Can Civil Society Overcome Government Failure in Africa?
Government failures are widespread in Africa. Symptoms include absentee teachers, leakage of public funds, monopolized trucking, and employment-restricting regulations. Can civil society do anything about these failures? Would external donor support to civil society help? We argue that the challenge...
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Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank
2015
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10986/22563 |
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okr-10986-225632021-04-23T14:04:09Z Can Civil Society Overcome Government Failure in Africa? Devarajan, Shantayanan Khemani, Stuti Walton, Michael citizen engagement citizen participation civil society democracy democratic process election electoral process political participation political party political power political process public interest public official public service representative voter turnout Government failures are widespread in Africa. Symptoms include absentee teachers, leakage of public funds, monopolized trucking, and employment-restricting regulations. Can civil society do anything about these failures? Would external donor support to civil society help? We argue that the challenge for civil society is to improve government functioning by strengthening political incentives—the underlying cause of government failure—rather than bypassing or supplanting the state. This paper reviews the available evidence on civil society interventions from this perspective. Although the current increase in political competition and extensive citizen engagement in Africa seems to create the potential for civil society influence, we find that there are large knowledge gaps regarding what works, where, and how. Some rigorous evaluations find significant impacts of civil society involvement on development outcomes, but these studies typically pay insufficient attention to the mechanisms. For example, are impacts due to overcoming government failure or to changing private household behavior, leaving the wasteful allocation of public resources untouched? We conclude that donor support to civil society should take an approach of learning by doing through ongoing experimentation backed by rigorous, data-based evaluations of the mechanisms of impact. 2015-08-28T19:48:15Z 2015-08-28T19:48:15Z 2014-01-24 Journal Article World Bank Research Observer 1564-6971 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/22563 en_US CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo/ World Bank Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Journal Article Sub-Saharan Africa |
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Digital Repository |
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Foreign Institution |
| institution |
Digital Repositories |
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World Bank Open Knowledge Repository |
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World Bank |
| language |
en_US |
| topic |
citizen engagement citizen participation civil society democracy democratic process election electoral process political participation political party political power political process public interest public official public service representative voter turnout |
| spellingShingle |
citizen engagement citizen participation civil society democracy democratic process election electoral process political participation political party political power political process public interest public official public service representative voter turnout Devarajan, Shantayanan Khemani, Stuti Walton, Michael Can Civil Society Overcome Government Failure in Africa? |
| geographic_facet |
Sub-Saharan Africa |
| description |
Government failures are widespread in Africa. Symptoms include absentee teachers, leakage of public funds, monopolized trucking, and employment-restricting regulations. Can civil society do anything about these failures? Would external donor support to civil society help? We argue that the challenge for civil society is to improve government functioning by strengthening political incentives—the underlying cause of government failure—rather than bypassing or supplanting the state. This paper reviews the available evidence on civil society interventions from this perspective. Although the current increase in political competition and extensive citizen engagement in Africa seems to create the potential for civil society influence, we find that there are large knowledge gaps regarding what works, where, and how. Some rigorous evaluations find significant impacts of civil society involvement on development outcomes, but these studies typically pay insufficient attention to the mechanisms. For example, are impacts due to overcoming government failure or to changing private household behavior, leaving the wasteful allocation of public resources untouched? We conclude that donor support to civil society should take an approach of learning by doing through ongoing experimentation backed by rigorous, data-based evaluations of the mechanisms of impact. |
| format |
Journal Article |
| author |
Devarajan, Shantayanan Khemani, Stuti Walton, Michael |
| author_facet |
Devarajan, Shantayanan Khemani, Stuti Walton, Michael |
| author_sort |
Devarajan, Shantayanan |
| title |
Can Civil Society Overcome Government Failure in Africa? |
| title_short |
Can Civil Society Overcome Government Failure in Africa? |
| title_full |
Can Civil Society Overcome Government Failure in Africa? |
| title_fullStr |
Can Civil Society Overcome Government Failure in Africa? |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Can Civil Society Overcome Government Failure in Africa? |
| title_sort |
can civil society overcome government failure in africa? |
| publisher |
Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank |
| publishDate |
2015 |
| url |
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/22563 |
| _version_ |
1764451426153529344 |