ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the theoretical foundations of a development partnership between an aid donor and a recipient. The framework offered is deliberately very simple, to best highlight certain important principles. The chapter seeks to provide insight into some fundamental issues, rather than furnish a full rendition of the complexities of partnerships for economic development. The theoretical conditions lead to practical conclusions on how to promote the effectiveness of partnerships. They concern selecting a partner, setting up a partnership, choosing a modus operandi, building trust, achieving selectivity, and performing monitoring and evaluation. Monitoring is the continuous assessment of project implementation; evaluation is the periodic assessment of the project. In the aid community, the evaluation process is intended to serve two functions: institutional credibility and organizational learning. For organizational learning, the goal is not only to improve individual programs but also to make the results available to the global evaluation community.
