Program Overview

Introduction to the Development Enterprise (UTVB3003)

Course Overview

The course provides knowledge about main features of the global aid industry, Norwegian aid in perspective, new actors, interventions and partnerships, as well as representation and self-presentation within the development industry.

Location and Duration

• Location: Pilestredet Campus, Oslo
• Duration: 5 weeks
• ECTS credits: 15
• Semester: Autumn
• Language of instruction: English

Admission Requirements

You must have completed at least a one-year introductory course in Development Studies or equivalent courses within social sciences.

Content

The course covers the following themes:

• Main features of the global aid industry: Actors and channels of finance; geographic and thematic destinations of aid; paradigms in and major debates about aid.
• Norwegian aid in perspective: Features of public development policy from the 1980s and up to the present, in comparative perspective; the approach and work of select non-governmental organisations.
• New actors, interventions and partnership types: Developing country donors; policy coherence and coordination including SDGs; advocacy and transnational activism; and corporate social responsibility.
• 21st century trends: «Securitization», «environmentalization» and «commercification» of aid; effectiveness, evaluability and result based management in aid.
• The politics of representation: The ways in which main actors in the development enterprise present development challenges; their own work and contributions; and the debates this gives rise to.

Costs

There is no semester fee for exchange students.