Despite growing aid volumes, financing development is becoming more difficult, not less. Better information on private finance flows will help developing-country governments craft more effective policies. Without stronger government leadership, well-intentioned but diverging donor approaches...

With concern about how to finance the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) widespread, recent donor pledges to raise aid volumes are welcome. However, aid alone will not suffice – bringing in new actors and sources of development finance will be essential. In many developing countries, this is...

À l’heure où beaucoup s’inquiètent du financement des Objectifs du Millénaire pour le développement (OMD), les engagements récemment pris par les pays donneurs d’augmenter le volume de l’aide arrivent à point nommé. À elle seule, l’aide ne sera cependant pas suffisante : il...

The idea of local “ownership” of development policies is now popular among the donor community, but without a reduction of conditionality on aid disbursements, enhanced ownership will be difficult to achieve. While there are still strong reasons for attaching certain kinds of conditionality...

“Ownership” makes aid work better when recipients can choose between policy options. Governments need to encourage home-grown development strategies and free local policy debates. Policy conditions on aid don’t work.

Donors, aid agencies and recipient governments are having a hard time implementing their promises on aid. Options based on a better understanding of their diverse priorities would help make the aid system more effective. Policy makers pursuing poverty reduction and other development goals should...

La notion d’« appropriation » locale des politiques de développement a fait son chemin dans la communauté des bailleurs. Pourtant, avec les niveaux actuels de conditionnalité, cette appropriation n’a guère de chance de se conforter. De puissantes raisons militent encore pour le...

L’« appropriation » rend l’aide plus efficace en élargissant les options politiques de ses bénéficiaires. Les gouvernements doivent encourager l’élaboration de stratégies de développement et l’organisation de débats au niveau local. La conditionnalité est un échec.

Informal employment is a widespread phenomenon in Romania and a key challenge for the country’s development. Policies should target two distinct groups: those who voluntarily opt out of the formal system and those with no alternative. Transforming people’s attitudes towards the state and...

Sustainable development requires well co-ordinated and functioning formal and informal institutions. In developing countries, courts, regulations and formal conventions are often observed in the breach or fail to function. By default, informal institutions – tradition, culture, family...