Aid ineffectiveness in subm Saharan Africa: The problem of donor capacity

If increased aid is to yield significant benefits in Africa, donors must make changes - in their structures and procedures, and in their knowledge, skills and attitudes. They should only support programmes that have genuine commitment and ownership by recipient governments. They should only promote interventions that are appropriate to local conditions - and to understand those conditions, they must strengthen their in-house knowledge by reducing their dependence upon consultants. This implies the need for a more sophisticated understanding of the vested interests that exist within any recipient country, some of which may pursue narrow agendas inimical to constructive outcomes. Donors should route their interventions through the existing, mainstream agencies and management structures of recipient governments. They should use - and, where necessary, encourage incremental change in existing procedures of those governments, rather than imposing procedures of their own. They must also operate more flexibly, adapting to the conditions and structures that they encounter in recipient countries.