Lauchlan Munro | University of Ottawa | Université d'Ottawa (original) (raw)
Papers by Lauchlan Munro
Justifications for the welfare state in general, and for social protection and the attack on chro... more Justifications for the welfare state in general, and for social protection and the attack on chronic poverty in particular, have traditionally come from three sources: an analysis of uninsurable risks and other market failures; doctrines of human rights – specifically, economic and social rights; and needs-based doctrines. The risk school emphasises failures in insurance markets, specifically the inability of private and communal insurance mechanisms to provide cover against all forms of risk, often due to asymmetrical or incomplete information. These important failures in insurance markets are compounded by other failures in markets for labour, credit and human capital. The social and economic rights school focuses on the obligations of the state derived from the assertion that citizens possess social and economic rights that are legally enforceable claims on the state. These rights are usually said to be defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN 1948) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (UN 1996a), among other sources of international law, and are frequently asserted as coming from natural law. The needs-based doctrine stresses the practical and moral importance for poor and non-poor alike of eliminating (or at least alleviating or reducing) chronic poverty, and asserts both moral and economic claims in favour of social protection measures.
Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks, Apr 26, 2002
Public administration and development, Aug 5, 2022
This paper assesses the literature on “capacity building” through a systematic literature review.... more This paper assesses the literature on “capacity building” through a systematic literature review. Taking concepts as the ontological building blocks of theories, we ask: what is known about the evolution of capacity building as a concept and what can that history tell us about its strengths and weaknesses? To this end, we dig into the conceptual and theoretical underpinnings of capacity building. Through this Foucauldian “archaeological description”, we show that capacity building discourse has evolved dialectically, with each new concept emerging to address the failings of earlier concepts. The paper suggests the “new pragmatism” as a theoretical framework to guide a more rigorous and relevant theory and practice of capacity building especially for public administration. Rooted in sensitivity to context and methodological pluralism, the new pragmatism embraces complexity, delivers “best‐fit” rather than “best practice” solutions, and involves researchers and practitioners in decolonial knowledge co‐creation to tackle capacity building challenges.
University of Ottawa Press eBooks, Sep 1, 2018
An IES Conference Paper on the socio-economic situation among Zimbabwe's children during the ... more An IES Conference Paper on the socio-economic situation among Zimbabwe's children during the years 1990- 2008.
Due to copyright restrictions, this item cannot be sharedThis chapter analyzes and assesses what ... more Due to copyright restrictions, this item cannot be sharedThis chapter analyzes and assesses what happens when attempts are made to combine classical and rights-based approaches to programming and planning. It uses the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) as a case study to illustrate some of these issues. The chapter is part of a larger work, “Rights-based approaches to development: exploring the potential pitfalls.” As the classical technocratic, results-based trend in development planning and programming was gaining momentum in the 1990s, many development organizations – UN agencies, NGOs, bilateral donors, and international financial institutions – also started to embrace the discourse of human rights
Food Policy, 2003
Abstract During the 1990s, the Government of Zimbabwe implemented an Agricultural Recovery Progra... more Abstract During the 1990s, the Government of Zimbabwe implemented an Agricultural Recovery Programme to help smallholder farmers recover from repeated severe droughts. The programme aimed to provide drought-affected smallholders with crop packs (free seeds and fertiliser) and mechanised tillage services. This article evaluates the coverage, poverty-sensitivity and impact of the programme using a more in-depth analysis of household survey data than has been done to date. The programme’s tillage component was unsuccessful, repeatedly reaching less than 5% of its target group; the crop pack component, however, reached four-fifths or more of its target group. Most of the poorer households received crop packs, but richer households were slightly more likely to get them. Those who did receive crop packs planted larger areas under staple crops, regardless of their poverty status. These findings are generally robust for a range of poverty proxies. Unfortunately, there is no clear evidence on the impact, if any, of crop packs on grain yields. Crop packs—properly attuned to local agro-ecological conditions—may serve a useful role in post-drought recovery. Steps must be taken, however, to ensure that all the poor receive crop packs. Attempts by government to provide mechanised tillage to hundreds of thousands of smallholder households are not recommended.
