Works in Progress

“private foundations and politics of international development” for the Handbook on the politics of international development

 

Over the past decades, private foundations have come to play an increasingly more significant role in international development. Along with their numbers, their endowments have multiplied, providing philanthropies with massive financial resources to target global challenges - from health and education to hunger and climate change. This chapter explores the increasing engagement of philanthropic institutions in global issues and examines he new organizational structures they have created, the types of modalities they use, and the primary areas in which they invest. Through these new structures and modalities, private foundations are finding new ways to both increase returns on their investments and to invest in issues they value. At the same time, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has helped frame the issues and agendas pursued by philanthropies. In that, the Sustainable Development Goals have expanded the field of international development to include the private sector as active participants who resources are required to realize the goal of achieving the SDGs. As private foundations increasingly turn their generosity to international development and associated challenges, business as usual continues while the discourse around corporate social responsibility, social entrepreneurship, and impact investment softens the maxims of business self-interest and profitability.


“From MDGs to SDGs: Global Governance through goals”

Since the 1960s, the United Nations has initiated a variety of development decades and agendas to promote socioeconomic development. The 2030 Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals are the latest reincarnation of these collective efforts. It has been three years since this global agenda was endorsed by all UN member states, and our knowledge of the impact of these internationally agreed goals on domestic outcomes has been quite limited. To understand how these global goals have been influencing domestic politics, this article proceeds on two fronts. First, it investigates the negotiations and varying parallel processes that created these global goals. Second, the article explores the influence this global agenda has had on domestic outcomes by asking whether the SDGs have been constraining or expanding states’ policy-making capacity in the socioeconomic realm. A review of the Voluntary National Reviews indicates the increased engagement of higher income countries and an emphasis on private sector involvement. The essay argues that with the SDGs, the UN’s efforts to govern through goals have been grounded in procedural legitimacy but the voluntary nature of the means of implementation has been less conducive to actually achieving the goals. 


“The Normative Policy Space: A Domain of Political Alternatives.” with Hiroaki Abe.

In this paper, we offer a brief review of the history of political thought to illustrate how political choice as a normative project has been gradually transformed into a positive enterprise where causal explanation dominates the contemporary studies of decision-making. We draw on Lefort, whose notion of the ‘empty place’ points us to the background space, which surrounds political decisions, where ideologies and institutions are not preordained but perpetually open to contestation. Taking our cue from Lefort and building on Mitchell’s critique of the conceptual-empirical or state-society distinction, we then introduce our policy space model: a space of political contestation over the dominant ideologies and institutions of a political community which structures the choices of decision makers. We then elaborate on the active and latent dimensions constituting the policy space and the transformations possible based on interactions between these dimensions. Finally, we illustrate our theoretical analysis through an examination of the global development agenda, which by the turn of the millennium converged on poverty reduction. We use our policy space model to depict the process through which alternative conceptions of development were gradually marginalized so that the active domain of policy space came to be occupied primarily by the liberal epistemology of the Millennium Development Goals, with the dominant narrative converging multiplicity towards a single end point.


PUBLISHED WORK

Seyedsayamdost, Elham and Peter Vanderwal. “From Good Governance to Governance for Good: Blockchain for Social Impact,” Journal of International Development 32:6 (Aug 2020).

Seyedsayamdost, Elham. “Sustainable Development Goals,” in Amandine Orisini and Jean-Frederic Morin (eds) Essential Concepts of Global Environmental Governance. New York: Routledge, 2020.

Seyedsayamdost, Elham. “Global Governance in the Age of the Anthropocene: Are Sustainable Development Goals the Answer?” Global Environmental Politics 19.2 (May 2019).

Seyedsayamdost, Elham and Peter Vanderwal. “Digital Dividends for Development: Using Distributed Ledger Technology to Accelerate Agenda 2030,” in H. Sayani and F. Salem (eds) Accelerating the Sustainable Development Goals through Digital Transformation. Dubai: Mohammed Bin Rashid School of Government, 2019.

Seyedsayamdost, Elham. “Implications of Trump Administration’s Foreign Aid Policies for MENA.” Emirates Diplomatic Academy (EDA) Insight (Dec 2017).

Seyedsayamdost, Elham. "Millennium Development Goals: Impact on National Strategies and Spending." Development Policy Review (June 2017) doi:10.1111/dpr.12314.

