Building Sustainable Capacity Through Postgraduate Scholarships (Till Bruckner) CONCEPT

Building Sustainable Capacity
Through Postgraduate Scholarships
Abstract
This essay argues that donors should commit to spending at least one percent of their aid
budgets on postgraduate university scholarship programmes from 2016 onwards in order to
tackle long-standing human capacity gaps in developing nations.
Low state capacity undermines development prospects, and limits the effectiveness of
international aid. While donors spend heavily on plugging current capacity gaps with
expensive expatriate experts, often with mixed results, most smart people from poor countries
are unable to secure a good higher education despite the prospect of excellent returns on
investment.
Funding scholarships for postgraduate study at good universities is a highly effective form of
aid, and the best strategy for bridging the developing worlds capacity gap in the medium and
long term. Existing scholarship programmes have documented strong impacts on individual
participants capacity, and have demonstrated their potential to make a systemic difference at
the national level. They also represent excellent value for money, especially when contrasted
with conventional capacity building approaches.
While postgraduate scholarships are an extremely effective form of aid, donors are currently
investing only a tiny fraction of their aid portfolios into such programmes. Raising this
investment to just one percent of overall aid flows would create a cadre of 270,000 highly
trained people capable of making a huge contribution to developing their own countries
within ten years. The essay concludes that such a scaling up of existing donor programmes is
not only desirable, but also operationally and politically feasible.
Till Bruckner, PhD

Nouakchott, Mauritania, 2015
tillbruckner@gmail.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tillbruckner
1
Introduction
This essay argues that donors should commit to spending at least one percent of their aid
budgets on postgraduate university scholarship programmes from 2016 onwards in order to
tackle long-standing human capacity gaps in developing nations.
Low state capacity undermines

Most smart people from poor development prospects, and limits
countries are unable to secure a good the effectiveness of international
higher education despite the prospect aid. While donors spend heavily on
of excellent returns on investment. plugging current capacity gaps with
expensive expatriate experts, often
with mixed results, most smart people from poor countries are unable to secure a good higher
education despite the prospect of excellent returns on investment.
Funding scholarships for postgraduate study at good universities is a highly effective form of
aid, and the best strategy for bridging the developing worlds capacity gap in the medium and
long term. Existing scholarship programmes have documented strong impacts on individual
participants capacity, and have demonstrated their potential to make a systemic difference at
the national level. They also represent excellent value for money, especially when contrasted
with conventional capacity building approaches.
While postgraduate scholarships are an extremely effective form of aid, donors are currently
investing only a tiny fraction of their aid portfolios into such programmes. Raising this
investment to just one percent of overall aid flows would create a cadre of 270,000 highly
trained people capable of making a huge contribution to developing their own countries
within ten years. The essay concludes that such a scaling up of existing donor programmes is
not only desirable, but also operationally and politically feasible.
Low state capacity undermines development efforts
Decades after decolonization, state capacity defined as the ability to design and deliver
policies remains low in many developing countries, constraining economic growth and
hampering the delivery of basic public goods and
services to the poor. Many countries do not have a Today, an estimated
sufficiently large cadre of highly capable people who 100,000 foreign experts
can critically think through problems, analyse work in Africa alone.
alternative options, design effective solutions, and
ensure that these are efficiently implemented. This leaves them dependent on outside
assistance not only in financial terms, but also in terms of human resources. Today, an
estimated 100,000 foreign experts work in Africa alone,1 performing core governance
functions such as policy formulation, programme design, legal reform, market regulation,
public administration, and basic service delivery.
Low state capacity also limits the options of bilateral and multilateral donors wishing to
foster development abroad. In the past, donors have frequently chosen to bypass barely
functional state bureaucracies in favour of working through stand-alone structures such as
project implementation units and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that
1
Commission For Africa. 2005. "Our Common Interest"
http://www.commissionforafrica.info/wp-content/uploads/2005-report/11-03-05_cr_report.pdf
2
allow them to retain a measure of control. Aid insiders readily concede that this practice of
working through a myriad of stand-alone structures2 is generally inefficient, ineffective, and
unsustainable. It undermines domestic accountability, hollows out the foundations of
democracy, and often further weakens already anaemic state structures. Acknowledging these
failings, donors have pledged to change their approach to delivering aid.3
However, the obvious alternative of directly paying money into recipient governments
coffers via general budget support may be even worse. In countries like Nigeria and Angola,
large hydrocarbon revenues have long provided the functional equivalent of budget support
without resulting in much broad-based development. Much of that money has been
squandered or stolen, and few benefits have reached the poor. Despite their rhetoric at
international summits, donors are not about to hand cheques to foreign governments and
entrust the management of aid funds to their weak administrations.
A more promising option for donors is to build the capacity of the state so that it can
independently design and effectively deliver policies on its own, leveraging both domestic
and foreign funds for development. After all, history shows that in the long run, there is no
substitute for an effective developmental state.4 As the Commission for Africa argued,
Tackling the huge need for capacity strengthening will have major knock-on effects
for all the other areas of [development], whether by increasing security and the rule
of law, reducing corruption, improving service delivery and the operating
environment for business, or reducing the constraints which have limited
governments ability to absorb higher levels of development assistance.5
For this reason, donors have over the years

