The Governance Brief: Addressing the Political Dimensions of Development (Issue 14-2006)

Abstract

The development community has a preferred, tried, and tested way of supporting development. Development assistance, as currently structured, works best when the recipient government has a clear commitment to poverty reduction, and where the governance institutions have been restructured to maximize the development impact of both government (supply-side) and civil society (demand-side). The standard for this approach is embodied in the PRS, where the transparency of the Government’s commitment is reinforced with accountability, providing development partners with a higher degree of assurance that development resources will be appropriately managed, thus facilitating budgetary support. In this environment, development partners can focus on apolitical technical solutions to capacity constraints confronted by most government organizations, confident that the necessary political safeguards are in place.