Development Network Organizations – Platforms for Reinforcing Local Sovereignty or Instruments for Top-Down Governance? : A Case-Study of the Child Protection Community in Burkina Faso

Abstract: Formulations in international policies often give expression to assumptions that network organizations have positive effects on development work by increasing coordination and collaboration between actors that are trying to obtain similar goals. However, few case studies have investigated the interactor dynamics of network organizations operating in development contexts, especially within the social sector. This master thesis in political science builds on a mainly interview-based field study of development network organizations within the child protection community in Burkina Faso. Its analytical framework combines scholarly contributions from the field of network theory and from critical development theory, which leads to a discussion about how network engagement influences interactor dynamics between aid-donors and aid-recipient child protection organizations in Burkina Faso. The fieldwork findings indicate that although policy-makers often claim that the institutionalization of development network organizations may increase the influence of local organizations over decision-making, socioeconomic hierarchies tend to hinder local NGOs from articulating and pushing through their own agendas within the frameworks of established networks, in favor for international NGOs.