Assignment 3: Strategy & Policy analysis
Aid programs and project takes place in a policy context, guided by policies/strategies on different levels and different sectors. In this assignment you should do a brief policy analysis, with the Swedish country strategy to Tanzania as an example. It could be any country, but the principles are the same even if the context are different. Most development aid organisations has been using various forms of result based management strategies. Among them, Sida changed its working modalities with regard to strategies for bilateral development cooperation around 2015 to result based strategies. A change has now been done to more flexible strategy. The strategies have been renamed from ”result strategy’ to Strategy for Sweden’s development cooperation with Tanzania (See also UNDG 2012 and DFID 2014a; DFID 2014b in the folder with reading material). These strategies in turn are guided /informed by overarching policies in various forms. To make it simple, you should use the sector “Strategy for Sweden’s development cooperation in the areas of human rights, democracy and the rule of law 2018–2022” and compare that with the two strategies, as well as with the overall strategy “Policy for global development in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda” Government Communication 2017/18:146 (you need only to look at the relevant sections)
So your task is to analyse both the current (2021-2024) and the previous strategy (2014-2019/20) for Tanzania well as the Swedish government’s policies for Human Rights, democracy and rule of law – and the overall policy for Global Development. The analysis should be made based on the perspective on policy processes in Hill and Varone’s book, as well as the “handbooks” in the reading folder (Sida 2004, UNDG 2012 – or similar texts like DFID 2014; as well as critical literature) You chose the angle of the analysis yourself but you should, if you aspire for higher grades, use at least one theory from Hill’s book in the analysis. Some questions (for starters, identify your own questions) (The policies are available in the folder for the assignment Government Communication 2017/18:146 on MyMoodle. As well on https://www.government.se/legal-documents/2018/03/policy-for-global-development-in-the-implementation-of-the-2030-agenda/.
- What is the main difference between the strategies (including the guidelines)? Does the change reflect that the political space is shrinking in Tanzania, like in many other countries? Do you think the new strategy is acceptable in the new context of shrinking political space – or should countries like Sweden withdraw or do other things?
- Are the policies/strategies on the three levels coherent? Can you see any goal conflicts? How well do they align to ownership and sustainable development (not environment)
- Which theoretical approach to policy processes can help you understand or critically analyse the strategies separately as well as the change in strategy?
- How is evaluation facilitated by each strategy (see evaluation of policy above)?
- How do you think that the working modalities as well as formulation of the strategies affect different stakeholders within the bilateral development cooperation?
- What are the strengths and weaknesses with a result based management strategy? (Here you can bring thoughts from e.g., Theory of Change/Outcome mapping and Vähänmäki et al, & Eyben etc)
The texts shall follow normal scientific patterns in terms of references (preferably Harvard system).
Some general information about Sweden’s aid portfolio in Tanzania can be found at https://www.sida.se/English/where-we-work/Africa/Tanzania/Our-work-in-Tanzania/