Ideas, knowledge, trust and time are the critical factors in this work not money. Ideas work better than money in creating reform. This was a general conclusion from the Assessing Aid Study, by the World Bank a couple of years back. Poverty reduction implies in most countries is indeed about reform, not merely infusion of capital. Donors have an important role to play contributing to new knowledge, and the building of independent national capacity for policy analysis.
Donors can help stimulating the public debate.
With democratisation under way in most countries, a growing civil society and expanding mass media, UNDP found that it could play a major role in invigorating and broadening the public discourse on poverty. Many would argue that these lessons represent old news. The same statements could have been made, and probably were maid 20-30 years ago. We can probably agree on the general conclusion that the dynamo of any successful poverty reduction strategy has to be powered by a country s national political process. And subsequently that there is no empirical evidence to suggest that aid agencies effectively can steer such processes.