Political transitions are dominantly analyzed top-down and focus on a narrow range of political processes and institutions. Critical rethinkings of the ‘transition paradigm’ entail that structural factors, such as historical legacies and ethnic make-up, determine the trajectory of political...

The most influential literature on political transitions, the “transition paradigm”, conceived a normative theoretical framework based on the fundamental assumption that any country, which shifts away from authoritarianism is a country in transition to democracy. The Rwandan transition does...

Over the last five years a new enthusiasm has emerged among donors. Aid volumes have gone up and new modalities and instruments are feverishly experimented with. A new aid paradigm seems to have emerged. Breaking with the bad habits of the past, donors are working on harmonisation, alignment,...

Aid policy and practice have been thoroughly shaken up over the past few years. One of the crucial reform areas relates to monitoring and evaluation (M&E). In short, aid recipients are asked to elaborate sound, results-oriented frameworks while donors are expected to harmonise and align their...

In order to put an end to a lengthy process of political transition, involving years of political violence, Burundi has introduced a system of power-sharing that is largely consociational. This article analyses the political and institutional reforms introduced by the Arusha Peace Agreement...

With the aim to promote aid effectiveness that ultimately contributes to development, changes in aid policies and instruments have been propagated over the last decade. The 2005 Paris Declaration (PD) and the 2008 Accra Agenda for Action (AAA), which set out a reform agenda around the principles...

From the being a poster child of microfinance development, Nicaragua became one of the nightmares for the industry. The negative influence on the countries' repayment culture of the Non-Payment Movement, ambiguously related to the new Sandinista government, is typically blamed for the crisis. A...

Only flows to countries that are on the DAC list of recipients can be labelled Official Development Assistance (ODA). The countries on that list however are a mixed bag. Based on a World Bank classification, the DAC list for instance includes Burundi, with an income per capita in 2009 of $150,...

Presidential elections are likely to be held in Burundi in July 2015. Like in several other African countries, a debate has arisen around the eligibility of the incumbent president at the next presidential elections. This paper offers a legal analysis of the constitutionality of a possible...

The evaluation of the Paris Declaration (PD) is one of the most important and challenging evaluative undertakings of the past decade in the aid sector. The PD evaluation commissioned by the OECD/DAC Evaluation Network consists of a set of independent crosscountry and donor evaluations which were...