| Summary: | This study is about development discourses and agents of the countries with low Human
Development Index (HDI) in Africa. It is based on six UN Post-2015 national consultations.
These six nations are Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia,
Mozambique, Liberia and Zambia. The criteria of data selection involve the level of HDI,
language, format of the report and geographical location.
The idea about development as discursive constructed social reality is at the focus of
theoretical framework. The method is Discourse Analysis (DA) with some Foucauldian
characteristics.
The research questions are: What kind of specific development discourses and agentive roles
are there in policy papers in Post-2015 discussion? What are the main discourses of
development according to low-HDI nations? How do low-HDI nations in Africa perceive the
concept of development and its discursive representations?
The discourses found from the data are labelled as UN, Nation State and Services. The theme
of agency is quite cross-cutting in the discursive regime. Thus it is given its own chapter with
analysis of discursive roles found in the papers. The roles found are labelled as facilitator,
consultant, consultee, beneficiary and responsible. Different data-driven discourses as well as
the analysis of agency create the basis for synthetization and identification of broader
development discourses. These broader development discourses are identified as
Development Path and Power of International Development Agenda.
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