Global partnerships on paper and in practice: Critical observations from inside a Global Challenge Research Fund capacity-development project

Axelby, Richard; Worku-Dix, Beth; Crewe, Emma

Abstract

This article describes the bureaucratic processes required to establish and manage a single international capacity-development project that brought together a funding council (AHRC), UK University (SOAS University of London) and universities and other research organisations in Myanmar and Ethiopia. Drawing from ethnographic critiques of the planning and audit practices employed in international development and in the UK University sector, we track the formal certification of partnership as enacted through due diligence and contracts, budgets and timeframes, and reconciliations and reporting. These practices point to pervasive assumptions about capacity transfer and the unequal basis of international research coalitions spanning the Global North and Global South. In this article, we challenge these assumptions by documenting how the allocation of capacity is constrained in hierarchies of time and space. For equitable partnership arrangements to be achieved, we recommend that capacity development be considered a long-term exchange that flows from mutual reflection and learning from one another.

Citation

Axelby, R., Worku-Dix, B., & Crewe, E. (2022). Global partnerships on paper and in practice: Critical observations from inside a Global Challenge Research Fund capacity-development project. Journal of International Development, 34(8), 1496-1508. https://doi.org/10.1002/jid.3649

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 11, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Mar 16, 2022
• Publication Date: Nov 1, 2022
• Deposit Date: Mar 21, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 21, 2022
• Journal: Journal of International Development
• Print ISSN: 0954-1748
• Electronic ISSN: 1099-1328
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 34
• Issue: 8
• Pages: 1496-1508
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/jid.3649
• Keywords: Partnership, research coalition
• Publisher URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jid.3649
• Additional Information: Data Access Statement : The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.