Many regard cash transfer programmes as cost-efficient tools to alleviate poverty across the Global South. But, as Guido Maschhaupt and Ahmed El Assal argue, in autocratic contexts, these programmes can have unintended – and politically significant – consequences. By supporting them, international aid donors may advertently bolster authoritarian regimes
PhD Candidate, International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam
Ahmed is a final-year doctoral candidate specialising in the political economy of development.
He holds a Master’s degree in Governance, Development, and Public Policy from the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex.
His research agenda is twofold.
First, his doctoral research explores the politics of accountability and service delivery in Uganda’s competitive authoritarian regime.
He employs a structuralist political economy analysis of Uganda's political settlement and examines its impact on accountability relations in public service delivery.
The second strand of his research focuses on epistemic justice and knowledge production, with a particular emphasis on enhancing the role of Global South researchers in development studies as part of a broader decolonisation agenda.
Ahmed has published several journal articles on civil society, foreign aid, accountability, and epistemic justice.
He also has over 15 years' experience in the international development sector, at the intersection of governance, human rights, and economic justice.
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