ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the way that international donors can support the democracy and governance process in ways that foster development and poverty alleviation. Electoral democracy is important, because it enables the people to hold rulers accountable. It enables people to elect representatives who will respond to their developmental needs and one hopes to monitor government and hold it to account. Liberal democracy entails not only free and fair elections in the administration of voting and vote counting. A liberal or high-quality democracy requires fairness of political competition, embodied in the concept of a 'level playing field'. A major dimension of good governance is transparency, the openness of state business and conduct to public scrutiny. A study of three countries, Bolivia, Bulgaria, and South Africa, with sizable democracy and governance (DG) programs in the 1990s concluded that US Agency for International Development (USAID) investments in improving democratic governance 'produced substantial returns & because the political leadership was so committed to reform'.
