Aral Sea region: Donor's dilemma Author: By Kimo Karini* Kyzylorda development and donor's assistance failure to cooperate ALMATY (TCA). Since Kazakhstan's independence, in the early 90's, Kyzylorda Oblast and territories in Kazakhstan's part of the Aral Sea have certainly seen a lot of learning about the nature of economic underdevelopment, poverty and about good and bad strategies or policies for dealing with it. Examples abound. We know now that identification of aid market failures is not by itself enough to guide action; something also has to be known about public sector capabilities. The relationship between investment and growth is a lot more complicated than it is assumed in widely-used models and the relationship between growth and inequality can not be generalized . Income inequality does not invariably rise in the early stages of development and decline later. There are limits both in the import substitution industrialization strategies, and in trade liberalization and privatization. From the other side introduction of cash crops often has negative effects on rural women and small dams are almost always cheaper, more effective and more sustainable than big dams, and for sure on-the-job approaches to skill development tend to be more economic and more effective than traditional vocational school training. The list of deficiencies on development projects sound very familiar. We go from the hasty and poor design of TA projects to defects in implementation such as recruitment delays, from unsuitable consultants, to inadequate supervision. From poor coordination between donors to lack of good local counterparts in not considering the weak local ownership and management Kyzylorda Oblast's demand for donor aid was and still is a vital asset to develop and build-on the remaining infrastructure of the Soviet era. The existing challenges are vast, both in quantity and quality. Based on that, the "true" nature of the demand for aid projects is harder to deter ... Читать далее