In the Name of Sustainability: Contradictory Effects of NGO-driven Development in Malawi

Louise Mubanda Rasmussen

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

It is a core principle in non-governmental organisation (NGO)-driven development that interventions must be ‘sustainable’. Individuals and communities are to be ‘empowered’ to take responsibility for their own development in ways that will eventually make donor funding redundant. On the basis of ethnographic fieldwork with NGOs supporting ‘orphans and vulnerable children’ in Malawi, this article explores the practices, social relations and contradictory effects that the vision of sustainability engenders. The article illustrates how the commitment to sustainability paradoxically produces practices that can only be sustained through continuous flows of donor funding. It argues that the persistence of sustainability as an organising principle is connected both to its self-confirming logic and to the ways in which practices of ‘sustainability’ shape the subjectivities of local brokers and come to constitute a central avenue for pursuing personal projects of development.
Original languageEnglish
JournalEuropean Journal of Development Research
Number of pages16
ISSN0957-8811
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 28 Apr 2016
Externally publishedYes

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'In the Name of Sustainability: Contradictory Effects of NGO-driven Development in Malawi'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this