Assessing International Development Cooperation: Becoming Intentional about Unintended Effects

Dirk-Jan Koch, Jolynde Vis, Maria van der Harst, Elric Tendron and Joost de Laat
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Dirk-Jan Koch: Department of Cultural Anthropology and Development Studies, Radboud Social Cultural Research and Radboud University, 6525 XZ Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Jolynde Vis: Utrecht University School of Economics, Centre for Global Challenges, Utrecht University, 3584 CS Utrecht, The Netherlands
Maria van der Harst: Utrecht University School of Economics, Centre for Global Challenges, Utrecht University, 3584 CS Utrecht, The Netherlands
Elric Tendron: Utrecht University School of Economics, Centre for Global Challenges, Utrecht University, 3584 CS Utrecht, The Netherlands
Joost de Laat: Utrecht University School of Economics, Centre for Global Challenges, Utrecht University, 3584 CS Utrecht, The Netherlands

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 21, 1-26

Abstract: International headlines often make mention of side effects of international cooperation, ranging from aid-fuelled corruption to the negative side effects of volunteer tourism. The OECD Development Assistance Committee, an international forum of many of the largest providers of aid, prescribes that evaluators should consider if an intervention has unintended effects. Yet the little that is known suggests that few evaluations of international cooperation projects systematically assess their unintended effects. To address this gap in assessing unintended effects, this study develops an operational typology of 10 types of unintended effects of international cooperation that have emerged in the literature and applies this to all 644 evaluations of the Netherlands’ development cooperation between 2000 and 2020 using structured text mining with manual verification. The results show that approximately 1 in 6 evaluations carefully considered unintended effects and identified 177 different ones. With the exception of 5, these could be classified in 9 of the 10 typologies, indicating that this typology can guide international development cooperation to systematically consider and assess its unintended effects. International development planners, researchers and evaluators are recommended to henceforth make use of and improve this operational typology.

Keywords: unintended effects; international cooperation; policy evaluation; typology of unintended effects (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:21:p:11571-:d:660319

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