Can Foreign Aid Be Used to Promote Good Government in Developing Countries?

In the five years since the collapse of communist rule in Eastern Europe, there has been a major shift in the way in which development aid is conceived and discussed in the aid agencies and foreign affairs ministries of the donor nations. There is a new agenda, the “ new political conditionality ” or “good government ” agenda. Formally, at least, aid increasingly is being tied to the practice of “good government ” as defined by the aid donors. Aid projects are now being justified in terms of their contribution to this god. More significantly, the practice of good government by recipients is becoming a general condition for eligibility for aid. The coercion of the Kenyan government into holding general elections in December 1992 has been the most vivid and publicized example of such practice to date, It is widely believed that there have been several other instances recently where aid donors, generally acting more covertly than in the Kenyan case, have had a major influence on the constitution of African governments.