The fundamental principle of any political community is the mutual acknowledgment as autonomous individuals, each with a right to personal self-fulfillment (Zürn, 2000), besides their alignment towards unity and integration for the national development and its balanced contribution to the...

Decentralisation has been advocated by donors and development agencies as an important factor broadening citizen participation and improving local governance, thereby promoting poverty reduction from the bottom up. On the basis of a comprehensive review of 19 country case studies documented in...

• Empowerment of the poor is one ingredient in effective poverty reduction. • A demand-driven participatory approach enhances effectiveness and efficiency. • Accountability is the central lever for participatory governance. • Capacity building is necessary for making participatory...

Governments fail to provide the public goods needed for development when its leaders knowingly and deliberately ignore sound technical advice or are unable to follow it, despite the best of intentions, because of political constraints. This report focuses on two forces-citizen engagement and...