Overview
- Analyzes aid by focusing on human giving through donations of embodied knowledge, i.e. volunteer time and expertise, rather than financial instruments
- Presents direct evidence from managing and evaluating the Sustainable Volunteering Project, which has has deployed over 40 UK volunteers across the Ugandan Maternal and Newborn Hub
- Offers valuable policy recommendations aimed at volunteer deployment agencies in the UK and beyond
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About this book
This book is open access under a CC BY license.
This book explores the impact that professional volunteers have on the low resource countries they choose to spend time in. Whilst individual volunteering may be of immediate benefit to individual patients, this intervention may have detrimental effects on local health systems; distorting labour markets, accentuating dependencies and creating opportunities for corruption. Improved volunteer deployment may avoid these risks and present opportunities for sustainable systems change. The empirical research presented in this book stems from a specific volunteering intervention funded by the Tropical Health Education Trust and focused on improving maternal and newborn health in Uganda. However, important opportunities exist for policy transfer to other contexts.
This book explores the impact that professional volunteers have on the low resource countries they choose to spend time in. Whilst individual volunteering may be of immediate benefit to individual patients, this intervention may have detrimental effects on local health systems; distorting labour markets, accentuating dependencies and creating opportunities for corruption. Improved volunteer deployment may avoid these risks and present opportunities for sustainable systems change. The empirical research presented in this book stems from a specific volunteering intervention funded by the Tropical Health Education Trust and focused on improving maternal and newborn health in Uganda. However, important opportunities exist for policy transfer to other contexts.
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Keywords
Table of contents (5 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Authors and Affiliations
About the authors
Helen Louise Ackers holds a Chair in Global Social Justice at the University of Salford, UK. She has been actively involved in high impact social research for many years with a focus on the mobilities of the highly skilled and knowledge mobilisation processes. For the past eight years, she has been actively applying this expertise to the specific context of professional voluntarism and its impact on maternal and newborn health in Uganda.
James Ackers-Johnson holds a project management role at the University of Salford, UK. His background is in Business, Economics and Management. He has been involved in managing Global Health related projects in Uganda and India for the past seven years, focusing primarily on professional volunteer deployment, staff exchanges, capacity building, infrastructure development and the management of UK student elective placements.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Mobile Professional Voluntarism and International Development
Book Subtitle: Killing Me Softly?
Authors: Helen Louise Ackers, James Ackers-Johnson
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55833-6
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan New York
eBook Packages: Political Science and International Studies, Political Science and International Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-137-55832-9Published: 26 December 2016
eBook ISBN: 978-1-137-55833-6Published: 26 December 2016
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XV, 173
Number of Illustrations: 2 b/w illustrations, 11 illustrations in colour
Topics: Comparative Politics, African Politics, Development Theory, Development and Social Change, British Politics, International Organization