Conditionality or Contract: Perspectives on Partnership for Development with Roger Riddell, in Burnell, P and Morrissey, O (eds), Foreign Aid in the New Global Economy.  Edward Elgar Publishing: Cheltenham.  2004.

The recent UK White Paper makes an admirable commitment to the idea of partnership, as the keystone of a new aid relationship with countries committed to poverty reduction and good governance. The concept is a difficult one, however, open to multiple interpretation. Genuine participation means joint ownership, with mutual rights and obligations; and it implies a contractual relationship, with procedures for redress in case of default. Other donors, notably the EU, have travelled this road with mixed success and much back-sliding. Can DFIDDepartment for International Development learn from their experience? Can it devise its own institutional innovations to build true partnership?