Paper short abstract:

This paper examines three trajectories of how development consultants have captured policy space. First, how Management consultants shaped Mauritius' tax haven, how OTF shaped Rwanda's development strategy and how new consultancies have restricted policy space for heterodox development strategies.

Paper long abstract:

The role that consultants play in shaping development strategies and policy space has received scant attention. Ultimately, it is of course down to governments receiving advice to act upon the suggestions of consultants. However, government officials inevitably act upon both their own ideological inclinations but are also influenced by development trends into what kind of evidence is considered 'rigorous' and what policies are the 'right' ones to follow.

In this paper, I trace the activities of three different types of development consultancies, their roles and how they continue to influence development policy. In Mauritius, in the 1980s, Arthur Anderson officials were key to the initiation of Mauritius' tax haven strategy. Officials that set them up became both politicians and key figures within the offshore sector, sustaining its growth and ensuring it retains a major influence in Mauritius. In Rwanda, in the late 1990s, the Michael Porter-influenced On the Frontier wrote all of the country's sectoral development strategies, becoming key advisors to all government ministries. Later, many of these officials were absorbed within government from the President's Office and the Rwanda Development Board. Since the 2010s, new expatriate-owned (with some local ownership) development consultancies have become commonplace across many of Africa's fastest-growing countries. Here, I discuss how many of these consultancies including Laterite, Vanguard Economis, Imani, ETA and others have acted in different ways to constrict policy space and largely reduce space for heterodox development strategies.