Development cooperation has spent decades wrangling over the merits, evidence, and implications of what we may term "the learning hypothesis": the idea that increased knowledge by development organisations must logically lead to increased effectiveness in the performance of their development...

Over the last two decades, national development agencies have committed to results-based approaches and to putting evidence at the centre of their decision-making. For evidence 'optimists', this is a much-needed corrective to past practice; in contrast, 'pessimists' worry about ideology...

Development cooperation has spent decades wrangling over the merits, evidence, and implications of what we may term "the learning hypothesis": the idea that increased knowledge by development organisations must logically lead to increased effectiveness in the performance of their development...

Political settlements analysis has highlighted the role of powerful political and economic actors in shaping institutional outcomes across countries. Its focus on national elites, however, risks biasing this type of theorising towards local factors, when in fact many policy domains in developing...

Although politics has become central to international development assistance, the use of political economy analysis (PEA) as a means for greater aid effectiveness remains an aspiring epistemic agenda. Even though virtually all aid donors have some personnel working on the development and...

Why do some states in Africa seem to be stuck in a spiral of corruption and institutional weakness? Why do others somehow build effective bureaucracies that are able and willing to tackle the challenges of development? The public sector remains the inescapable anchor of development, whether for...