Cooperation, Complexity and Adaptation: Higher Education capacity initiatives in international development assistance programmes in sub-Saharan Africa. Peter McEvoy. B.A., M.Sc. Econ. Thesis submitted for the award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) by Dublin City University Dublin City University Business School (DCUBS) Supervisors: Professor Ronaldo Munck and Dr Malcolm Brady January 2018 Declaration I hereby certify that this material, which I now submit for assessment on the programme of study leading to the award of PhD is entirely my own work, that I have exercised reasonable care to ensure that the work is original, and does not to the best of my knowledge breach any law of copyright, and has not been taken from the work of others save and to the extent that such work has been cited and acknowledged within the text of my work. Signed: Peter McEvoy. ID No: 12210024 Date: 8th January 2018. ii Et velle et perficere Not only to nurture aspirations but to bring them to fruition iii Table of Contents Table of Contents ................................................................................................................. iv List of Figures ...................................................................................................................... viii List of Tables ........................................................................................................................ viii List of Acronyms ....................................................................................................................ix Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................. xii Abstract .............................................................................................................................. xiii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................... 1 Research Question ................................................................................................................. 1 Why the subject matter merits enquiry. ................................................................................ 3 Research Contribution. .......................................................................................................... 5 Irish Aid .................................................................................................................................. 8 Limitations of the research .................................................................................................... 9 Structure of the Study .......................................................................................................... 11 CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL AND CONCEPTUAL UNDERPINNINGS ............................................ 13 Development Studies ........................................................................................................... 13 Epistemological Issues arising in Development Discourse ................................................... 14 Explanation of social realities ............................................................................................... 16 Phenomenology and emerging interpretivist social analysis ............................................... 17 Other anti-positivist perspectives ........................................................................................ 18 Capacity as a concept within development discourse ......................................................... 19 Project Management as applied to the development sector .............................................. 20 Complexity and Complex Adaptive Systems – an apt theoretical lens ................................ 22 Summation – Chapter 2 ....................................................................................................... 24 CHAPTER 3: DISCOURSE ON INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND HIGHER EDUCATION ....... 26 Section I - Outlines of International Development discourse. ................................................... 26 Modernisation Theory.......................................................................................................... 27 Structuralist approaches / Human Capital Theory ............................................................... 29 Dependency school .............................................................................................................. 29 Washington Consensus and ripostes ................................................................................... 31 Human Development Movement ........................................................................................ 32 iv Capabilities ........................................................................................................................... 35 Overseas Development Assistance as the outworking of development theory .................. 36 The ‘architecture’ of official development assistance. ........................................................ 37 Development dynamics of sub-Saharan Africa post-2000. .................................................. 38 Summation of Section .......................................................................................................... 40 Section II - Higher education in the African development context .......................................... 43 Higher Education and decolonisation .................................................................................. 45 Challenges in African Higher Education ............................................................................... 46 Massification ........................................................................................................................ 47 Donor motivation for funding North – South collaboration in higher education. ............... 49 World Bank - earlier orthodoxies revised ........................................................................... 51 Adaptation ............................................................................................................................ 54 Internationalisation .............................................................................................................. 55 Bursaries ............................................................................................................................... 56 Summation of Section .......................................................................................................... 57 CHAPTER 4: CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT AND COMPLEX ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS .......................... 59 Section I. Conceptualisation of ‘Capacity’ in international development discourse ................ 59 Language of ‘Capacity’ ......................................................................................................... 59 ‘Capacity’: linguistic and conceptual morphology ............................................................... 62 The three-tiered Levels of Capacity ..................................................................................... 66 Modalities of Capacity Development ................................................................................... 69 Pitfalls in capacity development interventions .................................................................... 73 Summation on Capacity ....................................................................................................... 74 Section II - Complex Adaptive Systems and Capacity Development. ........................................ 76 Complexity Theory and Systems Theory .............................................................................. 76 Complex Adaptive Systems Theory ...................................................................................... 81 CAS’ Applicability to development practice. ........................................................................ 82 Summation on Complex Adaptive Systems ......................................................................... 86 CHAPTER 5: METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................... 88 Research design ................................................................................................................... 88 Position of the researcher in this study as a reflective practitioner .................................... 91 Exploratory / preliminary phase .......................................................................................... 92 Problems encountered. ...................................................................................................... 107 Summation – Chapter 5 ..................................................................................................... 108 v CHAPTER 6: PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS OF FINDINGS FROM KEY INFORMANT INTERVIEWS .......................................................................................................................109 Knowledge and Skills .......................................................................................................... 109 Forging Alliances ................................................................................................................ 114 Adaptation to Change ........................................................................................................ 117 Purpose and Motivation ..................................................................................................... 120 Postgraduate