Organised crime and international aid subversion: evidence from Colombia and Afghanistan

Scholarly attempts to explain aid subversion in post-conflict contexts frame the challenge in terms of corrupt practices and transactions disconnected from local power struggles. Also, they assume a distinction between organised crime and the state. This comparative analysis of aid subversion in Colombia and Afghanistan reveals the limits of such an approach. Focusing on relations that anchor organised crime within local political, social and economic processes, we demonstrate that organised crime is dynamic, driven by multiple motives, and endogenous to local power politics. Better understanding of governance arrangements around the organised crime-conflict nexus which enable aid subversion is therefore required

Naskah Akademik

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School Leadership and Management: Identifying Linkages with Learning and Structural Inequalities

RLOsThis chapter summarises three phases of research developments in South Africa that have successively brought more reliable quantitative evidence to bear on what we know about the linkages between school leadership and management (SLM) and learning outcomes. A common thread emerging through these studies is the educational value of managing time-on-task and curriculum coverage although more recent evidence suggests that the efficacy of these management practices in raising learning may be mediated through teacher capacity. These linkages are also only informed through mere associations rather than causal evidence. Notwithstanding the lack of rigorous casual evidence in South Africa on how to raise the quality of management in schools, analyses of distributional patterns and trends in school management team (SMT) post-provisioning reflect key areas that could be targeted to at least improve the quantity of SLM in schools and reduce related inequalities. While international evidence on the educational value of leaders and managers supports calls for the capacity development of SMTs, ensuring SMT members are allocated to schools and selecting the best people for these jobs at the outset are the first steps to improve and level differences in the school leadership and management landscape