have spent heavily on capacity building Capacity building activities
activities; in 2005, these consumed a quarter of consume a quarter of all
all bilateral aid to Africa.6 Persistently low bilateral aid to Africa.
capacity is not the result of too little aid, it is Persistently low capacity is
the result of ineffective aid. A recent in-depth not the result of too little aid,
literature review concludes that [t]here is
it is the result of ineffective
substantial and extensively documented
evidence that traditional technical assistance capacity building.
2
The World Bank alone currently has nearly 12,000 separate projects under way. See:
Andrews, Fred. 2013. A Surprising Case Against Foreign Aid
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/business/a-surprising-case-against-foreign-aid.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
3
OECD/DAC. 2005/2008. The Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and the Accra Agenda for Action
http://www.oecd.org/dac/effectiveness/34428351.pdf
4
Africa Platform on Development Effectiveness/NEPAD. 2011. Cairo Consensus on Capacity Development: Call
To Action
http://www.africa-
platform.org/sites/default/files/resources/Cairo_Consensus_on_Capacity_Development_2011.pdf
See also: Ssewakiryanga, Richard. No date. Capacity Development as a Core Driver of Development
Effectiveness
http://www.nepad.org/sites/default/files/Capacity%20Development%20as%20a%20Core%20Driver%20of%20De
velopment_0.pdf
5
6
3
and the focus on training have failed to bring about lasting capacity improvements.7 Donors
frequent overreliance on short-term foreign advisers has been identified as a contributing
factor to these past capacity building failures.8
The aid industry itself illustrates conventional capacity buildings failure. Donors have spent
6.7 trillion dollars in aid since 1947,9 and yet the aid industry still relies on expatriates just to
run itself, never mind fostering the
Some ministries have been emergence of autonomously effective
hosting a continuous stream of developmental states. Some ministries have
short-term foreign advisors been hosting a continuous stream of short-
for decades. term foreign advisors and capacity building
experts for decades without ever graduating
10
from external support, displaying what the World Bank has dubbed perpetual reliance on
short-term, international consultants, advisers, and technical experts.11
The past half a century of capacity building efforts has taught a clear lesson:
Effective and durable institutions will only be put in place and secured by local
actors who are more likely to have a fine-grained understanding of the context and a
legitimate local voice, and who may better be able to take account of the social,
cultural and political context.12
The human capacity gap: mismatch of demand and supply
Ironically, while there is a persistent shortage of highly capable people within developing
countries labour markets, and donors are forced to import human capacity from abroad,
smart young students in the very same countries cannot access a good higher education that
would enable them to fulfil their potential and eventually occupy the positions currently filled
7
Boesen, Nils and Therkildsen, Ole. 2004. Capacity Development Evaluation: Between Naivety and Cynicism
http://www.jica.go.jp/cdstudy/library/pdf/20071101_06.pdf
8
Boesen, Nils. 2004. Enhancing Public Sector Capacity What Works, What Doesnt, And Why? A literature
review for the OED Evaluation of World Bank Support for Capacity Building in Africa
http://www.nilsboesen.dk/uploads/docs/Enhancing%20Public%20Sector%20Capacity%20What%20Works%20W
hat%20Doesnt%20and%20Why.pdf
See also:
UNDP. 2009. Capacity Development: A UNDP Primer
http://www.africa-platform.org/sites/default/files/resources/CDG_PrimerReport_English_0.pdf
Mendizabal, Enrique. 2013. Tourist funders are unhelpful when supporting and evaluating think tanks
http://onthinktanks.org/2013/05/22/tourist-funders-are-unhelpful-when-supporting-and-evaluating-think-tanks/
Some aid critics, including William Easterly, lament that development strategies frequently seem to be based on
global cookie-cutter templates rather than on the bottom-up seeking of approaches appropriate to the specifics
of a country. Surprisingly, the role that frequently rotating expatriates play in perpetuating this common aid
pathology is rarely remarked upon. It is noteworthy that the country that has contributed most to reducing global
poverty in recent decades, China, designed and implemented its own development strategies using country
nationals.
9
Source: Data extracted from the Aid Data website.
http://aiddata.org/dashboard#/aggregate/project-list
10
Altaf, Samia. 2011. So Much Aid, So Little Development: Stories from Pakistan (Washington, DC: Woodrow
Wilson Center Press)
11
World Bank/IEG. 2012. Implementation Completion Report (ICR) Review - Emergency Senior Executive
Service Project (ESESP)
http://lnweb90.worldbank.org/oed/oeddoclib.nsf/DocUNIDViewForJavaSearch/8525682E006860378525797A007
35AC9?opendocument
12
Adrian Leftwich and Chris Wheeler. 2011. Politics, Leadership and Coalitions in Development
http://publications.dlprog.org/Politics,%20Leadership%20and%20Coalitions%20in%20Development%20-
%20Findings,%20insights%20and%20guidance.pdf
4
by well-paid expatriates. Local universities typically fail to provide a decent education a
recent ranking of the 800 top universities worldwide includes not a single African university
located between Egypt and South Africa13 and only a tiny minority of students can afford
the initial cost of studying at a good university abroad, often despite the prospect of
handsome lifelong returns on
such an investment. A recent
A recent study using a randomized
study using a randomized experiment approach found an
experiment approach found an immediate 44% return on international
immediate 44% return on education.
international education.14
The following section will argue that funding scholarships to enable smart people from poor
countries to study for masters degrees15 overseas is a highly effective form of aid, and the
best strategy for filling the developing worlds capacity gap in the medium and long term:
First, it will briefly review some evaluations documenting the strong positive impact
of scholarship programmes on the capacity of individual participants.
Second, it will use the example of Georgia to illustrate how scholarships can make a
difference on a national level.
Third, it will review past projects in South Sudan and Liberia to argue that scholarship
programmes represent excellent value for money, especially when contrasted with
conventional expatriate-led capacity building approaches.
Fourth, it will draw on data from the United States, Afghanistan, Ethiopia and
Germany to show that donors are currently devoting only a miniscule share of their
overall resources to investing into postgraduate scholarships.
Finally, it will highlight some unique advantages of scholarship programmes as a tool
for fostering development.
Scholarships are effective at building individual capacity and integrity
International scholarships have an impressive

track record across different donor nations, International scholarships
programmes, and recipient regions of building have an impressive track
participants individual capacity. A recent large- record.
scale evaluation of Commonwealth scholarships
in the United Kingdom that traced 6,000 graduates, some who studied as far back as 1959,
documents a host of positive results.16 Over 99% of graduates reported gaining knowledge in
their field of expertise, 98% had increased their analytical and technical skills, and 82% had
13
Source: Data extracted from the Top Universities website.
http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-
rankings/2013#sorting=rank+region=6+country=+faculty=+stars=false+search=
14
Caucasus Research Resource Centers. 2011. "Randomized Survey of Returns on International Education".
Unpublished study. Referenced in Millenium Challenge Corporation, Compact with Georgia, A1b
http://www.mcc.gov/documents/agreements/compact-georgia-ii.pdf
15
The term scholarship is used here to refer exclusively to long-term residential study abroad in pursuit of a
postgraduate taught university degree. This essay focuses on masters degrees only because they are currently
the degree type most commonly held by expatriates working in the aid industry, which suggests that they are the
type of degree best suited to plugging the most pressing capacity gaps within developing countries. Many other
types of scholarships exist, including for short-term study visits, school exchanges, distance learning,
undergraduate studies, and post-doctoral research. Note that these other types of scholarship were not analysed
by the author, who has not formed any opinion on their comparative merits.
16
Day, Rachel et al. 2009. Evaluating Commonwealth Scholarships in the United Kingdom
http://cscuk.dfid.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/evaluation-impact-key-report.pdf
5
learned techniques for managing people and projects. The vast majority of people who had
studied subjects related to education (99%), health (95%) and agriculture (96%) reported
introducing new practices in their home countries.
Other scholarship programmes have reported equally impressive figures. For example, an
Asian Development Bank evaluation of a Japanese-led effort reported that 96% of graduates
thought that the knowledge and skills gained from their degree programs were relevant and/or
useful in their organizations. The program was rated highly relevant and effective, and
overall successful.17
Maybe surprisingly, a large majority of

