The Politics-Bureaucracy Interface in Developing Countries

The political–bureaucratic interface has been the subject of much academic interest. However, research has tended to focus exclusively on wealthy institutionalized democracies, with little attention given to the political–administrative relationship in developing countries. However, recent evidence from reform processes in poorer nations increasingly highlights the importance of interactions between politicians and bureaucrats. This paper provides a systematic overview of the political–bureaucratic relationship in developing countries and in doing so makes two key contributions. First, it introduces a typology of political–bureaucratic relations based on four models—collaborative, collusive, intrusive, and integrated—discussing examples of each. Second, it analyses the main factors associated with different models of political–bureaucratic relations and considers how countries can move from one model of relations to another. The paper provides a much-needed entry point for scholars and policymakers to better understanding the relationship between politicians and bureaucrats in developing countries. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Social funds: evidence on targeting, impacts and sustainability

Impact evaluations show that social fund resources are pro-poor, and that targeting has improved over time. Despite the leakage which occurs to better-off areas and households, social fund performance compares favorably with other public programmes. Investments largely reflect community needs and priorities and have increased access to, quality and utilization of basic social infrastructure. These benefits have generally translated into improvements in the health and education status of households, though specific impacts vary by country, region, and sector. The vast majority of facilities are operating several years after completion, but long-term sustainability of water systems is particularly problematic given insufficient cost recovery. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Rural-Development Projects in Ldcs - Appraisal, Participation and Sustainability

Evidence on the performance of development projects shows that sustainability is seldom achieved. Project sustainability is influenced by ecological, social, political and economic systems. However, the blueprint approach to project choice tends to incorporate sustainability into the project cycle by considering only economic and environmental systems. This is done by adopting elaborate methodologies such as expanded CBA and EIA. This approach is unlikely to lead to sustainable projects. The 'participation approach' is more sensitive to the social and political systems than the blueprint approach. It involves people in decision-making and sees the achievement of sustainable projects as the result of people's empowerment and self-reliance. However, under certain circumstances, this approach can lead to environmentally unsustainable projects. Smaller scale projects tend to bring about sustainability, but government control might be needed to ensure this. Social obstacles exist in implementing participation but occur for top-down projects as well. Problems exist in combining the bottom-up and top-down approaches