals, annual reports, evaluation reports, programming documents and partnership frameworks.

The final bibliography, including compulsory readings for each module and seminar presentations, will be made available on Virtuale at the beginning of the course.

Teaching methods

The course includes lectures, seminar discussions of scientific articles, guided analysis of institutional documents and actor-mapping exercises. The three-part structure allows students to move progressively from the reconstruction of the international cooperation field, to the comparative analysis of the main families of actors, and finally to the seminar-based study of strategies, partnerships and coordination arenas.

In the first part, classes will be mainly introductory and conceptual. In the second part, lectures will be combined with case analysis focused on specific families of actors. In the third part, the course will adopt a seminar format: groups of students will present scientific readings and documents produced by international cooperation actors, encouraging collective discussion in class.

Seminar activities will not aim at writing a full project proposal, but at analysing the organisational and strategic logics of international cooperation actors. Students will be guided in the reading of country strategies, calls for proposals, annual reports, programming documents, institutional organigrams, partnership frameworks and evaluation reports.

The course prepares students for the subsequent applied work of the Laboratory on Project Analysis in International Cooperation, which may be structured as group work on real cases, projects and organisations, also through the involvement of international cooperation experts and practitioners.

Assessment methods

Assessment will consist of a final written exam administered through the EOL – Esami OnLine platform.

The exam will last 90 minutes and will include three open-ended questions, each referring to one of the three parts of the course. 

The exam aims to assess students’ ability to understand and compare international cooperation actors, reconstruct their mandates, resources, constraints and strategies, interpret programming documents and critically analyse partnership and governance architectures.

Assessment will consider students’ ability to use the concepts of international cooperation correctly; distinguish mandates, incentives and constraints of different actors; compare institutional strategies; interpret programming documents; recognise asymmetries and power relations within partnerships; and argue clearly, critically and autonomously.

For attending students, participation in the seminar activities of the third part of the course may support preparation for the final exam, but it does not replace the written exam.

GRADING SCALE FOR THE FINAL MARK:

Ability to analyze that emerges only with the help of the teacher, generally correct language expression → 18-19;

Ability to analyze independently, correct language expression → 20-24;

Ability to conduct critical analysis, mastery of specific terminology → 25-29;

Ability to conduct critical and interconnected analysis, full mastery of specific terminology, and ability to argue and self-reflect → 30-30L.

GUIDELINES ON THE USE OF GENERATIVE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)

AI can be a useful tool to support individual study through further exploration, summaries, and self-assessment activities. As regards assessment, the use of AI is prohibited during in-person exams. Any use of AI constitutes a violation of academic integrity.

STUDENTS WITH SPECIFIC LEARNING DISORDERS (SLD) OR TEMPORARY OR PERMANENT DISABILITIES

Students are advised to contact the relevant University office in good time (https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en). The office will propose any necessary accommodations to the students concerned; these must in any case be submitted to the lecturer for approval at least 15 days in advance. The lecturer will assess their appropriateness also in relation to the learning outcomes of the course.

Teaching tools

Virtuale, slides, scientific articles, official documents, country strategies, calls for proposals, annual reports, evaluation reports, videos, podcasts, datasets and institutional portals will be used. Working sources and tools will include OECD-DAC, IATI, AidData, MAECI/AICS, the European Commission, EU International Partnerships, DG ECHO, the United Nations, UNDP, OCHA, ReliefWeb, the World Bank, vertical funds, major international NGOs, philanthropic foundations and decentralised cooperation networks.

Templates and analytical grids will also be provided for actor mapping, mandate analysis, country strategy analysis, organisational comparison and the reconstruction of partnership architectures.

Office hours

See the website of Davide Chinigò