Aid, Institutions and Governance: What Have We Learned?

If understanding about institutions and markets had its big breakthrough in the 1990s, the last decade has seen several waves of fresh insight into the centrality of institutions in development. Genuinely cumulative advances in thinking are relatively rare in the field of development policy. So this invites celebration, and provides a fitting focus for activities to mark ODI’s 50th anniversary.

As its contribution to ODI at 50, Development Policy Review (DPR) has produced a special supplement containing reprints of nine key articles published over the last decade. The collection reflects some of the best of the new thinking about institutions, governance and aid. It is introduced by David Booth, writing on the theme ‘What Have We Learned?’ It concludes with the 2008 DPR article ‘Going with the Grain in African Development?’ by Tim Kelsall. Booth and Kelsall are currently active in the Africa Power & Politics Programme (APPP), a multi-country consortium dedicated to new thinking about governance and development in Africa.

This meeting, co-hosted by the APPP, will launch the DPR supplement and extend the debate about what we know, what gaps remain and what is emerging from current research. Issues for debate include:

• how and with what qualifications ‘institutions rule’ in development;
• the limitations of standard instruments for influencing governance systems and the scope for context-sensitive facilitation of institutional change; and
• the idea of ‘working with the grain’ as the key to governance for development in Africa.