Development agencies of the future: The limits of adaptation
| Author | Adam Moe Fejerskov,Erik Lundsgaarde |
| Date | 01 December 2018 |
| Published date | 01 December 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.1841 |
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Development agencies of the future: The limits of adaptation
Erik Lundsgaarde |Adam Moe Fejerskov
Danish Institute for International Studies,
Copenhagen, Denmark
Correspondence
Erik Lundsgaarde, Danish Institute for
International Studies, Østbanegade 117, DK‐
2100 Copenhagen, Denmark.
Email: erlu@diis.dk
Summary
The analysis of the future of development agencies commonly adopts a view that the
adaptability of agencies to a set of external challenges in the global development land-
scape determines their fitness for the future. This article offers alternative entry
points for reflections on the future role of development agencies in managing global
challenges. It argues that recent analysis focusing on agency adaptation has two key
limitations. First, it does not adequately account for the existing diversity of organiza-
tional forms and the differences in the functions that development agencies assume.
Second, it does not acknowledge that agency adaptation can reflect organizational
dynamics involving the pursuit of sustained legitimacy rather than a rational response
to external challenges. As a consequence, agencies encouraged to change in order to
maintain relevance may extend their engagement to areas where they lack expertise,
implying a tradeoff between organizational adaptation and effectiveness. The article
concludes that further analysis of possible trajectories for development agencies
should emphasize the place of organizations within a domestic and international divi-
sion of labor and the varied strengths of current organizational alternatives to orient
future decisions on how to invest in the infrastructure for global cooperation.
KEYWORDS
aid effectiveness, bureaucracy, development agencies,development aid, future of development
cooperation, organizational change
1|INTRODUCTION
Within the global development community, the question of how
development agencies—governmental organizations for which the
management of resource flows to developing countries is a core
mandate—should adapt to maintain their relevance and effectiveness
in an increasingly complex operating environment has accompanied
analyses of the evolving global development context. Commonly cited
shifts in the development cooperation landscape relate to the
changing geography of poverty in the Global South, an expanding
issue agenda reflecting growing attention to the relationship between
climate and development goals, and the continued proliferation of
actors and instruments in development financing (Janus, Klingebiel,
& Paulo, 2015; Kharas & Rogerson, 2012; Puppim de Oliviera, Jing,
& Collins, 2015; Severino & Ray, 2010). In response to these changes,
a growing body of analytical work has sought to identify future
priority areas for development agency engagement, options for
organizational reform, and adaptation constraints (Gavas, Gulrajani, &
Hart, 2015; Gulrajani, 2015). Simultaneously, political efforts such as
the high level forums for aid and development effectiveness have
proposed guidelines to encourage agencies to maintain commitments
to effective development cooperation practices.
In this article, we contribute to discussions on the future of
development agencies by emphasizing the need for greater attention
to the place of agencies within a domestic and international division
of labor. We bring together the literature on aid management with
that of the sociology of organizations to argue that development
agencies will follow different trajectories in adapting to both internal
and external challenges and that strengthening the individual
effectiveness of agencies is no guarantee for the effectiveness of
global development as a collective endeavor if a variety of organiza-
tions pursue similar and sometimes overlapping action. The article
emphasizes that the analysis of the future direction for development
agencies should acknowledge both the rationales for agency existence
Received: 10 March 2017 Revised: 27 July 2018 Accepted: 20 September 2018
DOI: 10.1002/pad.1841
Public Admin Dev. 2018;38:169–178. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pad 169
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