From MDGs to SDGs: Global Governance, Developmentality and Ownership in Senegal

Abstract

This doctoral research aims to examine and explain the emerging post-2015 development agenda focusing on the national consultations in Senegal. UN launched and guided the post-2015 development agenda to identify new global policy replacing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The complex and multifaceted processes that resulted in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were informed by calls for ownership through participation and learning from the failures of the MDGs. A series of global participatory processes were organised, in which the voices of relevant stakeholders were to be heard during the consultations for The World We Want 2015. General citizens, policymakers, practitioners, and academics were to share their views on the world they wanted post-2015 in national participatory consultations in 88 countries, including Senegal. The theoretical framework rests on theories of global governance and the analytical concept of developmentality. Global governance sheds light on the characteristics of the post-2015 development agenda. It was spearheaded by the UN and guided by what the international community takes for best practices in development cooperation. The concept of developmentality, which rests on Foucauldian understanding of power, is concerned with unequal relations in development cooperation. This thesis applies the concept to understand the exercising of power in the post-2015 national consultations in Senegal. The overall research theme of the thesis is exploring and explaining the emerging post-2015 development agenda, especially the national consultations in Senegal. The specific aims focus on donor-recipient power relations, the MDG’s lessons, and how they informed the post-2015 development agenda. It explores how the outcome of national consultations is reflected in global and national development policies. Finally, the thesis aims to analyse and explain the division of ownership between national and global actors in the post-2015 national consultations in Senegal, using participation as a proxy. Data were collected during 13 months of fieldwork in Senegal and New York from 2011 to 2013. Methods used were: (1) Formal and informal interviews with development professionals belonging to the international community in both settings and Senegalese government officials; (2) Participant observation conducted during the post-2015 national consultations in Senegal; and (3) Analysis of relevant policy documents. Qualitative data were analysed in Atlas.ti. The findings reveal the unequal donor-recipient relations in Senegal rooted in the contradicting principles of the Paris Declaration. Lack of iii harmonisation among donors, reflected in the “problem of the flag”, results in donor competition and concealing information. The simultaneous endorsement of ownership and conditioned aid entails an incompatibility that sometimes goes unnoticed. I suggest this contradiction is disguised in donors’ support of conditioned assistance, assumed to enhance aid effectiveness, but also allows selfish motives. Through developmentality, donors apply dialogue, broad consultations, and capacity building to steer recipients toward their desired policies. There is consensus on the merits and failures of the MDGs. The failures informed the urgency to promote ownership through participation in the national consultations to secure effective implementation of the outcome. Nonetheless, the views on the post-2015 development agenda varied; Senegal wanted a revised version of the MDGs, while New York argued for something new. The policy priorities identified in Senegal were in line with already formulated national and global development policies, both before and after the consultations. This lack of new priorities might reflect two problems of the consultative process: first, the fundamentals for a decent living are already known, and second, the public participation as spelt out in UN guidelines with the aim for globally comparable data was tokenistic. The research indicates overwhelming UN ownership of the national consultations, particularly in activities classified as defining and leadership, based on an explorative exercise to quantify ownership using participation as a proxy, The thesis concludes that the post-2015 development agenda is a product of global governance through best practice, with the UN steering the process toward its desired outcome. The agenda, concerned with procedures rather than content, legitimised the complex processes with two interlinked best practice arguments. The first, rooted in development cooperation and the first principle of the Paris Declaration, states that ownership of the post-2015 development agenda was crucial to secure effectiveness in implementing the outcome. The second argument, learning from experience, was to avoid reproducing the failures of the MDGs. The UN provided firm guidance during the consultations supported by rhetoric embracing the participation-ownership link, rooted in best practices within development cooperation. The concept of developmentality, a way of governing in development cooperation, highlights this exercising of indirect power during the national consultations in Senegal. This thesis questions the assumed logic that an UN-led global policymaking process will, through participation, result in ownership of the process. Ownership requires a clear and concise definition and an operationalisation beyond existing monitoring systems. Without a proper definition and the risk of becoming only a buzzword, the use of ownership in global policymaking and development cooperation should be formally abandoned. The thesis calls for improvements in global policymaking through learning from past experiences and questions the globally induced urge for new iv

beginnings. It argues for an increased emphasis on implementation rather than the perpetual formulation of new policies, new beginnings that often bring about already known results. Further research is needed on the concepts of ownership and participation and how they, through the Paris Declaration, serve as best practices in development cooperation.