A large majority of scholarship scholarship students return to their home
students return to their home countries after graduation. A review of
countries after graduation. various evaluations of scholarship
programmes suggests that they are
generally successful in mitigating international brain drain with high return rates.18
Reported return rates range from a low 66% for Germanys DAAD graduates19 to 88% for
Commonwealth scholarship veterans;20 the typical rate is closer to the upper end of the
spectrum.21
Intriguingly, there are strong reasons to believe

that scholarships not only build technical Scholarships not only build
capacity, but also bring about shifts in values. technical capacity, but also
Americas Muskie programme has tracked bring about shifts in values.
students attitude changes over the course of
their studies abroad, finding that their experiences of a different culture and education system
measurably increased participants tolerance of minorities, inclination to participate in
political processes, and support for citizens who demand more transparency from their
governments.22 These empirical findings are in line with a growing body of evidence from
cross-cultural social psychology that higher education and exposure to foreign cultures both
lead to higher levels of critical and analytical thinking, greater public awareness, more
respect for others, and positive social and civic behaviours.23
17
Asian Development Bank/OED. 2007. ADBs Japan Funds: Japan Scholarship Program
http://www.oecd.org/derec/adb/39506843.pdf
18
Commonwealth Scholarship Commission in the United Kingdom. 2014. A study of research methodology used
in evaluations of international scholarship schemes for higher education
http://cscuk.dfid.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/evaluation-research-methodology-study.pdf
19
Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst [DAAD]. 2013. Knowledge Action Change: Three alumni
surveys in review - 25 years of DAAD postgraduate courses
http://millennium-express.daad.de/files/2014/03/Absolventenstudie_EN_web.pdf
DAAD is the German acronym for Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (German Academic Exchange
Service).
20
21
Note that graduates who do not return usually nevertheless contribute to their home countries development via
remittances, often for the rest of their lives. Some scholarship programmes have identified this as a positive
dynamic and have begun exploring the idea of purposefully increasing skills for migration. See:
Creed, Charlotte et al. 2012. "Examining development evaluation in higher education interventions: a preliminary
study"
http://www.lidc.org.uk/_assets/LIDC%20Higher%20Education%20study%20final.pdf
22
Edmund S. Muskie Graduate Fellowship Program. 2008. Selected Results
http://www.irex.org/sites/default/files/Muskie%202008%20Results.pdf
23
Some of the relevant literature is flagged in this document:
Ndaruhutse, Susy. 2014. Higher education in the post-2015 agenda: proof that it matters
https://beyond2015.acu.ac.uk/submissions/view?id=95
6
Scholarships have well-documented wider impacts
In a study of Commonwealth scholarships long-term outcomes, 93% of graduates reported

that their studies had increased their ability to have influence and make changes at work. In
many cases, their influence extended far beyond their immediate workplace. For example, a
single alumnus over the course of his career taught a course from which 2,000 chief engineers
graduated. Nearly half of all respondents reported making a wider socioeconomic impact, and
45% felt that they had influenced government policy or thinking.24
Many alumni of scholarship positions later rise to prominent positions within their home
societies. When Germanys flagship scholarship programme recently traced its alumni, it
found that fifteen years after leaving university, 19% of participants were already occupying
top management positions.25 Across the Atlantic, Americas Muskie programme discovered
that 75% of its alumni had already risen to a professional leadership position even though the
initiative had been launched only twenty years earlier, and most participants still had most of
their working lives ahead of them.26 The
list of alumni of its longer-running 29 U.S. Fulbright scholarship
cousin, the Fulbright programme, graduates have led their nations
already boasts 29 graduates who have as heads of state or government.
led their nations as heads of state or
government.27
A study of leadership in the Pacific confirms the link between scholarship study abroad and
political influence, but cautions that the causality is unclear: [t]he proportion of leaders who
have received a scholarship suggests either that donors have done a good job in identifying
emerging leaders, or the important role played by tertiary education in achieving leadership
positions.28 A study of developmental leaders in Ghana found that nine out of 16 who had
studied abroad had done so through scholarships, which can be said to have enhanced
developmental leadership in Ghana.29 Reviewing this and other evidence, the Learning
Network on Capacity Development has concluded that [t]he return on [university] training,
although long-term, can be significant.30 This assertion is backed up by recent data that
shows a statistical correlation between the biographical characteristics of leaders and the
developmental progress of the countries they lead.31
24
25
26
Edmund S. Muskie Graduate Fellowship Program. 2012. Strengthening leaders for development and
democracy
http://www.irex.org/sites/default/files/Muskie%20One-pager%203.26.12.pdf
27
State Department/ECA. No date. Heads of State/Government
http://eca.state.gov/fulbright/fulbright-alumni/notable-fulbrighters/heads-stategovernment
28
Hanson, Fergus and Oliver, Alex. 2010. What Makes a Leader? Mapping Leadership in Our Region
http://apo.org.au/files/Resource/hanson_and_oliver_what_makes_a_leader_web.pdf
29
Jones, Amir et al. 2014. Higher Education and Developmental Leadership: The Case of Ghana
http://publications.dlprog.org/Higher%20Education%20and%20Developmental%20Leadership%20-
%20The%20Case%20of%20Ghana.pdf
30
Learning Network on Capacity Development. No date. Fragile situations: Operational implications
http://www.lencd.org/topic/fragile-situations-operational-implications
31
Theron, Monique. 2012. Emerging and non-Emerging African Countries: A Statistical Exploration of the
Leadership Factor
http://publications.dlprog.org/Emerging%20and%20Non-Emerging%20African%20Countries.pdf
7
Scholarships can have sustainable systemic impact at the national level
High capacity at the top can help nations to take full advantage of windows of opportunity for
reform. In Georgia, a peaceful revolution overthrew a highly corrupt regime in 2003 and
brought to power a leadership committed to developing the country by building a functional
state. The new president had studied in the U.S. through a scholarship programme, and
quickly brought on board many other reformers who had been trained abroad. Thanks to the
Muskie programmes strong engagement in particular, Georgia already had a small and
dedicated group of smart young people equipped with advanced degrees from American and
European graduate schools.
The subsequent transformation of

Georgia from a failed state into a The transformation of Georgia
developmental state would have been from a failed state would have
impossible without this critical mass of been impossible without a critical
highly capable nationals, as the success mass of scholarship graduates.
of the reform efforts depended on a top-
down strategic approach guided by an in-depth understanding of the workings of existing
state structures. Full national ownership was a critical success factor in designing and
implementing all major reforms, and in maintaining popular support. Thanks to donors
scholarship programmes, the new government was able to rapidly assemble a team of highly
skilled nationals who hit the ground running and pushed through fundamental reforms at
pace, rapidly translating top-level political will backed by a strong popular mandate into
irreversible changes on the ground.32
Of course, Georgias journey was far from smooth, and multiple factors were at play, but the
availability of a (just about) sufficiently large pool of highly capable Georgians in 2003 a
high proportion of whom were alumni of U.S. scholarship programmes33 was a necessary
precondition for the successes that followed. This highlights two unique advantages of
scholarships over all other forms of aid.
First, scholarships combine immunity to

