Academic studies of aid to Africa have typically asked how "we" in the West can get "them" in Africa to adopt economic and political systems that look like our own. Suspicion of African politics has led to the assumption that governments seeking to resist the developmental models promoted by...

At the centre of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness is the idea of country ownership. It is meant to change the situation in many aid dependent African countries where donors dominate decision-making over which policies are adopted, how aid is spent, and what conditions are attached to...