Leveraging Science Diplomacy to Dismantle the Aid Industrial Complex
$ 45.5
Description
Leveraging Science Diplomacy to Dismantle the Aid Industrial Complex: A Framework for Equitable Global Partnerships presents a research based analysis by Ali Al Mokdad of how scientific cooperation can be mobilized as a practical pathway to rebalance power, resources, and legitimacy in the global aid ecosystem. Drawing on more than 120 academic and policy sources published between 2016 and September 2025, alongside a comparative review of operational cases including the West Africa Ebola response, PEPFAR, SESAME, UNESCO FRIEND Nile, and post 2022 disruptions in Arctic scientific cooperation, the research maps the structural mechanisms that keep localization commitments largely rhetorical. Ali Al Mokdad situates the Aid Industrial Complex within wider political economy and global governance dynamics, showing how compliance regimes, risk transfer, tied and de facto tied practices, and epistemic hierarchies reinforce dependency and concentrate decision authority upstream.
The study integrates dependency theory, postcolonial critique, and complex adaptive systems thinking to explain why reform efforts often stall, even when institutions adopt the language of power shifting. It then advances a four pillar framework that translates science diplomacy into implementable governance design.