Supporting ownership. Swedish development cooperation with Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Volume I: Synthesis report

Looking at Swedish sevelopment cooperation with three countries in East Africa, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, this evaluation tries to find out how a longstanding Swedish policy of facilitating and promoting partner country ownership has been translated into practice. In each country, half a dozen projects and programs are examined in depth. The study finds that ownership is heavily influenced by the quality of government-to-government partnerships. Most notably, the strained relations between the governments of Kenya and Sweden have adversely affected the prospects for Kenyan ownership. Strained partnerships often give rise to policy conditionalities that weaken recipient ownership. Even in the Kenya case, however, there are examples of strong ownership at the level of individual projects and programs. The overall conclusions of the study are relevant to development cooperation generally. The study was done by a team from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London University, under the leadership of Professor John Weeks. It consists of two volumes, one containing the country case studies, the other being a synthesis study on the basis of the cases.