Scholarships combine immunity corruption with low transaction costs. In
to corruption with low transaction the years prior to the revolution, Georgia
costs. was one of the largest per capita
recipients of Western aid in the world,
but a significant part of that money disappeared into off-shore bank accounts, and the impact
of much of the rest was blunted due to the inefficiencies and high costs of implementation via
32
World Bank. 2012. Fighting Corruption in Public Services: Chronicling Georgia's Reforms
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2012/01/15647088/fighting-corruption-public-services-chronicling-
georgias-reforms
33
In the words of then US Secretary of State Colin Powell, speaking to the Georgian media in early 2004: So
many of your new ministers have been part of this program of student exchange and educational assistance.
And Im pleased they are now bringing back what they learned in the United States, not to simply apply it, but
to adapt it to Georgia. And make it fit with Georgian culture, Georgian history, Georgian traditions, and move
Georgia via the Georgia model into a democratic form of government clean government, good government
This is a worthy use of American taxpayer dollars: to train future leaders to bring their country into the
democratic column of nations. See:
Civil.ge. 2004. Colin Powell's Interview With Rustavi 2 TV [January 25, 2004]
http://civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=6102
8
donor-created stand-alone structures.34 Despite operating within a failed state scarred by civil
war, scholarship programmes succeeded in reaching their intended beneficiaries without
incurring punitive transaction costs along the way.
Second, scholarships have significant

and sustainable impact across a wide Scholarships have significant and
range of settings because many of the sustainable impact across a wide
skills they impart, notably critical range of settings: government,
thinking and managerial skills, are business, and civil society.
transferable. Prior to the revolution,
Georgian scholarship alumni largely chose to keep their distance from the state, which they
saw as a hopeless morass of apathy and graft. During those years, they tried to make a
positive difference to their country by engaging in opposition politics or quietly working in
the non-profit sector; some taught university courses (unpaid) in their spare time. After the
revolution, they migrated en masse from non-governmental organizations to the state,
immediately and significantly boosting the capacity of core state structures. Years later, some
chose to return to the non-profit world, others went into academia full-time (salaries were
finally being paid), and a minority moved sideways into the emerging banking sector.
Arguably, the human resources created by scholarship programmes are not only supremely
durable and fungible, but also re-allocate to wherever their impact is greatest when
circumstances change.
The massive contributions that scholarships had made to the countrys development did not
go unnoticed in Georgia. The new government soon launched its own international
scholarship programme to send even more smart young Georgians to study abroad a
programme that continues to operate to this day.35 Those on the opposite end of the reformist
spectrum have also woken up to the potential of scholarships to bring about profound
transformations. Turkmenistans late dictator Niyazov notoriously barred graduates of
international universities from getting state jobs, and even today his successors discourage
students from studying abroad.36 Taken together, Georgias emulation and Turkmenistans
paranoia are the strongest accolade cross-border scholarship programmes could possibly hope
to receive.
Scholarship programmes provide excellent value for money
Clearly, scholarships are successful at building human capacity at the personal level, and
cumulatively they can have significant nation-wide impact when conditions are right. But
how much do they cost? Data collected for this essay indicates that the total investment
required per scholarship is just 50,000 dollars, including study fees for a masters degree,
living stipends, and all administrative overheads.37 Assuming conservatively that only two
34
Bruckner, Till. 2011. Aid Without Accountability (Berlin: Lambert Academic Publishing)
35
Civil.ge. 2014. Prime Minister Grilled by Students [March 13, 2014]
36
Fitzpatrick, Catherine. 2011. Turkmen Government Tightens Control Over Students
http://www.eurasianet.org/node/63273
See also the World Values Survey data set and associated studies, Robert Putnams writings on civil society,
Steven Pinkers work on the history of violence, and James Flynns publications on the links between formal
education, critical thinking and IQ.
37
Due to the diverse nature of most scholarship programmes, few data sets allow researchers to discern the unit
cost of a single masters degree scholarship. The calculation above is based on two programmes. The British
Chevening scholarship programme in 2008-09 provided 1,000 scholarships on a budget of GBP 23,660,000 (then
9
thirds of scholarship recipients will return to their home countries, and that these will then
work for 30 more years until they retire, each man-year of high capacity input into a
developing countrys government, private or non-profit sector requires only 2,500 dollars in
up-front donor investment38 roughly two hundred dollars per month of work.
Compared to the aid industries conventional

At two hundred dollars per capacity building approaches, this is extremely
month of work, scholarships cheap. For example, the British Department for
are extremely cheap. International Development (DfID) during 2010-
2012 placed four advisors inside South
Sudanese ministries to support them in conducting economic analyses while also building
their analytical capacity, at a cost of 84,000 dollars per person per year.39 The agency noted
that the scheme is particularly effective in gap filling, though often with less strong progress
in broader capacity building, effectively conceding that little if any long-term capacity had
been built. According to DfID, the scheme nevertheless represents good value for money in
comparison with traditional forms of technical cooperation.40 Maybe but compared to
scholarships, its value for money was deeply disappointing.
The money DfID spent on temporarily plugging

four gaps for two years with expatriates would A single year of expatriate
have allowed 13 young South Sudanese to gain input costs the same as two
masters degrees in economics at British postgraduate scholarships.
universities, or could have financed four initial
scholarships followed by five years of salary top-ups for each graduate to ensure that the
targeted ministries could retain this talent.41 Also, none of the advisors sent by DfID had a
qualification exceeding a masters degree, and two of them only had one year of working
experience each; this suggests that newly qualified locals could have performed the same
technical tasks. In addition, all the members of DfIDs original team of advisors have since
moved on to other countries, taking along their accumulated experience.42 Presumably, today
USD 35 million), a unit cost of USD 35,000. The Japan Scholarship Program in the Asian Development Bank
during 1988-2006 awarded 2,104 scholarships at a total cost of USD 84 million, a unit cost of USD 40,000.
In order to allow for inflation and simplify subsequent calculations, the cost estimate here is rounded up to USD
50,000. Note that scaling up such programmes could lower unit costs via economies of scale. Data sources:
Foreign and Commonwealth Office. 2008. "Letter to the Committee Specialist from the Head, Parliamentary
Relations Team, Foreign and Commonwealth Office"
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmfaff/195/195we97.htm
38
Calculation: USD 75,000 investment per graduate returnee (assuming a 66% return rate) divided by 30 years
equals USD 2,500 per annum. (Note that all subsequent calculations made in this essay are based on a
scholarship USD 50,000 unit cost.)
39
Total component budget of GBP 420,000 (USD 678,000) divided by eight man-years. Strangely, DfID claims a
far lower unit cost of GBP 30,000 per year in the document cited here; this may reflect an error of calculation by
DfID. GBP converted to USD at the exchange rate of 31 December 2012.
40
UK Department for International Development [DfID]. No date. Project Summary: Overseas Development
Institute (ODI) Fellowship for Government of Southern Sudan
http://iati.dfid.gov.uk/iati_documents/3719187.docx
41
Under the second option, the remaining USD 478,000 would have been enough to pay four South Sudanese
economists a salary top-up of nearly USD 2,000 per month over a period of five years. For example, a now
discontinued Open Society Foundations programme in Eurasia successfully combined scholarships with salary
top-ups to motivate graduates to teach at local universities after their return.
42
Data on advisors backgrounds and career paths are based on a brief online search. One expert had five
years working experience. The author could not determine the fourth advisors prior work experience.
The effects of the loss of institutional memory can be extremely negative for institutions. See:
10
the gaps they left either remain unfilled, or are being temporarily plugged by yet another
team of expensive expatriates. Instead of creating a strong team of capable South Sudanese
economists, DfIDs intervention left behind a need for significant recurring expenditures just
to maintain the improvements it achieved within the targeted government ministries.
As the example above shows, the trade-off between

