Whose Governance is it?

Tensions Between African Ownership and Western Stewardship.

Public lecture given by Professor Emeritus and former NAI Research Associate Göran Hydén.

With democracy facing challenges around the world, the stewardship of democratic values that has been such a fundamental part of Western foreign aid in recent decades finds itself in a new situation. This is the case especially in Africa where governments wish to reduce aid dependence and chart their own paths of governance. The leverage that donors have had under the auspices of the universally agreed Paris Principles is slipping away and tensions between ownership and stewardship are nowadays frequent and apparent. This lecture will begin by briefly tracing donor strategies toward Africa and examine the premises on which they have been based. It will continue by contrasting these with the social and political realities in African countries and thus the angles from which governments develop their own governance strategies for development. Emphasis will be laid on how social formations in Africa differ from other regions of the world and how the legacy of the colonial state creates social cleavages along ethnic rather than social class lines. The lecture will end with a discussion of the implications for research as well as aid policy and administration.

Link to Prof. Hydén's report on the EBA's webpage External link, opens in new window.