Paper short abstract:

Decision-making by local leaders can improve learning, responsiveness, coordination, contestation, legitimacy and accountability. But constraints and risk make it difficult for donors to support. An approach that enables the policy space could help.

Paper long abstract:

The importance of local agency and leadership for development effectiveness has long been emphasised in aid reform agendas, under the heading of 'ownership'. But in practice, this focus has often fallen victim to 'agency creep', as donors strive to retain control over the policy choices of aid-receiving countries. Even the 'second orthodoxy' risks being locally-informed without being locally-led. More recently, donors' leverage over the policies of aid recipients appears to be decreasing due to economic, social and political factors. Given their previous difficulties with local agency, how can donors find new ways to support, enable and embrace it, and to navigate this new world of changing hierarchies? This paper explores the potential benefits of local agency, as well as the risks and constraints which make it difficult. The analysis suggests a possible way forward for donors: to create an enabling environment, by providing meaningful policy space for local leaders in aid-receiving countries to make their own policy choices. This change in emphasis could enhance the accountability and responsiveness of aid-receiving governments, while managing risks and delivering results. It would involve a shift in donor focus, away from being the protagonist and trying to influence the outputs of policymaking - the policy choices that countries make - and instead, towards trying to support the process of making those choices. In short, the remedy for a perceived misuse of power may not be to usurp it, but rather to support and enable its use for good.