Aid Relationships and Power Dynamics in the Global Fund Grants

This chapter discusses the types of aid relationships formed between stakeholders involved in the Global Fund grants to the Kyrgyz Republic. Building on the theoretical framework and empirical findings presented in the previous chapters of this book, it shows how power dynamics evolved in the project and how structural factors were conducive to their persistence or alteration. The actors’ roles throughout the project life cycle, their interests, and the ways they created power (based on Haugaard, European Journal of Social Theory, 6(1), 87–113, 2003) and approached their resources were equally relevant to the development of certain power dynamics. These laid the foundation for specific types of aid relationships between aid providers (donor–donor), providers with recipients (donor–recipient state, donor–civil society organization), and aid recipients with each other (recipient state–civil society organization).