Rachna Shanbog | PhD. Student
Rachna is a Global India Phd Fellow at the School of Law and Government, Dublin City University. She had been working in the development sector in India for the last nine years before she joined DCU in September 2017. She has worked with organisations such as UN Women India, The Hunger Project (INGO), and various other organizations at the national level on issues concerning women and children.
Education
Master’s degree in Social Work from Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi (2008)
Bachelor’s degree in Commerce from Delhi University (Jesus & Mary College, 2006)
Supervisors
Dr. Jivanta Schottli and Dr. Rob Kevlihan - Consultative Director, Shanahan Research Group
Thesis Title
‘India's Foreign Aid Policy: The Contradictions of Becoming a Global Player’
Thesis Abstract
In 2003, Finance Minister Jaswant Singh announced in the Parliament that India will no longer be an aid recipient, instead, it will intensify its own development aid programme. This marked the beginning of the new phase in India’s external aid programme and as one of the leading countries in South-South Development Cooperation, India claims to be different to the Development Assistance Committee (OECD -DAC) members when it comes to providing aid and, like China, calls itself a ‘development partner’ rather than a donor.
This thesis will analyse this new departure, both in terms of the strategic goals of the aid programme and also the actual consequences in terms of where aid is spent, what it is spent on, and the purpose of the aid programmes. The research will examine the relationship between India’s foreign aid narratives, and the programme outcomes in terms of aid volumes, and types of aid. Using the case studies of Nepal and Sri Lanka it will analyse, in more depth, the Indian government’s narrative on the aid relationship with these countries, the specific details of these bilateral relationships, and the consequences for State to State relations and aid recipients.
Areas of interest
International Aid and Development, Politics in South Asia, Public Policy, Feminism.
Conferences
Presented a paper ‘Mapping the differences in cultures of aid between SSDC and NSDC, and where does India fit in this global aid architecture’ at the British Association for South Asian Studies conference on 4th April 2019 held at Durham University, UK.
Summer schools/workshops
ECPR Summer School in Methods and Techniques at the Central European University, Budapest, from 26 July–10 August 2018. Took three courses: SB 106 A Process Tracing I; SB 103 Mixed Methods; and SB 101 Intro to Relational Social Science.
DCU Summer School, June 2019: Two-day workshop on Interpretative Phenomenology.
Email address: rachna.shanbog2@mail.dcu.ie