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Research article - Peer-reviewed, 2019

Conjuring 'Win-World' - Resilient Development Narratives in a Large-Scale Agro-Investment in Tanzania

Engstrom, Linda; Hajdu, Flora

Abstract

Through a case study of a public-private partnership (PPP) for development in which the Swedish development agency Sida supported a Swedish company trying to implement a large-scale agro-investment in sugarcane in Tanzania, we unpack the underpinnings of what we call 'win-world', a resilient development narrative maintained by actors promoting the investment. Rich empirical descriptions show that this narrative was highly resilient to accumulated academic knowledge and current real-world problems. We found that the privatisation of development increased the resilience of the narrative to evidence of its own shortcomings.

Published in

Journal of Development Studies
2019, Volume: 55, number: 6, pages: 1201-1220