Audit as Accountability: Technical Authority and Expertise in the Governance of Private Financing for Development

Abstract

The paper examines the emergence of a new landscape of international development finance that is blurring traditional boundaries between public and private resources for meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and other global public goods (GPGs). In the SDG financing ecosystem, private actors are no longer passive bystanders in the development process but as active contributors to and investors in development projects and programmes. The paper argues that the emerging ‘private turn’ in the architecture of development finance represents a technology of governance that is rooted in the assemblage of international development policy and practice. This regime constitutes an emerging complex and often problematic framework of organising and managing countries’ access to external finance and establishing their terms of engagement with the broader global economy.

A Critical History of Poverty Finance

“…In framing the commercialisation of microcredit in this way, I build on recent analyses of the growing emphasis on multilateral donors and developing country governments 'escorting' financial capital into particular development projects (Gabor 2021;Jafri 2019;Mawdsley 2018;Tan 2021), and previous analyses of poverty finance through the lens of the 'spatial fix' (e.g. Rankin 2013;Soederberg 2013;Frimpong Boahmah and Mursid 2019).…”

Effective horizon management in transnational administration: Bespoke and box‐ticking consultancies in anti‐money laundering

“…These include broader cultural affinities such as the Anglosphere (Legrand, 2015), as well as more relational dynamics, as with the allocation of esteem and regard among policymakers and professionals (Baker, 2017). To stabilize horizon management, policymakers and professionals can form “clubs” that foster intellectual capture over what can be considered as possible in transnational administration (Schneiker & Joachim, 2018; Tan, 2021; Tsingou, 2015).…”

Private Investments, Public Goods: Regulating Markets for Sustainable Development

“… 60 Karwowski ( 2020 ); Park ( 2018a ); Park SK ( 2019 ); Roy et al ( 2018 ); Tan ( 2019 ); Tan ( 2021 ). …”

“… 65 Park ( 2018b ), p 17; see also Dadush ( 2015 ), pp 172–184; Gabor ( 2021 ), pp 12–18; Tan ( 2021 ), pp 12–15. …”

“… 70 For examples of the extensive literature on this, see Broome and Quirk ( 2015 ); Davis et al ( 2012 ). For a detailed discussion on their application in the SDI market and other forms of private finance for development, see Tan ( 2021 ). …”