Post 2015: Global Action for an Inclusive and Sustainable Future

CHApTER TWO
All four case
studies voiced
a concern about
the MDGs’ lack
of attention to
the productive
sectors, to
infrastructural
investment and
to economic
growth.
34
remain dangerously vulnerable to shocks that can
set things back by decades.
In rwanda and nepal, the mDGs have been
integrated into development planning and provided
benchmarks against which to measure progress
in particular policy areas. In rwanda, the mDGs
align well with the government’s own strong
developmental discourse and policies. For two
decades, nepal experienced political instability and
conflict. the mDGs have contributed to informing
policies during a transition period and feature in
the government’s mid-to long-term development
plans. peru, on the other hand, has hardly referred
to or used the mDG framework in designing its
poverty-reduction or development policies. côte
d’Ivoire has witnessed various bouts of instability
and violent conflict since 1999. throughout this
period the public authorities continued to refer to
the mDG framework, which has helped the country
to restore relations with the donor community on
poverty-oriented cooperation and to mobilise aid.
considerable obstacles to implementation remain,
and after a decade the country is likely to reach only
a few mDG targets.
there was some criticism of the mDGs, which
were seen as biasing donor support towards the
social sectors, while national governments may have
different preferences and priorities. the relevance
of public expenditure on social service provision
is certainly recognised in the studies. Yet, at the
same time, all four case studies voiced a concern
about the mDGs’ lack of attention to the productive
sectors, to the need for infrastructural investment
and more generally to the dimension of economic
growth. In three of the four there was also concern
about donors’ failure to honour their commitments
on the volume and effectiveness of aid.
EuropEan rEport on DEvElopmEnt 2013
2.2 Explaining policy choices:
a political economy perspective
Since the 1990s there has been a considerable effort
to better understand what drives the differences
in development policy choices and trajectories in
developing countries. this was partly triggered
by donor dissatisfaction with ‘best-practice
development models’ and the idea that formal
institutions could be successfully ‘transferred’ from
rich to poor countries (centre for the Future of the
State, 2010). Evaluations and studies pointed to
the limited success of donor support for wholesale
institutional and governance reforms. often these
well-intentioned efforts were inappropriate in the
country context because they were largely based
on idealised templates based on institutions and
governance systems in oEcD countries. In the
words of Dani rodrik, ‘institutional innovations
do not travel well’ (rodrik, 2003: 17).
this section draws on a new generation of largely
donor-sponsored diagnostic tools 14 and political
economy analytical research. these seek to examine
the social and political environments in which
development processes take place, and look ‘behind
the façade’ of formal institutions and policies.
the section also refers to findings and evidence
from research 15 on power and politics in africa,
on leadership/agency and development, relations
between elites and productive sectors, politics and
agricultural development, the investment climate
and fragile states.
Structures, institutions and political
processes
Some donors have begun to make more use of
political economy frameworks and analyses to
understand the country-level actors and factors that
14 Such political economy tools include: DFID, 2008; World bank, 2010; netherlands mFa, 2009; DEvco concept note, 2011 (unsworth and
Williams, 2011).
15 research programmes include: the africa power and politics programme (www.institutions-africa.org); the Development leadership programme
(www.dlprog.org); the Improving Institutions pro-poor Growth programme (www.ippg.org.uk); Future agricultures (www.futureagricultures.org);
Elites, production and poverty programme (www.diis.dk/epp); and the tracking Development programme (http://www.
institutions-africa.org/trackingdevelopment_archived/home.html).