Food security and the politics of development partnership: A case of the world bank-assisted FADAMA III in Nigeria
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Date
2018
Authors
Orievulu, Kingsley Stephen
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Abstract
This dissertation lies at the intersection of global governance scholarship and the emerging
paradigms of development partnership and development ownership as experimental modalities.
It mounts a solid critique of the various implications, for African agency, of the conceptual,
institutional and policy dimensions of these paradigms both in their reproduction of common
mechanisms of economic and political dependency and disciplining, and their actualization of
a number of new normativities through the implementation of ever-changing development
frameworks. In this sense, this study contributes and further extends scholarship on the nature
of governance from a supranational perspective especially as it pertains to the dynamics of
power relations as they persist in donor-led development interventions in Africa- whether
aimed at food security, poverty reduction and or grassroots empowerment.
The dissertation uses a case study approach to examine important power relations underlying
development interventions and the dynamics of 'partnership' that frame external intervention
in the area of food security in developing countries in general and Africa in particular. It applies
a neo-Gramscian world order hegemonic approach and a neo-Foucauldian governmentality
approach to interrogate the nature of institutional power dynamics between multilateral donors
such as the World Bank and African aid-dependent countries such as Nigeria. This relates to
the conceptualisation and implementation of the National Fadama Development Programme
(NFDP) in Nigeria. The dissertation also critiques the adoption of participatory development
models in the implementation of the Fadama project at two levels. Firstly, as it pertains to the
extent to which local targets of this project were integrated into the conceptualisation and
implementation; and secondly the philosophy behind the adoption of these models and
discourses - which is the entrenchment of the mainstream neo-liberal economic rationality
within the local/rural economy. The findings in this dissertation draw on qualitative data from
policy documents from government and external institutions, newspaper articles, nonparticipant
observation and in-depth and semi-structured interviews with representatives of the
World Bank, the Fadama project and local beneficiaries of the Fadama project in Rivers state.
The findings point to entrenched institutional or macro-level power imbalance between
multilateral donors and African aid-dependent countries. Beyond institutional level, the study's
findings also suggest a flawed implementation of the Fadama project relative to the stated
principles of inclusive development, especially when weighed against theories of participation.
Description
A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of
Witwatersrand (Johannesburg), in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Development
Studies and International Relations
Keywords
Food Security--Nigeria, Community development -- Nigeria, Agricultural Development--Rivers state--Nigeria, Fadama III--Nigeria