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PurposeThe paper studies how the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) positioned itself in the process through which capacity building in developing countries was interpreted and enacted within the global development aid agenda from 1999 to 2016.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is an in-depth case study drawing on a comprehensive analysis of publications, reports and archival materials.FindingsThe paper unveils how IFAC shaped the interpretation of capacity building and its associated practices in a manner aligned with its expansionary aims thereby transforming itself into a prominent actor within, what we term, the capacity building issue-based field. It unpacks the strategies pursued by IFAC as it mobilised economic, social and cultural resources in support of its global capacity building ambitions for the accountancy profession. It reveals how key interactions between actors in the international development exchange field and the professional exchange field of accounting underpinned IFAC’s infiltration of, and impact on the evolution of, the capacity building issue-based field. We show how IFAC increased its influence in this field despite initially operating on the periphery of the global development aid agenda.Practical implicationsThe paper reveals how the global accountancy profession’s engagement with the capacity building activities of international development agencies became central to its commitment to serving the public interest. Our analysis suggests that deeper explorations of capacity building by the global accountancy profession in specific developing countries are required in order to determine whether these efforts have effectively catered to the needs of the citizens of those countries.Originality/valueThe work of professional accountancy organizations (PAOs) operating at the global level in the area of capacity building has been addressed in a fragmented fashion in prior research. This paper presents a unique analysis of developing alliances between the global accountancy profession and international aid agencies aimed at supporting the globalising efforts of IFAC within the realm of capacity building in international development aid. Theoretically, the paper advances prior work exploring the evolution of issue-based fields, in particular the role of inter-field relations in interstitial spaces within these processes.

This is the first study to examine the effect of productive capacities on economic complexity and understand whether the Aid for Trade (AfT) flows is important for this effect in recipient countries. The analysis uses a sample of 126 developed and developing countries for 2002-2018 and adopts the two-step system Generalized Method of Moments approach. Results show that strengthening productive capacities enhances economic complexity. Furthermore, productive capacities and total AfT flows are strongly complementary in positively affecting economic complexity, and the degree of complementarity is higher for poor countries than for other AfT-recipient countries. Similarly, productive capacities are strongly complementary with total Non-AfT flows, as well as for total development aid. These findings highlight the need for scaling-up development aid flows, notably AfT flows, in favor of developing countries and poor countries having the lowest levels of productive capacities.

The instituted order of humanitarianism is both changing and challenged. This article addresses the transition between humanitarian action and development aid in northern Uganda, which was driven by the government's ambition to reassert its humanitarian sovereignty by discursively recasting the situation from one of crisis to one of recovery and development, regardless of the persistent humanitarian needs. In response, humanitarian actors either withdrew or moved into development aid. This bourgeoning humanitarian-development nexus questions the nature and future of humanitarianism and whether there is a hierarchy - or contradiction - between the humanitarian mandate and pragmatic approaches to save lives and protect civilians.

More evidence is emerging about challenges many different types of civil society organisations around the world are facing relative to the sustainability of their organisations and functions. Valuable experiences and lessons are also emerging of how organisations are responding. This concluding article brings together themes from across the articles in this special issue, offering a broad understanding of civil society sustainability, exploring why this matters in the present geopolitical context, reviewing what has changed from previous analyses, and proposing ideas for what needs to change as we move forward.

This article reports on a study that aimed to assess the impact of the 2015 drought in South Africa on commercial livestock producers, with specific reference to the associated drought adoption strategies. The study was based on primary data collected from 350 commercial livestock producers from seven different provinces. The findings revealed that the effect of drought had a significant impact on average herd size, livestock feeding, and sheep flock. Commercial livestock producers did not receive any form of assistance from the government. The majority of the farmers did not have any preventive measures in place during the drought. The study recommends that the government and policymakers should introduce a mechanism to support commercial livestock farmers when drought strikes.

We investigate the role of accounting and audit quality in the allocation of international development aid loans provided by the World Bank. This aid is crucial to improve governance functions, infrastructure, and capital markets, and the accounting and audit environments in a country can provide the World Bank with confidence that aid is being used as intended rather than being diverted for personal or political gain. We find that development aid loans are higher for countries with stronger accounting quality, where IFRS use is mandated, and where the audit environment is stronger. However, we also find that United States geo-political interests influence these results. Specifically, the World Bank appears to \"overlook\" accounting and audit quality in countries where geo-political interests are relatively aligned with those of the U.S. Finally, we find that accounting and auditing matter only in countries with relatively high corruption levels, indicating that the World Bank has greater trust that accounting and auditing are of relatively high quality in low-corruption countries.

This article analyses water, food, and energy security in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries using the water-energy-food (WEF) nexus approach. The innovative focus is on identifying past and future development-based drivers of water-energy-food integration in the region. The study presents a critical review of WEF nexus in the Gulf region and identifies links to sustainable development in this area. It concludes that integrating water, energy, and food resources within the nexus is crucial for GCC nations to accomplish resource security and sustainable development.

Aid fragmentation has been examined as a negative phenomenon to development outcomes based on aid volumes. However, aid fragmentation is a situation in which a large number of fragmented and non-coordinated donor projects carried out using procedures that vary from donor to donor are introduced in a recipient country, raising the transaction costs. Therefore, this article examines the effect of aid fragmentation based on the number of projects. It confirms that project aid concentration increases economic growth in poor countries with a higher degree of aid dependence. Under the SDGs, it is expected that aid fragmentation will become a more pressing concern.

Understanding and accounting for the heterogeneity of small farmers is critical for informing development pathways to improve the performance of smallholder irrigation. Using multivariate analysis, this study sought to develop farmer typologies in and around irrigation schemes and used these to inform strategies for on-farm entrepreneurship development. The research uniquely integrates psychological capital in defining farmer typologies, to capture individual features of each farmer, otherwise missed by the generic sustainable livelihoods framework literature. The study affirms the need to focus on psychological capital and concludes that heterogeneity among small-scale irrigators should be accounted for in future agricultural and rural development programmes.