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THE ROLE OF GOVERNANCE IN LOCAL DEVELOPMENT * * * * * * * * * * * Instructor - Kidanemariam Menghistu Sebhat * 25th March 2013.
THE ROLE OF GOVERNANCE IN LOCAL DEVELOPMENT
Introduction:
Since the end of the 1980s the issue of good governance has dominated the international discussion about development and international assistance to developing countries. It has been argued that good governance is an essential precondition for development. There are many countries that are similar in terms of their natural resources and social structures but with strikingly different performance in improving the welfare of their people. These differences have been attributed to standards of governance i.e. poor governance which stifles and impedes development. In those countries corruption is high, there is poor control of public funds, lack of accountability, abuses of human rights and excessive military influence; development inevitably has suffered (Karl Wohlmuth, Hans H. Bass, et al, 1999).
The term good governance was first used by the World Bank in 1989 to characterize the crisis in Sub-Sahara Africa as a crisis of governance and has become an increasingly popular and favorite subject among donor agencies. Its emergence was also strongly driven by the end of the Cold War. In the aid circles, “good governance” became the most prominent paradigm within which to direct political reform effort, marking a shift from strategic alliance building used during the cold war to facilitating the adoption of western institutions open and transparent standards. Aid was now being used as a carrot to assist this objective, the main difference between cold war and post-cold war lying in the level of transparency. The rise of the good
Bibliography: * Susan Kirillo; Policy and Governance: Australia’s Governance Aid - Evaluating Evolving Norms and Objectives; Discussion Papers, The Australian National University, 2005. * Tim Plumptre and John Grahm; Governance and Good Governance: International and Aboriginal Perspectives; Institute on Governance, December 3, 1999, 11. * Albert Venn Dicey (4 February 1835 – 7 April 1922) An Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution (1885).