ABSTRACT
In the debates on making urban management and local governance more effective in the developing world, a major hallmark is the realignment between government, the private sector, and civil society. The new wisdom is that governments should concentrate on creating the institutional frame work that enables private sector actors, both commercial and non-profit, to directly provide housing and urban services. Within these debates, much attention is paid to the potentials of partnership or co-management arrange ments between actors in realizing such provisions (Rakodi, 1999; Baud, 2000; Helmsing, 2000; Stoker, 2000). Partnerships are said to enhance the effectiveness of actions by (a) taking on board all relevant stakeholders and avoiding problems of exclusion and fragmentation, (b) recognizing the com plex social dynamics surrounding interventions, and taking these into account in the design and implementation of actions, and, most impor tantly, (c) saving on costs through the resource input and commitment of civil society actors and the synergy resulting from combining skills and resources of various actors. Furthermore, there is a strongly normative claim made for the participation inherent in partnerships (Johnson and Wilson, 2000, p. 1892). Obviously, the potentials of partnerships do not materialize automatically. In the real world, there are many obstacles, such as the une qual power relations between external actors and project beneficiaries, the
difficulty of ensuring wider participation, and the transaction costs involved in dealing with a variety of actors (Baud, 2000).