Seyedsayamdost, Elham. "Development as End of Poverty: Reform or Reinvention?" Global Governance 21 (2015): 515-535.

Seyedsayamdost, Elham. "Building on the MDG Experience to Create a Truly Transformative 2030 Agenda." ACUNS Quarterly Newsletter 1 (Spring 2015).

Seyedsayamdost, Elham. “Technologies of Ambiguity: The Dialectics of Iran’s Nuclear Power.” Northwestern Journal of International Affairs (Winter/Spring 2011): 110-135.

Vandemoortele, Jan and Elham Seyedsayamdost. “The MDGs Are Not ‘Mission Impossible’” World Guide 2005/06.


POLICY PUBLICATIONS

FAO, Office of Evaluation. Evaluation of FAO’s Contribution to SDG13 – Climate Action. Rome: FAO, 2021.

FAO, Office of Evaluation. Evaluation of FAO’s Contribution to SDG2 – Zero Hunger. Rome: FAO, 2020.

UNDP and UNDESA. Challenges to a More Inclusive, Equitable and Sustainable Globalization. November 2017.

UNDP, Independent Evaluation Office. Evaluation of the Role of UNDP in Supporting National Achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. New York: UNDP, 2015. 

Harvard University, Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research. “Long-term Conflict  and Humanitarian Action: A Policy Perspective” ATHA Policy Brief January 2009.  

Ahmed Galal. The Road Not Traveled: Education Reform in the Middle East and North Africa. Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2008.

Office of the Chief Economist for Middle East and North Africa. The Status and Progress of Women in the Middle East and North Africa. Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2005.

UNDP, Bureau for Resources and Strategic Management. Millennium Development Goals: A Training Tool Kit for MDGs. New York: UNDP, 2004.

UNDP, Bureau for Development Policy. UNDP Support to PRSP Countries. New York: UNDP, 2002.


Selected INVITED TALKS AND PRESENTATIONS

CNN Talk EXPO 2020, panelist on State of the Middle East and on Global Migration, 20 & 21 Jan 2022 (canceled).

Harvard Model Congress, Keynote Address, American University in Dubai, UAE, 23 Jan 2020.

“Precarious Ecologies (or Welcome to the Last Earth),” panelist at Sky Forum, Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah, UAE, 11 Oct 2019.

“Governance for Social Impact,” moderator at AUD Tolerance Forum, American University in Dubai, UAE, 9 Oct 2019.

“ICPD@25/UNFPA@50 and SDGs 2030: Unfinished business, challenges, opportunities, way forward,” panelist at UNFPA Commemoration of ICPD@25 in Dubai, UAE, 2 May 2019.

“The Differential Impact of Global Governance Structures on Powerful States: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,” presented at International Studies Association, San Francisco, USA, 4-7 Apr 2018.

“Development in Light of Western Neo-Nationalist Movements,” presented at Academic Council for the United Nations System, Seoul, South Korea, 15-17 Jun 2017.

"UN Women's Empowerment Principles and Gender Equality," UN Global Network Anniversary Event: Transforming Our World Through Innovation and the Sustainable Development Goals, Panel Member, Dubai, UAE, 15 May 2017.

"Round Table on Enhancing Dialogue and Partnership between Academia and Humanitarian Actors on Regional Displacement Crises in the Middle East and North Africa Region," UNHCR and WANA, Amman, Jordan, 26-27 April 2017.

“Millennium Development Goals: Impact on National Strategies and Spending," Center for Governance and Sustainability, UMass Boston, 13 November 2015.

Development as End of Poverty: Reform or Reinvention?" hosted by Permanent Mission of Liechtenstein to the UN, organized by Global Governance, One Earth Future, and ACUNS, 22 June 2015.

“Beyond the 2015 MDGs: Empowerment and Equity for the Collective Global Good,” Berlin Model United Nations XXIII, Keynote Address, 19-22 November 2014.

“Contributions of the United Nations Development Programme to Achieving the Millennium Development Goals: An Assessment,” Independent Evaluation Office, UNDP, 22 July 2014.

“Development as End of Poverty: Reform or Reinvention?” Academic Council on the United Nations System, Istanbul, Turkey, 19-21 June 2014.