Scholarship investments achieving immediate impact through technical
can pay quick dividends. assistance gap-plugging and building long-term
capacity through scholarships is smaller than
thought. Scholarship investments can pay quick dividends. It is striking how many expatriates
working in the developing world are comparatively young. The value they add is clearly not
based on their experience, but on the technical capabilities and critical thinking skills that
they acquired during their university years. Their youth illustrates that the level of capacity a
person needs to make a positive difference does not take decades to build.
Experience shows that especially in

fragile and post-conflict states, locals Especially in post-conflict states,
who have recently completed their scholarships can rapidly make a
studies abroad can make a big big positive difference.
difference if their input is allocated
wisely. In Liberia, a tiny programme that paired up a few dozen young Liberians holding
masters degrees with senior government officials (including cabinet ministers) to assist them
with their daily tasks was credited with having a significant impact on the effectiveness of
these leaders; the World Bank later lauded the initiative for its low cost and the considerable
contribution it made to building sustainable in-country capacity.43
The hidden long-term costs of underfunding scholarship programmes
Despite the strong edge that scholarship

Only a tiny slice of overall programmes have over other aid interventions in
aid budgets is invested in terms of overall impact and value for money, they
scholarships. account for only a tiny slice of overall aid
budgets.44 As precise global figures are elusive,
this essay will draw on a few individual cases to paint a broader picture.
The history of United States assistance to Afghanistan illustrates the extent to which donors
neglect scholarships as a capacity building tool. After the Taliban were driven from power at
the end of 2001, the America greatly increased its aid transfers to Afghanistan, one of the
poorest countries in the world. During the next ten years, America provided an estimated 100
43
Friedman, Jonathan. 2012. Building Civil Service Capacity: Post-Conflict Liberia, 2006 2011
https://www.princeton.edu/successfulsocieties/content/data/policy_note/PN_id203/Policy_Note_ID203.pdf
44
Scholarships to students from developing countries qualify as official development assistance (ODA) under
OECD rules, but it is currently impossible to systematically determine aggregated spending on scholarships by all
donor nations using publicly available data sets. (Personal email communication between the author and Publish
What You Fund, September 2014.)
A complicating factor is that some donors run multiple scholarship programmes, many of them only short-term
exchanges. For example, the U.S. State Department alone manages 50 distinct exchange programmes. Of
these, apparently only two (the global Fulbright Foreign Student Program and the exclusively Eurasia-focused
Edmund S. Muskie Graduate Fellowship Program) enable foreigners to study for a masters degree in America.
See:
Department of State/ECA. 2014. Alphabetical List of Programs
http://exchanges.state.gov/non-us/alphabetical-list-programs
11
billion dollars worth of non-military assistance to the country.45 What were the results in
terms of capacity built? In 2011, just as the flood of aid was reaching its peak, a formal report
prepared for the U.S. Senate lamented that:
Instead of investing in vocational and higher education that would have given
Afghans the skills to run their country, donors hired technical advisors to do these
jobs at roughly 10 times the cost [T]he State Department and USAID are currently
spending approximately $1.25 billion on capacity-building efforts. A significant
portion is spent on [expatriate] technical advisors Technical advisors are expensive
each one can cost between $500,000 and one million dollars annually46
The report speculated that donors aid efforts

How a hundred billion dollars may even have caused a net decline (!) in overall
in aid built no capacity: bitter government capacity compared to the status quo
lessons from Afghanistan ante. The International Crisis Group summarized
the aftermath as follows:
Despite billions of dollars in aid, state institutions remain fragile and unable to
provide good governance, deliver basic services to the majority of the population or
guarantee human security Sustainability is virtually impossible since donors have
largely bypassed Afghan state institutions.47
A hundred billion dollars in American aid and countless foreign advisors had miserably failed
to build the capacity of the Afghan state from the outside.
How much did the U.S. invest in scholarships to

build capacity from the inside during that Afghanistan: less than 400
period? Following the fall of Kabul, it took the scholarships, or 0.02% of aid
embassy over a year to launch its Fulbright Graduate Fellowship programme. When it finally
did so, in 2003, it sent only eight (!) Afghans to United States universities to gain masters
degrees. It then scaled up at a glacial pace, sending a mere 39 students in 2010. By early
2013, only 391 Afghans had studied at U.S. universities on all Fulbright programmes
combined.48
Assuming that each scholarship cost 50,000 dollars (see above), total American scholarship
investment during the first ten years following Taliban rule was 19.6 million dollars, or
0.02% of all non-military assistance provided to the country.49 This is less than a quarter of
the price tag of a single U.S. funded capacity building programme, whose potential to achieve
45
Brinkley, Joel. 2013. Money Pit: The Monstrous Failure of US Aid to Afghanistan
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/money-pit-monstrous-failure-us-aid-afghanistan
46
Kerry, John F. 2011. Evaluating U.S. Foreign Assistance to Afghanistan: A Majority Staff Report Prepared for
the Use of the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, page 25
http://abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/FINAL_AFGHANISTAN_ASSISTANCE_REPORT.pdf
47
International Crisis Group. 2011. Aid and Conflict in Afghanistan
http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/asia/south-asia/afghanistan/210-aid-and-conflict-in-afghanistan.aspx
48
United States embassy in Kabul. 2013. U.S. Ambassador James B. Cunningham Hosts Fulbright Scholars
http://kabul.usembassy.gov/pr_042413.html
49
Note: Consistent with the usage of the term throughout this essay, total scholarship investment here refers to
scholarships for masters degree study only.
12
much impact was highly questionable from the outset.50 That sum in turn was dwarfed by the
471 million dollars spent on good governance programming during 2011 alone.51
Put differently, the America invested less than

Cutting just four expat jobs 20 million dollars into tackling the root causes
could have paid for doubling of low human capacity in Afghanistan through
the entire Afghan scholarship scholarships over the decade 2002-2012. If all
programme. U.S.-funded aid agencies between them had
employed just four expatriates less over that
period of time, the resulting savings would have been sufficient to double the size of the
entire scholarship programme.52 More ambitiously, if the U.S. had allocated just one cent out
of every dollar it spent on non-military assistance to funding scholarships, there would today
be twenty thousand highly qualified Afghan alumni actively working towards the
development of their own country.
Sadly, Americas recent neglect of scholarships in Afghanistan is not a one-off aberration. In

the decades leading up to the Soviet invasion, the Fulbright Commission had sponsored less
than 300 Afghan students and scholars in total.53 And outside Afghanistan, the picture is even
worse. In some of the focal countries of the global aid industry including South Sudan the
Fulbright programme does not operate at all.54
For example, Ethiopia received over half a billion

