Ha, Yoonbin

Yoonbin Ha

Biography

Yoonbin Ha  ( School of International Service, American University) 

Yoonbin Ha is a PhD student. Previously, he worked as a foreign aid practitioner at Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA). During the course of his work in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, Ha became interested in the roles of donors and global-local governance in the development processes. Currently, he researches the effect of foreign aid and democratization in developing countries, with a focus on Africa. 

Abstract

Strengthening Accountabilities in the Sustainable Development Goals: Shifting the focus to donors

A review of the literature on the MDGs from the past 15 years shows that accountabilities have constituted one of the global development framework’s main weaknesses. On this evidentiary basis, we develop four dimensions for differentiating accountabilities in global development governance and apply them to the emerging Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Specifically, we investigate the extent to which accountabilities of bilateral donors and multilateral organizations to national recipient governments and local beneficiaries have been built into the formulation of post-2015 global development governance. We find that related agenda-setting processes have been framed in a top-down manner in spite of targeted outreach efforts. We conclude with a call for institutionalizing downstream accountabilities as a crucial component of post-2015 aid effectiveness.