International Journal of Project Management
Canada and the Challenges of International Development and Globalization
The principal-agent literature has focussed on situations where both principal and agent are assu... more The principal-agent literature has focussed on situations where both principal and agent are assumed to be capable of defining and defending their own interests. The principal-agent literature has thus ignored an important set of cases where the principal is incapable of acting on her own behalf, and so is assigned an agent by law or custom. Such cases account for around 40% of humanity and for a similarly substantial proportion of all principal-agent interactions. This paper applies principal-agent analysis to one such case, the family, where the child is taken as the principal and the parent is her agent. The principal-agent problem within families creates a prima facie case for state interventions to protect child-principals, since some parents will shirk and the consequences of such shirking may be serious and irreversible damage to the child-principal, who cannot defend herself. The principal-agent perspective on the family sheds new light on two old debates: about whether stat...
International Journal of Project Management, 2020
Canada and the Challenges of International Development and Globalization
Enjeux et défis du développement international, 2019
International Journal of Project Management, 2020
Both project management and international development came of age as scholarly and practice domai... more Both project management and international development came of age as scholarly and practice domains in the 20th century. They share a central concern with organizing work and delivering change. Though international development played a role in defining the project management domain in the 1950s and the 1960s, there has been little cross-fertilization between project management and international development in recent decades. The centrality of projects in international development efforts and the need for project management to help tackle global challenges that overlap with international development, such as climate change and COVID-19, make such cross-learning timely and rewarding. Accordingly, with the aim of cross-fertilization and integration, this paper examines what connects and differentiates the two domains of project management and international development, both conceptually and through the distinctive nature of their modes of delivery. The paper lays out a research agenda for the interface between project management and international development.
Development in Practice, 2020
In order to identify their different knowledge areas, concepts, tools and emphases, this article ... more In order to identify their different knowledge areas, concepts, tools and emphases, this article compares project management standards from two non-profit, one parastatal and two governmental organisations working in international development against the standards of the Association for Project Management (APM) and the Project Management Institute (PMI). It finds that the international development and noninternational development standards have quite different ideas of what project management entails. International development standards emphasise beneficiary participation, environmental impact, gender, unintended consequences of projects, soft objectives, evaluation techniques, and cross-cultural issues more than the APM or PMI standards. The latter standards have strengths in scoping and scheduling.
International Development Planning Review, 2020
After decades in the political and ideological wilderness, national development planning has made... more After decades in the political and ideological wilderness, national development planning has made a comeback. The number of countries with a national development plan has doubled since 2006. Given ...
Justifications for the welfare state in general, and for social protection and the attack on chro... more Justifications for the welfare state in general, and for social protection and the attack on chronic poverty in particular, have traditionally come from three sources: an analysis of uninsurable risks and other market failures; doctrines of human rights – specifically, economic and social rights; and needs-based doctrines. The risk school emphasises failures in insurance markets, specifically the inability of private and communal insurance mechanisms to provide cover against all forms of risk, often due to asymmetrical or incomplete information. These important failures in insurance markets are compounded by other failures in markets for labour, credit and human capital. The social and economic rights school focuses on the obligations of the state derived from the assertion that citizens possess social and economic rights that are legally enforceable claims on the state. These rights are usually said to be defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN 1948) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (UN 1996a), among other sources of international law, and are frequently asserted as coming from natural law. The needs-based doctrine stresses the practical and moral importance for poor and non-poor alike of eliminating (or at least alleviating or reducing) chronic poverty, and asserts both moral and economic claims in favour of social protection measures.
Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks, Apr 26, 2002
Public administration and development, Aug 5, 2022
This paper assesses the literature on “capacity building” through a systematic literature review.... more This paper assesses the literature on “capacity building” through a systematic literature review. Taking concepts as the ontological building blocks of theories, we ask: what is known about the evolution of capacity building as a concept and what can that history tell us about its strengths and weaknesses? To this end, we dig into the conceptual and theoretical underpinnings of capacity building. Through this Foucauldian “archaeological description”, we show that capacity building discourse has evolved dialectically, with each new concept emerging to address the failings of earlier concepts. The paper suggests the “new pragmatism” as a theoretical framework to guide a more rigorous and relevant theory and practice of capacity building especially for public administration. Rooted in sensitivity to context and methodological pluralism, the new pragmatism embraces complexity, delivers “best‐fit” rather than “best practice” solutions, and involves researchers and practitioners in decolonial knowledge co‐creation to tackle capacity building challenges.
University of Ottawa Press eBooks, Sep 1, 2018
An IES Conference Paper on the socio-economic situation among Zimbabwe's children during the ... more An IES Conference Paper on the socio-economic situation among Zimbabwe's children during the years 1990- 2008.
