Aid, Ownership and Development : The Inverse Sovereignty Effect in the Pacific Islands

One of the key principles for effective aid programmes is that recipient agencies exert high degrees of ownership over the agendas, resources, systems and outcomes of aid activities. Sovereign recipient states should lead the process of development. Yet despite this well-recognised principle, the realities of aid delivery mean that ownership is often compromised in practice.

examines this ‘inverse sovereignty’ hypothesis with regard to the states and territories of the Pacific Island region. It provides an initial overview of different aid ‘regimes’ over time, maps aid flows in the region, and analyses the concept of sovereignty. Drawing on a rich range of primary research by the authors and contributors, it focuses on the agencies and individuals within the Pacific Islands who administer and apply aid projects and programmes. There is indeed evidence for the inverse sovereignty effect; particularly when island states and their small and stretched bureaucracies have to deal with complex and burdensome donor reporting requirements, management systems, consultative meetings and differing strategic priorities. This book outlines important ways in which Pacific agencies have proved adept not only at meeting these requirements, but also asserting their own priorities and ways of operating. It concludes that global agreements, such as the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness in 2005 and the recently launched Sustainable Development Goals, can be effective means for Pacific agencies to both hold donors to account and also to recognise and exercise their own sovereignty.