Contracting out institutional reform: Does it work?

A study commissioned by the U.K. and Australian aid agencies suggests ways the international community can help developing countries advance institutional reforms, based on a review of the Asia Foundation’s work in the Philippines.

The tips apply to other countries as well, according to the report, published this week by the Asia Foundation and the Overseas Development Institute and commissioned by the U.K. Department for International Development and Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

The report suggests that the international community “should avoid as far as possible contracts or grants that include pre-specified outputs” in highly unequal and poorly governed developing countries — a position supported especially by the Asia Foundation — but instead liberate and harness the potential of local reformers to shape and steer processes of change “in flexible, politically attuned ways.”