The End of ODA (II): The Birth of Hypercollective Action

Abstract

The development business has become much more complex in the past decade, with actors proliferating and collaboration fragmenting. This trend is characteristic of the change from collective action to what the authors term hypercollective action. Such a shift brings new energy and resources to international development, but also more difculty managing global public policy. Severino and Ray use the lessons of the Paris Declaration— the first large-scale effort to coordinate hypercollective action—as a starting point for envisioning a new conceptual framework to manage the complexity of current international collaboration. They offer concrete suggestions to improve the management of global policies, including new ways to share information, align the goals of disparate actors, and create more capable bodies for international collaboration.[Working Paper No. 218]