How does poor governance constrain development? This paper was prepared for the launch of the OECD DAC Network on Governance (GOVNET) work-stream on Aid and Domestic Accountability. It sets out a conceptual framework and approach that will enable donors and other stakeholders to explore the complexities of real-world governance, consider aid impact, and analyse the role that politics and incentives play in shaping domestic accountability.
Domestic accountability provides states with an incentive to respond to the needs of their citizens. It is driven in large part by domestic politics, but the actions of donors and other ‘external’ actors do have influence. Ensuring effective domestic accountability is an ongoing challenge for all countries, with governments in many developing countries only weakly accountable to their citizens.
Donors, working in partnership with developing countries, have a responsibility to act in ways that strengthen, rather than undermine, domestic accountability. While there have been some successes, donors have tended to adopt ‘blueprint’ approaches that take insufficient account of context. Support is often provided in a manner that focuses on building the capacity of individual institutions rather than systems of accountability. Donors need to ensure that their support to capacity development is effective and that the ways in which they deliver aid do not limit the scope for domestic accountability. The impact of aid on domestic accountability, and the suitability of different modalities, depends in part on existing patterns of accountability.
The conceptual framework draws attention to a number of points that must be considered to understand the relationship between aid and domestic accountability:
- Domestic accountability is about the relationship between citizens and the state and the extent to which the state is answerable for its actions.
- Domestic accountability emerges through the operation of accountability systems that bring together a variety of institutions, putting into practice and drawing on a number of principles – including human rights principles – through their engagement with particular issues.
- Citizen-state relations are embedded in specific country contexts, with their own political realities, structures of incentives and configurations of formal and informal power.
- The scope and capacity for domestic accountability can be shaped by aid. Aid that is delivered on the basis of a sound understanding of the prevailing governance context is more likely to have a positive impact.
- For a number of issues there will be additional ‘global drivers’ and non-aid drivers of accountability and governance. The dynamics of these are generated, to varying degrees, beyond the borders of the country concerned.
This paper proposes that GOVNET’s work-stream take issues as entry-points for exploring the landscapes of governance and domestic accountability. This approach offers a number of advantages:
- It will enable the exploration of the political realities and incentives that shape governance. Donors must engage with these if their support to the strengthening of domestic accountability is to be effective.
- It will allow for exploration of the ways that aid can shape both the scope and capacity for domestic accountability.
- It will enable GOVNET’s planned work-stream to play an integrative function, adding value to the work of other GOVNET Task Teams and DAC Networks and fostering collaboration with other organisations working on issues of governance and domestic accountability.
