Project Description
‘New Norms and Forms of Development: Brokerage in Maternal and Child Health Service Development and Delivery in Nepal and Malawi’ is a collaborative research project involving researchers from School of Social and Political Science and School of Health and Social Science at the University of Edinburgh; Kamuzu College of Nursing in Malawi and Social Science Baha in Nepal. This research is funded by a grant awarded by the Economic and Social Research Council and Department for International Development (ESRC/DFID) in the UK and runs from 1 May 2014 to 30 April 2016. Through its focus on the role and functions of different types of institutions and professionals who broker health sector development projects and programmes, this research aims to understand the nature of mediation and translation involved in that process and the difference these institutions, professionals and other actors make in meeting the global development objectives. Moving beyond the ideological positions and arguments that defend or condemn this ‘neoliberalisation’ of aid, this research will focus on the role and functions of intermediaries that broker the delivery of aid by UKaid and USAID in the Maternal Child Health sector in Nepal and Malawi. It will involve identifying and studying the role and functions of different intermediaries in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of development projects in the field of maternal and child health. Based on ethnographic research, supplemented with focused interviews, into the running of eight organisations (to be selected following the initial mapping exercises in both countries) that represent the range of institutional engagement in the sector, it aims to have direct impact on policy and practice from the research by running workshops in Nepal and Malawi for the relevant individuals and institutions that make up the assemblage of organisations in this sector.
Funding: Economic and Social Research Council and Department for International Development (ESRC/DFID)
Project duration: two years (1 May 2014- 30 April 2016)
