Aid effectiveness: bringing country ownership (and politics) back in

The 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, reaffirmed in Busan in 2011, grew out of a consensus on the importance of 'country ownership' for the success of development efforts. But in Paris and again in Busan it was tacitly assumed that most aid-recipient countries already have developmentoriented political leaderships. This article considers that assumption untenable and asks whether donors have any role in assisting the emergence of developmental regimes. Aid as such is probably on balance bad for the institutional fabric of poor developing countries. Therefore, firstly, more attention should be given to reforming the non-aid policies of donor countries which are known to affect for the worse the economic and political systems of developing countries. And secondly, more thought should be given to using aid to help country actors overcome the collective-action problems that prevent them from moving towards more developmental politics.