Local Recruits in Development Finance Institutions: Relocating Global North-South Divides in the International Aid Industry
基于对13名肯尼亚开发金融机构投资经理的访谈，发现本地员工的专业知识、权威和职业稳定性挑战了传统认知，但投资决策权仍集中在总部，结构性不平等从办事处内部转移到了办事处与总部之间。
This text explores locally recruited staff within a growing category of organisations in the international aid industry: Development Finance Institutions (DFIs). DFIs are banks that offer risk capital to development projects in the global South, increasingly using tax-funded aid money. Based on interviews with 13 DFI investment managers, I show how Kenyan DFI staff challenge three of the signature attributes commonly assigned to local development professionals: their ‘local’ expertise does not contrast with or preclude international expertise, but rather overlaps with it; their formal authority and career ladders are not restricted to technical or support positions – many field offices are headed by local employees; and they rarely face job insecurity given their competitive qualifications and permanent employment contracts. Meanwhile, decisions on investments are rarely taken by these field office staff but by their colleagues at headquarters, and unlike the latter, even those local recruits who head their field offices usually lack a secure place in the global organisation of their DFIs. This suggests that structural inequalities between donor and recipient country staff – integral to the development industry – have not disappeared in DFIs but rather relocated: from within the walls of field offices to the relationship between these offices and headquarters.