Risk, politics, and development: Lessons from the UK's democracy aid

Abstract

Summary Political risks are inescapable in development. Donors keep them in check with a range of tools, but existing options provide little guidance about how political forms of risk can—or should—shape programme design. This paper presents a novel framework that offers practical guidance on how to think about and manage some of these risks. This is based on a review of programmes delivered by the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, which provides a specific type of aid: democracy assistance. Political forms of risk have a strong influence on that aid, so it provides a valuable example. Our framework centres on two trade‐offs inherent in the provision of aid for democracy support. The first relates to the type of approach employed in a programme; should it focus on a thematic issue or a specific event, or should it focus primarily on an institution and its processes? The second concerns the scope of a programme in terms of who it includes. Understanding the costs and benefits of these trade‐offs will help development practitioners to make decisions about political risks in a more rigorous and transparent way and, potentially, to shift from a culture of risk aversion, to one of informed risk‐taking.

Accountability and transparency in emerging countries: Governance, democratic currents and change

“…Implicit in these efforts to grow and develop civil society for the benefit of all members is recognition that good governance, accountability and transparency in public office need support from institutions of government and, indeed, of civil society itself (Dodsworth & Cheeseman, 2018; McCourt, 2018; Michener, 2019; Samaratunge et al., 2017; Schnell, 2015): it is not a binary or ‘excluded middle’ choice between institutions and civil society. What good government looks like and directions that might be pursued to achieve it are, then, worthy objects for attention and research (e.g., Denis et al., 2015).…”

Product Development Partnerships: Delivering Innovation for the Elimination of African Trypanosomiasis?

“…Traditional institutions jostle for funding and prioritisation-and the NTD sector is a good example of this [25]. Meanwhile, new actors emerge as bilateral funders like DFID increasingly look to experiment with private sector approaches and work through other organisations, given concerns around the ability of traditional aid to drive efficiency, value and scalability [61]. Funders like the BMGF are now providing more funding directly to manufacturers [40,42].…”

Ten Challenges in Democracy Support – and How to Overcome them

“…In 2008, Peter Burnell made a similar suggestion, but to date no solutions have been put forward; we still need new ways of categorizing democracy support programmes that enable us to expose the advantages and disadvantages that different choices entail. In a recent paper, we have made tentative steps in this direction (Dodsworth and Cheeseman, ). It is beyond the scope of this article to fully reprise our argument here, but we start from the basis that democracy support programmes vary in several key dimensions.…”

“…The point at which practitioners position themselves on these scales has changed over time in response to experience and trends (some might say fashions) within the sector. For example, historically many programmes tended to be institution‐focused because this was viewed as being less risky and more likely to generate sustainable change (Dodsworth and Cheeseman, ). However, over recent years there has been a trend towards more issue‐based approaches, focusing on themes such as human rights and gender inequality.…”