American aid dollars in 2013,55 but not a single Fulbright Ethiopia: half a billion
scholarship was financed out of that sum.56 If just one dollars of aid, and not
cent out of each of those aid dollars had been invested a single scholarship
into scholarships, it would have permanently enriched
Ethiopias labour pool by a hundred highly trained individuals within a single year.
America is not alone in its neglect of sustainable capacity building. Other donors are equally
guilty of seriously underfunding scholarships. For example, Germanys flagship DAAD
scholarship programme annually awards less than 300 scholarships globally,57 which works
50
The multi-year Afghan Civil Service Support programme, implemented by a Beltway consulting company, cost
USD 84 million. See:
Kerry, John F. 2011. Evaluating U. S. Foreign Assistance to Afghanistan: A Majority Staff Report Prepared for
the Use of the Committee on Foreign Relations, U. S. Senate
51
Based on data extracted from the Foreign Assistance website. See:
http://www.foreignassistance.gov/web/OU.aspx?OUID=166&FY=2011&AgencyID=0&budTab=tab_Bud_Spent&ta
bID=tab_sct_Peace_Disbs
52
This calculation is based on the official Kerry reports lower estimate of a USD 500,000 cost of fielding one
foreign expert for one year, as quoted in the body of the essay (see further above).
53
54
State Department/ECA. No date. The Fulbright Program: Details by Country
http://eca.state.gov/fulbright/fulbright-programs/program-details-country
55
Based on data extracted from the Foreign Assistance website. See:
http://www.foreignassistance.gov/web/OU.aspx?OUID=171&FY=2013&AgencyID=0&budTab=tab_Bud_Spent&ta
bID=tab_sct_Peace_Disbs
Also noteworthy: Less than 0.1% of that assistance, USD 400,000, went towards strengthening higher education
institutions within Ethiopia.
56
57
13
out at less than two scholarships per emerging market and developing country worldwide.58
Even if Germany narrowly targeted these scholarships only at low-income developing states
which Berlin does not do each of these countries would receive only six scholarships per
year.
Assuming that DAAD has the same level of cost-

Germany spends more on effectiveness as comparable programmes
aid to Tuvalu than it invests elsewhere, it is currently investing59 only 15 million
in scholarships. dollars a year into scholarships, accounting for
under 0.1% of the 18 billion dollars Germany
60
spent on aid last year. In fact, Berlin gives more aid to the tiny Pacific nation of Tuvalu
(population: 11,000 souls) than it invests into providing scholarships through DAAD.61
Worldwide, Europes economic powerhouse funds far less scholarships than the Ford
Foundation does.62
If donors continue along their current path of neglect, they will still be temporarily plugging
the capacity gaps of countries like Afghanistan, South Sudan and Ethiopia with expensive
expatriates twenty years from now.
Spend one cent now, save billions of dollars later
This essay has argued that scholarship

programmes are a highly effective form of Scholarship programmes are
aid. They are effective at building capacity on a highly effective form of aid:
the personal level, can have systemic impact build capacity
at the national level, and provide excellent systemic impact
value for money, especially when compared
to conventional capacity building approaches. value for money
At the same time, scholarship programmes are efficient
free of the drawbacks of other commonly used sustainable
forms of aid such as traditional project aid corruption proof
(inefficient and unsustainable), general budget
support (damaging to democracy and highly vulnerable to corruption), and conventional
capacity building approaches (costly and ineffective). Nevertheless, they remain tragically
underfunded by donors.
58
This paragraph refers to the official World Bank classifications. Country numbers are valid as of early 2014.
59
Estimate based on a unit cost of USD 50,000 as discussed above, multiplied by 300 scholarships. The author
has not seen actual DAAD budget figures.
60
Germany spent EUR 14 billion in aid during 2013, which is over USD 18 billion at current exchange rates. See:
BMZ. 2014. "Geber im Vergleich 2013"
http://www.bmz.de/de/ministerium/zahlen_fakten/geber/index.html
61
Tuvalu received EUR 14 million (about USD 18 million) in German aid in 2012. See:
BMZ. 2014. "Bilaterale Netto-ODA nach Frderbereichen und Lndern 2012"
http://www.bmz.de/de/ministerium/zahlen_fakten/leistungen/bilaterale_oda_foerderbereiche_laender_2012/index.
html
62
Between 2001 and 2010, the Ford Foundation International Fellowships Program (IFP) enabled 4,314 people
to pursue advanced degrees. Over the same time span, DAAD sponsored less than 3,000 scholarships. See the
IFP website:
http://www.fordifp.net/
14
To break the vicious cycle of human capacity gaps, weak states, ineffective aid and persistent
underdevelopment, donors should immediately commit to investing one percent of their aid
budgets on postgraduate scholarship programmes from 2016 onwards.
At current levels of international

Just 1% of foreign aid is enough assistance, this would finance 27,000
to finance 270,000 scholarships scholarships every year, or 270,000
over the next decade. scholarships over the course of the next
decade.63 (Note that in contrast to
conventional aid, the impact of scholarships is cumulative, as the capacity built remains
firmly in place.) Delivering on this pledge would not pose major logistical challenges64 as
donors existing postgraduate65 scholarship programmes have already proven their
effectiveness and could easily be scaled up. Current study completion rates of 96-99%
strongly indicate that there is a massive pool of dormant talent in developing countries still
waiting to be tapped.66 And if current return rates of around 80% are a reliable guide, the vast
majority of these people will return to their countries of origin after completing their
studies.67
At the same time, donors should explore the possibility of offering additional postgraduate
scholarships on a cost recovery basis by making funds available for on-lending by local
commercial banks. The high rates commanded by developing country citizens who work as
regional consultants and other data68 suggest that such programmes could be commercially
viable in some contexts.
Recipient governments also have a role to play. They can identify the most pressing human
resources gaps, develop comprehensive national capacity building plans, and coordinate
donors scholarship programmes so that the university places being offered match local
needs.69
63
DAC member states provided USD 134.8 billion in ODA in 2013 according to OECD data. At a unit cost of
USD 50,000, one percent of this sum would be enough to finance 26,960 scholarships.
OECD. 2014. "Aid to developing countries rebounds in 2013 to reach an all-time high"
http://www.oecd.org/newsroom/aid-to-developing-countries-rebounds-in-2013-to-reach-an-all-time-high.htm
64
Some donors offer accompanying measures such as pre-departure trainings to leverage the impact of
subsequent postgraduate training. Reviewing the effectiveness of such approaches is beyond the scope of this
essay.
65
Whether it is advisable for donors to additionally scale up other (non-postgraduate) types of scholarship
programmes is beyond the scope of this essay to explore. Anecdotal evidence suggests that high school
exchange programmes have a strong socio-cultural impact.
66
Based on data reported by the Ford Foundation International Fellowships and Commonwealth Scholarships
programmes. Scholarships are not aid for elites. Ford Foundation reports that 79% of its graduates have a
parental income below the national average, and Muskie recruits 49% of its participants from outside capital
cities. This data was compiled from various sources listed in the bibliography.
67
Some donors put mechanisms in place to try to ensure that graduates return, others do not. High return rates
(minimum 66%, median around 80%) have been reported across all donor programmes that the author is aware
of, including those without compulsory return mechanisms.
68
69
In addition, host governments could engage donors in a mature discussion over the retention problems within
their civil services. Donors may benefit from being told that their refusal to finance recurring expenditures for
public sector salaries seems absurd considering their willingness to simultaneously bankroll a continuous flow of
short-term foreign advisors through public sector institutions a recurring expenditure masquerading as a series
of one-off sustainable interventions.
For example, A UNDP/UNICEF expert group calculated that in Mozambique, a shift of around USD 100 million
per year from the provision of technical assistance workers (around USD 350 million per year total) to national
15
Note that this essay does not claim that postgraduate scholarships are a magic bullet. They
will not sweep aside all structural barriers to development, bring about perpetual peace or
make poverty history overnight. Nor can or should they replace other forms of assistance. 70
To the contrary, allocating just one percent of aid budgets to scholarships will greatly
leverage the impact of all other forms of international aid, including project aid, budget
support, and technical cooperation.
Building support for scholarships within donor countries
It is easy to reform foreign aid on paper. Many have done so

