Institutional Arrangements for Poverty Alleviation: The Lessons of Success Available to Purchase

There are an increasing number of countries where governments have the political will to bring about a reorientation in the management of programmes and projects, but do not quite know how to design the supporting institutions capable of reaching the poor. The relevant factors here are administrative and social rather than technical and financial. The problem is how to share decision making with the poor at the local level in programmes initiated by government. Experience with recent business practice in developed countries is drawn on to analyse lessons of success in programmes in developing countries. Changes in public policies in the management of programmes to draw on the benefits of partnership with the poor, whose passivity acts as the major constraint in development, are suggested.