Tom De Herdt

Aid as an encounter at the interface: the complexity of the global fight against poverty

International development discourse has recently shifted its focus from top‐down economic adjustment to participative anti‐poverty policy. This shift hints at an acknowledgement of the local complexities within the poverty process and at a need to listen to and develop actions with the ‘poor’. But, whereas the mainstream argument remains couched in a technical framework, we argue that the fight against poverty is inevitably political. Conceptualising the aid industry as a set of global–local interfaces, it follows that a closer look at ‘participation’ in anti‐poverty interventions is needed to come to grips with the political issues involved. Four issues are discussed: the complexity of local ‘participation’, given the ‘polycephalous’ character of third world societies; the power biases in the aid chain; the potential problem of ‘false consciousness’; and the ambiguities of the role of local development brokers. We conclude that anti‐poverty policy is in need of ‘interface experts’, who, through ‘provocation’ can beget ‘participation’.

Democracy & the money machine in Zaire

Whether or not Mitterands famous thesis that ‘there can be no democracy without development and no development without democracy‘1is correct, Zaire during the 1990s was a clear case demonstrating the absence of a close relationship between development and democratisation. On the contrary, the announcement that political leaders might be facing electoral defeat could be considered as one of the most important background elements determining the climate of sauve qui peutduring the early 1990s. The dynamics of such an end‐game situation are well‐known in the literature on experimental game theory: only the most stubborn or naive actors will still abstain from using all the means at their disposal to maximise their short‐term interests. We document this situation by studying Zaires monetary politics during the early 1990s. First, we describe the most impressive phenomena creating the monetary landscape: hyperinflation, monetary games, a fake monetary reform and counterfeit money. We then analyse these phenomena in connection with the dynamics of the political arena of the period and, in particular, the prospect of democratisation.Whether or not Mitterands famous thesis that ‘there can be no democracy without development and no development without democracy‘-super-1is correct, Zaire during the 1990s was a clear case demonstrating the absence of a close relationship between development and democratisation. On the contrary, the announcement that political leaders might be facing electoral defeat could be considered as one of the most important background elements determining the climate of sauve qui peut during the early 1990s. The dynamics of such an end‐game situation are well‐known in the literature on experimental game theory: only the most stubborn or naive actors will still abstain from using all the means at their disposal to maximise their short‐term interests. We document this situation by studying Zaires monetary politics during the early 1990s. First, we describe the most impressive phenomena creating the monetary landscape: hyperinflation, monetary games, a fake monetary reform and counterfeit money. We then analyse these phenomena in connection with the dynamics of the political arena of the period and, in particular, the prospect of democratisation.

Make Schools, Not War? Donors' Rewriting of the Social Contract in the DRC

The school being one of the most important ‘faces’ of the state at the local level in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, investment in education can play an important role in reconstructing the social contract between the population and the state after violent conflict. However, this is particularly difficult since the state has largely retreated from the education sector since the 1980s, and education is now organised through public‐private partnerships with religious networks. Moreover, schools have been turned into tax units, in response to the retreat of the state and the declining wages of school administrators. This has had a clear effect on donor interventions, which, instead of changing the current system, have become part of existing configurations and led to an expansion of the current system.

Social protection in health: the need for a transformative dimension

1 Research Centre for Longitudinal and Life Course Studies, University of Antwerp, Belgium2 Unit of Health Policy and Financing, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium3 Institute of Public Health, Bangaluru, India4 Institute of Development Policy and Management, University of Antwerp, Belgium5 Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp, Belgium

Against all odds: Coping with regress in Kinshasa, Zaire

Drawing on a field-survey carried out in the city of Kinshasa, the authors aimed to gain more insight into the (re)-activation of solidarity networks in times of economic crisis. Solidarity networks, it is argued, have a differential impact on socio-professional groups and hence one should be very cautious about making ‘general’ statements on their (dys)functional character. Hence, it remains unclear whether the overall informalisation of Kinshasas economic structure can explain the fact that in the midst of overall regress in Zaire, the inhabitants of its capital city seem to have been able to consolidate their position.

Capabilities in Place: Locating Poverty and Affluence in Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of the Congo)

Abstract We argue that the capability approach can be very helpful in exploring the links between poverty and place, thereby providing a more accurate understanding of poverty processes. We demonstrate how Sen’s list of ‘conversion factors’ allows one to incorporate but also to go beyond the usual description of the connection between place and well‐being in terms of physical and social infrastructure. More in particular, we give emphasis on the role of place in the conversion of doings into earnings. We then apply the theoretical argument to a representative sample of households in Kinshasa. Although monetary indicators of well‐being and poverty indicate a downward levelling of different regions of the capital city that have been historically quite different, an exploration of the different sources of parametric variation suggests that place does continue to have a significant impact on well‐being.

The reinvention of the market from below: the end of the women's money changing monopoly in Kinshasa

Zaires transition to the Third Republic (1990–1997) was characterised by the decline of the national currency and the economys partial dollarisation. This article describes the origins of the different types of cambistes(informal money exchange brokers). It argues that the evolution of the market of foreign currency is not only determined by changes in economic opportunities, but also by different kinds of social identity the cambisteshave adopted. More generally, insight is gained into the social re‐structuration of the market in an almost stateless society.

Economic Action and Social Structure: 'Cambisme' in Kinshasa

In the recent literature on institutions and social capital, there has been a renewed emphasis on the importance of social structure in explaining the performance of economic markets. Approaches to how this ‘social structure’ is conceived differ widely, however. This article examines the social structure and partitioning of the market in foreign currency in Kinshasa, based on fieldwork in the mid–1990s, and finds remarkable similarities with Geertz’s seminal paper on the functioning of peasant markets and his description of the bazaar economy in Sefrou. The case study is also instructive as it highlights the day–to–day reality of hyperinflation and monetary chaos.

Aide d'urgence et notions locales d'équité: Analyse d'un programme d'aide nutritionnelle comme une interface sociale

ABSTRACT In order to better understand the dynamics involved in emergency food aid programs, this paper analyzes the case of Kinshasa (1992–1995). The interaction between local health personnel engaged in the programme and the—potential, legitimate, and unintended—beneficiaries of the aid is central to this paper. The classical concepts of moral hazard and adverse selection, often cited in the current literature on target poverty programs, only partly capture the reality of the situation on the ground. An intervention such as a food aid program should be judged on its capacity to open up spaces of action and negotiation to actors who traditionally occupy only marginal places in them.ABSTRACT In order to better understand the dynamics involved in emergency food aid programs, this paper analyzes the case of Kinshasa (1992–1995). The interaction between local health personnel engaged in the programme and the—potential, legitimate, and unintended—beneficiaries of the aid is central to this paper. The classical concepts of moral hazard and adverse selection, often cited in the current literature on target poverty programs, only partly capture the reality of the situation on the ground. An intervention such as a food aid program should be judged on its capacity to open up spaces of action and negotiation to actors who traditionally occupy only marginal places in them.

Reliable, challenging or misleading? A qualitative account of the most recent national surveys and country statistics in the DRC

Abstract This paper presents a comprehensive assessment of the national information architecture in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) between 1970 and 2010. In general, “the numbers” can be qualified as poorly reliable, though an important distinction should be made between aggregate country statistics and microlevel survey data. Whereas the latter inherently contain the purer and less manipulated pieces of information, the former have proven to be the result of an obscure blend of aggregation, estimation, permutation and negotiation, often with a weak informational basis. By contrast, survey data in the DRC are intrinsically of good quality and collected increasingly, although too many concerns remain about the poor accessibility of primary datasets, the fragmented metadata and the problematic sampling base to claim representativeness.