Assess merits and demerits of Australia’s development response to COVID-19 

Purpose

The purpose of this assessment task is to:

• Demonstrate breadth and depth of understanding of content in the Community Development field
• Practice writing for publishing in the field of study
• Practice writing for a variety of audiences

The unit learning outcome(s) assessed are: 

• LO1. Advocate their own position and motivation to undertake community development work;
• LO2. Commentate upon key principles of community development in international and local contexts;
• LO3. Deconstruct contemporary development-related issues; and
• LO4. Interrogate the roles of culture, politics, economy and different social contexts in community development.

 Assessment Structure

This essay is attached to the purpose of publishing in Australian Community Development journals arranged by the faculty from time to time.

Broad indications of topic areas are provided below: 

1. Developing world states may manage to effect change of their economies by a strategic planning and marshalling (or mustering) of human and other resources in situationally perceptive and proactive structural change of their industrialisation and economic growth.
2. The state of tension, human made disasters, and other disasters in the developing world make development a challenge if we think of it happening in peaceful and stable political environments and in economically well-endowed contexts.  How far would an analysis based on the Fragile States Index be insightful in our planning for development in the developing world?
3. Conceptualisation of development as capabilities offers a practical approach to change circumstances that bring about poverty and inequality. What do you understand by the capabilities approach and how far has this view of development as freedoms been used, or not, in a developing world context with which you are familiar?
   Ref: Frances Stewart, 2013, Capabilities and Human Development: Beyond the individual—the critical role of social institutions and social competencies, New York: UNDP.
4. The Bretton Woods Institutions (IMF and World Bank) and their attendant Washington Consensus have China-led rival multilateral institutions and initiatives such as the New Development Bank (or BRICS Bank), the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the One-Road-One-Belt initiative.
   Assess the work of the IMF and World Bank in one developing world region (particularly Africa, Latin America, or South East Asia) since their inception to the beginning of the 2000s, pointing out examples of positive or negative impact. In your view, how serious are the Beijing Consensus multilateral institutions and initiatives a challenge to the dominance of the Washington Consensus?
5. The debt burden of the developing world and the debt reduction of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiatives adopted by the donor community and the International Financing Institutions have done little to alleviate the impact of the “reverse transfer of wealth” from poorest area to richest. (a) Assess the net state relief of the HIPC initiatives so far. (b) Would you associate the BRICS alternative institutions might have anything to do with the impact of IFI’s debts with their conditionalities? Discuss.
6. Rural development may be a changing dimension of development with fast development of Information and Communication Technology (ICTs). Discuss
   Do ICTs contribute to development?
7. Is DOING CD experiencing a paradigm shift? Discuss Drawing on examples of paradigm shifts.
   Coronavirus Will Change the World Permanently. Here’s How.
   A crisis on this scale can reorder society in dramatic ways, for better or worse. Here are 34 big thinkers’ predictions for what’s to come.
   Ref: Piot, P., & Quinn, T. C. (2013). Response to the AIDS pandemic–a global health model. The New England journal of medicine, 368(23), 2210–2218.
8. The Australian Federal Government in its use of aid works with various actors in the development space. Assess merits and demerits of working with the various actors.
9. Assess merits and demerits of Australia’s development response to COVID-19
10. Describe Government of Australia’s assessment of aid performance.  Do you think this assessment serves the aid recipient more or Australia? Discuss with examples.