before, and most of their ideas have failed to gain traction. Scholarship
The concept proposed here is realistic because scholarship programmes can
programmes are a form of aid that is uniquely positioned to attract strong
attract broad support within donor nations. Liberals will bipartisan support.
appreciate the focus on education and cultural exchange, and
the potential for peacefully promoting democracy and human rights. Conservatives will
appreciate a form of aid that is immune to corruption and promotes hard work, self-reliance
and personal responsibility.
The value of scholarships as an aid intervention is also easy to communicate to tax payers in
donor countries. People from across the political spectrum will realize that while such
scholarships will significantly help poor countries to develop in the long run, most of the
money invested will immediately flow straight back into their own countrys economy,
especially into its education system. (According to one calculation, even at their current low
level, international exchanges already contribute over 22 billion dollars to the U.S. economy
every year.71)
Also, scholarship programmes work with the grain of the political economy of aid, not
against it. Foreign policy and business constituencies will welcome the opportunities for
building strong links with tomorrows emerging market elites.72 Donor agency officials will
be supportive73 of a form of aid that can easily be scaled up and is arguably particularly
effective in fragile and post-conflict states,74 contexts in which other forms of aid often fail to
deliver results and can sometimes do more harm than good.
salaries would allow salaries to double on average and finance an incentive scheme. [This calculation was cited
in the Commission for Africas report in a footnote on page 136 but the study was not referenced there.]
70
Least of all should they displace donor funding for higher education systems within developing countries, which
has received little serious attention or funding from policy-makers over the last thirty years. See:
Leftwich, Adrian and Wheeler, Chris. 2011. Politics, Leadership and Coalitions in Development
71
State Department/ECA. No date. State-by-State Data
http://eca.state.gov/impact/state-state-data
72
For example, Britains Chevening scholarships are oriented towards largely political ends. Britains
Commonwealth scholarships, which are very similar in substance, are primarily intended as a tool to promote
development. This indicates a strong convergence of different interests around scholarship programmes.
73
For example, DfID currently struggles to responsibly spend the large sums that the UK leadership has
committed to earmarking for expenditure in the poorest nations in the world, where absorptive capacity is often
extremely weak and governance is even worse. Investing this money into scholarships could partially solve
DfIDs problem as aid thus given qualifies as ODA under the OECDs rules.
74
According to one expert group, [t]he extreme shortage of trained people in many fragile and post-conflict
states may in the medium term require saturation training special efforts to train large numbers. See:
16
Last but not least, it is politically feasible. Scaling up existing scholarship programmes does
not require aid bureaucracies to be reorganized or established programmes to be axed, and the
resources required to fund them are tiny compared to overall aid budgets.
In recent months, Barack Obama announced that his Mandela Washington Fellowship for
Young African Leaders will be doubled in size to reach 1,000 participants each year,75
Britain tripled its Chevening programme from 500 to 1,500 participants per annum,76 and the
MasterCard Foundation announced that it will provide over 1,100 university scholarships
over the course of the next ten years.77 These initiatives all recognize that scholarships are a
high-return investment, and show that high-level political support for such programmes can
be mobilized.
What is needed now is scale, on a global level. Investing just one

What is needed cent out of every dollar that donors currently spend into
now is scale. scholarship programmes would dramatically leverage the impact
of the remaining 99% of aid budgets for decades to come.
Note that the experience of post-conflict Georgia (as discussed in this essay, see further above) strongly
supports this idea.
75
White House Office of the Press Secretary. 2014. "Background & Fact Sheet: The Presidents Young African
Leaders Initiative (YALI)"
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/07/28/background-fact-sheet-president-s-young-africa-leaders-
initiative-yali
Note that this programme only covers short-term study and training visits, not the full postgraduate programmes
that are the subject of this essay.
76
Foreign and Commonwealth Office. 2014. "Chevening Scholarship places in developing countries tripled for
2015/16"
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/chevening-scholarship-places-in-developing-countries-tripled-for-201516
77
MasterCard Foundation. 2014. Returning to Home Country and Giving Back What Influences Decision-
Making?
http://mastercardfdnscholars.org/stories-news-post/returning-to-home-country-and-giving-back-what-influences-
decision-making/
17
List of Sources
Note: All of the links listed below were last accessed during the
final formatting of this list of sources on September 14, 2014.
Adrian Leftwich and Chris Wheeler. 2011. Politics, Leadership and Coalitions in Development
Africa Platform on Development Effectiveness/NEPAD. 2011. Cairo Consensus on Capacity Development:

Call To Action
http://www.africa-
platform.org/sites/default/files/resources/Cairo_Consensus_on_Capacity_Development_2011.pdf
Aid Data website.

http://aiddata.org/
Andrews, Fred. 2013. A Surprising Case Against Foreign Aid

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/business/a-surprising-case-against-foreign-aid.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
BMZ. 2014. "Bilaterale Netto-ODA nach Frderbereichen und Lndern 2012"

http://www.bmz.de/de/ministerium/zahlen_fakten/leistungen/bilaterale_oda_foerderbereiche_laender_2012/inde
x.html
BMZ. 2014. "Geber im Vergleich 2013"

http://www.bmz.de/de/ministerium/zahlen_fakten/geber/index.html
Boesen, Nils. 2004. Enhancing Public Sector Capacity What Works, What Doesnt, And Why? A literature
review for the OED Evaluation of World Bank Support for Capacity Building in Africa
http://www.nilsboesen.dk/uploads/docs/Enhancing%20Public%20Sector%20Capacity%20What%20Works%20
What%20Doesnt%20and%20Why.pdf
Boesen, Nils and Therkildsen, Ole. 2004. Capacity Development Evaluation: Between Naivety and Cynicism
http://www.jica.go.jp/cdstudy/library/pdf/20071101_06.pdf
Bruckner, Till. 2011. Aid Without Accountability (Berlin: Lambert Academic Publishing)
Civil.ge. 2004. Colin Powell's Interview With Rustavi 2 TV [January 25, 2004]
Civil.ge. 2014. Prime Minister Grilled by Students [March 13, 2014]


18
Commonwealth Scholarship Commission in the United Kingdom. 2014. A study of research methodology used
in evaluations of international scholarship schemes for higher education
http://cscuk.dfid.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/evaluation-research-methodology-study.pdf
Creed, Charlotte et al. 2012. "Examining development evaluation in higher education interventions: a
preliminary study"
http://www.lidc.org.uk/_assets/LIDC%20Higher%20Education%20study%20final.pdf
Edmund S. Muskie Graduate Fellowship Program. 2008. Selected Results

http://www.irex.org/sites/default/files/Muskie%202008%20Results.pdf
Edmund S. Muskie Graduate Fellowship Program. 2012. Strengthening leaders for development and
democracy
http://www.irex.org/sites/default/files/Muskie%20One-pager%203.26.12.pdf
Department of State/ECA. 2014. Alphabetical List of Programs

http://exchanges.state.gov/non-us/alphabetical-list-programs
Fitzpatrick, Catherine. 2011. Turkmen Government Tightens Control Over Students

http://www.eurasianet.org/node/63273
Foreign and Commonwealth Office. 2008. "Letter to the Committee Specialist from the Head, Parliamentary
Relations Team, Foreign and Commonwealth Office"
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmfaff/195/195we97.htm
Foreign and Commonwealth Office. 2014. "Chevening Scholarship places in developing countries tripled for
2015/16"
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/chevening-scholarship-places-in-developing-countries-tripled-for-201516
Foreign Assistance website.

