ABSTRACT

During recent years, the wind of development rhetoric has changed. The new words – partnership, empowerment, ownership, participation, accountability and transparency – imply changes in power and relationships, but have not been matched in practice. Viewing aid as a complex system, power and relationships can be identified as governing dynamics that prevent the inclusion of weaker actors and voices in decision-making. Organizational norms and procedures, combined with personal behaviour, attitudes and beliefs, serve to reinforce these existing power relations.