Due to copyright restrictions, this item cannot be sharedThis chapter analyzes and assesses what ... more Due to copyright restrictions, this item cannot be sharedThis chapter analyzes and assesses what happens when attempts are made to combine classical and rights-based approaches to programming and planning. It uses the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) as a case study to illustrate some of these issues. The chapter is part of a larger work, “Rights-based approaches to development: exploring the potential pitfalls.” As the classical technocratic, results-based trend in development planning and programming was gaining momentum in the 1990s, many development organizations – UN agencies, NGOs, bilateral donors, and international financial institutions – also started to embrace the discourse of human rights
Food Policy, 2003
Abstract During the 1990s, the Government of Zimbabwe implemented an Agricultural Recovery Progra... more Abstract During the 1990s, the Government of Zimbabwe implemented an Agricultural Recovery Programme to help smallholder farmers recover from repeated severe droughts. The programme aimed to provide drought-affected smallholders with crop packs (free seeds and fertiliser) and mechanised tillage services. This article evaluates the coverage, poverty-sensitivity and impact of the programme using a more in-depth analysis of household survey data than has been done to date. The programme’s tillage component was unsuccessful, repeatedly reaching less than 5% of its target group; the crop pack component, however, reached four-fifths or more of its target group. Most of the poorer households received crop packs, but richer households were slightly more likely to get them. Those who did receive crop packs planted larger areas under staple crops, regardless of their poverty status. These findings are generally robust for a range of poverty proxies. Unfortunately, there is no clear evidence on the impact, if any, of crop packs on grain yields. Crop packs—properly attuned to local agro-ecological conditions—may serve a useful role in post-drought recovery. Steps must be taken, however, to ensure that all the poor receive crop packs. Attempts by government to provide mechanised tillage to hundreds of thousands of smallholder households are not recommended.
International Journal of Project Management
Canada and the Challenges of International Development and Globalization
The principal-agent literature has focussed on situations where both principal and agent are assu... more The principal-agent literature has focussed on situations where both principal and agent are assumed to be capable of defining and defending their own interests. The principal-agent literature has thus ignored an important set of cases where the principal is incapable of acting on her own behalf, and so is assigned an agent by law or custom. Such cases account for around 40% of humanity and for a similarly substantial proportion of all principal-agent interactions. This paper applies principal-agent analysis to one such case, the family, where the child is taken as the principal and the parent is her agent. The principal-agent problem within families creates a prima facie case for state interventions to protect child-principals, since some parents will shirk and the consequences of such shirking may be serious and irreversible damage to the child-principal, who cannot defend herself. The principal-agent perspective on the family sheds new light on two old debates: about whether stat...
International Journal of Project Management, 2020
Canada and the Challenges of International Development and Globalization
Enjeux et défis du développement international, 2019
International Journal of Project Management, 2020
Both project management and international development came of age as scholarly and practice domai... more Both project management and international development came of age as scholarly and practice domains in the 20th century. They share a central concern with organizing work and delivering change. Though international development played a role in defining the project management domain in the 1950s and the 1960s, there has been little cross-fertilization between project management and international development in recent decades. The centrality of projects in international development efforts and the need for project management to help tackle global challenges that overlap with international development, such as climate change and COVID-19, make such cross-learning timely and rewarding. Accordingly, with the aim of cross-fertilization and integration, this paper examines what connects and differentiates the two domains of project management and international development, both conceptually and through the distinctive nature of their modes of delivery. The paper lays out a research agenda for the interface between project management and international development.
Development in Practice, 2020
In order to identify their different knowledge areas, concepts, tools and emphases, this article ... more In order to identify their different knowledge areas, concepts, tools and emphases, this article compares project management standards from two non-profit, one parastatal and two governmental organisations working in international development against the standards of the Association for Project Management (APM) and the Project Management Institute (PMI). It finds that the international development and noninternational development standards have quite different ideas of what project management entails. International development standards emphasise beneficiary participation, environmental impact, gender, unintended consequences of projects, soft objectives, evaluation techniques, and cross-cultural issues more than the APM or PMI standards. The latter standards have strengths in scoping and scheduling.
International Development Planning Review, 2020
After decades in the political and ideological wilderness, national development planning has made... more After decades in the political and ideological wilderness, national development planning has made a comeback. The number of countries with a national development plan has doubled since 2006. Given ...