Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

The year 2016 has been a critical year of reflection for the international development community. With over ten years since the introduction of the OECD Paris Declaration of Aid-Effectiveness, a reconceptualization of the established core principles, such as “ownership” and “mutual accountability,” is warranted. Similarly, with the newly derived Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the post-2015 development planning and implementation presents a crucial time to evaluate the policies and frameworks. Arguably, the SDGs offer a new framework for measuring development progress towards more attainable objectives, emphasizing social inclusion, environmental sustainability, and economic development (Sachs, 2015). Though great strides have been achieved, the debate continues on the relevance of the SDGs and overall effectiveness of external development assistance programs.

This study aims to contribute to the “social inclusion” factor of the SDG framework, and the relationships among key players in aid networks as significant indicators of aid-impact. Assessing how influence and power are embedded within development intervention structures can provide crucial insights about their outcomes. Greater social complexity is evident in fragile and conflict-affected regions like Afghanistan and Pakistan. Establishing development programs based on their unique provincial socio-cultural contexts and collective involvement of local partners has been a challenging venture.

Applying an integrated conceptual framework of social capital and social network analysis (SNA), this paper illustrates the inter-organizational relationships of two prominent rural development interventions: The Afghanistan National Solidarity Program and Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) Rural Livelihoods and Community Infrastructure Program. Both programs aim to build social capital, allowing for alternative evaluation methods, unique to this objective. This exploratory analysis examines the whole-network structures of these programs and how these structures challenge the objectives of Community Driven Development (CDD) initiatives, which aim to create sustainable solutions through community managed processes.

SNA reveals the whole network metrics of power, influence, dependency and social cohesion. The resulting visualizations depict core-peripheral social structures, hierarchical clustering, alongside measures of high centralization and low cohesion. This supports conclusions from the aid-effectiveness literature implying that the inherent organizational social structure may inhibit local actors from acquiring the necessary influence and power for sustainable, locally-owned processes and outcomes. Sustainability, through inclusive and participatory development initiatives, will require rethinking the relational orientation of aid-interventions.

Analyzing the non-linear, interdependent nature of exchanges among heterogeneous actors allows for a distinct approach to impact evaluations throughout the duration of programs and upon closeout, an emerging approach and paradigm shift from traditional development studies. As both programs expand to the next phase, this analysis will add value to the ‘lessons-learned’ in the evaluations, potentially translatable to similar local contexts. Examining the structural properties of development assistance will enable improvement of intervening structures to best meet the needs of beneficiaries, for enhancing local empowerment and social capital, central to the democratic state-building agenda in Afghanistan and Pakistan.