http://www.foreignassistance.gov/
Friedman, Jonathan. 2012. Building Civil Service Capacity: Post-Conflict Liberia, 2006 2011
https://www.princeton.edu/successfulsocieties/content/data/policy_note/PN_id203/Policy_Note_ID203.pdf
Hanson, Fergus and Oliver, Alex. 2010. What Makes a Leader? Mapping Leadership in Our Region
http://apo.org.au/files/Resource/hanson_and_oliver_what_makes_a_leader_web.pdf
International Crisis Group. 2011. Aid and Conflict in Afghanistan

http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/asia/south-asia/afghanistan/210-aid-and-conflict-in-afghanistan.aspx
Jones, Amir et al. 2014. Higher Education and Developmental Leadership: The Case of Ghana
http://publications.dlprog.org/Higher%20Education%20and%20Developmental%20Leadership%20-
%20The%20Case%20of%20Ghana.pdf
Kerry, John F. 2011. Evaluating U.S. Foreign Assistance to Afghanistan: A Majority Staff Report Prepared for
the Use of the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate

19
Leftwich, Adrian and Wheeler, Chris. 2011. Politics, Leadership and Coalitions in Development
MasterCard Foundation. 2014. Returning to Home Country and Giving Back What Influences Decision-
Making?
http://mastercardfdnscholars.org/stories-news-post/returning-to-home-country-and-giving-back-what-
influences-decision-making/
Mendizabal, Enrique. 2013. Tourist funders are unhelpful when supporting and evaluating think tanks
http://onthinktanks.org/2013/05/22/tourist-funders-are-unhelpful-when-supporting-and-evaluating-think-tanks/
Ndaruhutse, Susy. 2014. Higher education in the post-2015 agenda: proof that it matters
https://beyond2015.acu.ac.uk/submissions/view?id=95
OECD. 2014. "Aid to developing countries rebounds in 2013 to reach an all-time high"
http://www.oecd.org/newsroom/aid-to-developing-countries-rebounds-in-2013-to-reach-an-all-time-high.htm
OECD/DAC. 2005/2008. The Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and the Accra Agenda for Action
http://www.oecd.org/dac/effectiveness/34428351.pdf
Ssewakiryanga, Richard. No date. Capacity Development as a Core Driver of Development Effectiveness

http://www.nepad.org/sites/default/files/Capacity%20Development%20as%20a%20Core%20Driver%20of%20
Development_0.pdf
State Department/ECA. No date. Heads of State/Government

http://eca.state.gov/fulbright/fulbright-alumni/notable-fulbrighters/heads-stategovernment
State Department/ECA. No date. State-by-State Data

http://eca.state.gov/impact/state-state-data

Theron, Monique. 2012. Emerging and non-Emerging African Countries: A Statistical Exploration of the
Leadership Factor
http://publications.dlprog.org/Emerging%20and%20Non-Emerging%20African%20Countries.pdf
Top Universities website.

http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-
rankings/2013#sorting=rank+region=6+country=+faculty=+stars=false+search=
UK Department for International Development [DfID]. No date. Project Summary: Overseas Development
Institute (ODI) Fellowship for Government of Southern Sudan
http://iati.dfid.gov.uk/iati_documents/3719187.docx
UNDP. 2009. Capacity Development: A UNDP Primer

http://www.africa-platform.org/sites/default/files/resources/CDG_PrimerReport_English_0.pdf
White House Office of the Press Secretary. 2014. "Background & Fact Sheet: The Presidents Young African
Leaders Initiative (YALI)"
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/07/28/background-fact-sheet-president-s-young-africa-
leaders-initiative-yali
20
World Bank. 2012. Fighting Corruption in Public Services: Chronicling Georgia's Reforms
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2012/01/15647088/fighting-corruption-public-services-chronicling-
georgias-reforms
World Bank/IEG. 2012. Implementation Completion Report (ICR) Review - Emergency Senior Executive
Service Project (ESESP)
http://lnweb90.worldbank.org/oed/oeddoclib.nsf/DocUNIDViewForJavaSearch/8525682E006860378525797A0
0735AC9?opendocument
21

Building Sustainable Capacity Through Postgraduate Scholarships (Till Bruckner) CONCEPT

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Building Sustainable Capacity Through Postgraduate Scholarships (Till Bruckner) CONCEPT

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Building Sustainable Capacity

Through Postgraduate Scholarships

Till Bruckner, PhD

Low state capacity undermines

Low state capacity undermines development efforts

For this reason, donors have over the years

The human capacity gap: mismatch of demand and supply

Scholarships are effective at building individual capacity and integrity

International scholarships have an impressive

Maybe surprisingly, a large majority of

Intriguingly, there are strong reasons to believe

In a study of Commonwealth scholarships long-term outcomes, 93% of graduates reported

The subsequent transformation of

First, scholarships combine immunity to

Second, scholarships have significant

Scholarship programmes provide excellent value for money

Compared to the aid industries conventional

The money DfID spent on temporarily plugging

As the example above shows, the trade-off between

Experience shows that especially in

The hidden long-term costs of underfunding scholarship programmes

Despite the strong edge that scholarship

The report speculated that donors aid efforts

How much did the U.S. invest in scholarships to

Put differently, the America invested less than

Sadly, Americas recent neglect of scholarships in Afghanistan is not a one-off aberration. In

For example, Ethiopia received over half a billion

Assuming that DAAD has the same level of cost-

Spend one cent now, save billions of dollars later

This essay has argued that scholarship

At current levels of international

Building support for scholarships within donor countries

It is easy to reform foreign aid on paper. Many have done so

What is needed now is scale, on a global level. Investing just one

Africa Platform on Development Effectiveness/NEPAD. 2011. Cairo Consensus on Capacity Development:

Aid Data website.

Andrews, Fred. 2013. A Surprising Case Against Foreign Aid

BMZ. 2014. "Bilaterale Netto-ODA nach Frderbereichen und Lndern 2012"

BMZ. 2014. "Geber im Vergleich 2013"

Civil.ge. 2014. Prime Minister Grilled by Students [March 13, 2014]

Commission For Africa. 2005. "Our Common Interest"

Edmund S. Muskie Graduate Fellowship Program. 2008. Selected Results

Department of State/ECA. 2014. Alphabetical List of Programs

Fitzpatrick, Catherine. 2011. Turkmen Government Tightens Control Over Students

Foreign Assistance website.

International Crisis Group. 2011. Aid and Conflict in Afghanistan

Learning Network on Capacity Development. No date. Fragile situations: Operational implications

Ssewakiryanga, Richard. No date. Capacity Development as a Core Driver of Development Effectiveness

State Department/ECA. No date. Heads of State/Government

State Department/ECA. No date. State-by-State Data

State Department/ECA. No date. The Fulbright Program: Details by Country

Top Universities website.

UNDP. 2009. Capacity Development: A UNDP Primer

You might also like