Examining Sustainability in Development Assistance Projects: How Useful Is Sociological Institution Theory?

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  • 開発援助プロジェクトとサステイナビリティ
  • 開発援助プロジェクトとサステイナビリティ : 社会学的制度論からのサステイナビリティの検討
  • カイハツ エンジョ プロジェクト ト サステイナビリティ : シャカイガクテキ セイドロン カラ ノ サステイナビリティ ノ ケントウ
  • ―社会学的制度論からのサステイナビリティの検討―

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Abstract

<p>This paper has two objectives. Firstly, it scrutinizes the concept of sustainability, which has been popularized in Japan's development assistance projects, notably those aimed at institution-building, in a sociological light. Secondly, it establishes a three-tier typology of sustainability, which is sensitive to the logics displayed by both policymakers and practitioners who are the “architects” of development projects and grassroots actors.</p><p>In the circle of development assistance, sustainability is used as a benchmark for evaluating whether the benefits of project-induced activities are likely to continue after the withdrawal of the donor agency. Against this backdrop, this paper proposes that the meaning of sustainability differs depending on the positionality of the researcher; namely, whether s/he stands on the side of the system that implements the project or of grassroots actors who constitute the target of the project. In this respect, the key issue surrounding sustainability is the potential of development assistance to generate external interventional components and enable developing countries to fully manifest their capacity to cope with their own problems. With this point in mind, it elaborates the notion of sustainability in terms of its targets and ends as well as forms it might take, especially in the course of institution-building. Drawing on the findings of a field survey conducted as part of the Sulawesi Poverty Alleviation Project (SPAP) in Indonesia, the paper reappraises sustainability, one of the five conventional evaluation benchmarks, in the light of sociological system theory. It then builds a sociological framework of sustainability that is of relevance to an analysis of institution-building. The paper considers the SPAP as a successful model of social development as it has improved the administrative ability and encouraged citizen participation that are crucial to capacity development at the local level.</p><p>The paper concludes by suggesting three types of sustainability on the basis of the insights gained from the case study. They are: (1) independent evolvability, i.e. strong innovation as a result of the actor's engagement in the institution, which in turn keeps the institution in the state of equilibrium within the system; (2) institutional sustainability, i.e. high stability of the institution as a result of the weak innovation forged by the actor making use of the institution; and (3) creative destruction, i.e. an unstable institution as a result of the strong innovation forged by the actor.</p>

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