Micro(soft) managing a ‘green revolution’ for Africa: The new donor culture and international agricultural development
Micro(soft) managing a ‘green revolution’ for Africa: The new donor culture and international agricultural development
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微（软）管理非洲的“绿色革命”：新的捐助文化和国际农业发展
DOI：
10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.08.003
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发表时间：
2018
影响因子：
6.9
通讯作者：
R. Schurman
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
R. Schurman
比尔和梅林达·盖茨基金会已成为一个有影响力的发展行为体，在国际卫生和农业发展方面投入了数十亿美元。虽然学者们通常断言，该基金会是新一代“慈善资本家”的一部分，他们将商业原则应用于慈善活动，但很少有人知道这到底意味着什么，也不知道盖茨基金会内部是如何运作的。本文试图通过研究其组织文化来加深我们对这个新的发展参与者的理解。我通过盖茨基金会农业发展项目的案例研究来做到这一点。通过深入访谈，BMGF网站上的材料以及其他各种主要数据来源，我探索了该基金会在非洲的实践，工作场所规范以及与受赠者的互动，因为它试图改善非洲小农的生活。我认为，盖茨基金会对战略规划的高度重视产生了一种农业发展的方法，这种方法从小农的社会文化世界中抽象出来，并依赖于一套可推广的发展解决方案。我的分析还揭示了BMGF组织文化的另一个重要后果：通过将聪明，高成就的专业人士沉浸在竞争激烈的环境中，员工学会了“向上管理”（对比尔）而不是向下管理（对他们的预期受益人）。这使基金会工作人员与实地隔绝，使他们难以倾听小农的意见，尽管许多人表达了这样做的真诚愿望。因此，农民继续被视为发展的被动对象，而不是复杂的社会行为者。
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) has become an influential development actor, spending billions of dollars on international health and agricultural development. While scholars commonly assert that the foundation is part of a new breed of “philanthrocapitalists” who apply business principles to their philanthropic activities, little is known about what this really means or how the Gates Foundation works on the inside. This article seeks to deepen our understanding of this new development actor by examining its organizational culture. I do this through a case study of the Gates Foundation’s Agricultural Development program. Using in-depth interviews, materials from the BMGF’s website, and a variety of other primary data sources, I explore the foundation’s quotidian practices, workplace norms, and interactions with grantees as it tries to improve the lives of smallholder farmers in Africa. I argue that the Gates Foundation’s heavy emphasis on strategic planning has produced an approach to agricultural development that abstracts away from smallholder farmers’ sociocultural worlds and relies on a generalizable set of development solutions. My analysis also reveals another significant consequence of the BMGF’s organizational culture: By immersing bright, high-achieving professionals in the competitive, intense environment that characterizes the foundation, staff have learned to “manage up” (toward Bill) rather than manage down (toward their intended beneficiaries). This insulates and distances foundation staff from the field, making it difficult for them to listen to smallholder farmers, even though many express a genuine desire to do so. As a result, farmers continue to be treated as passive objects of development rather than as complex social actors.