ABSTRACT
This chapter presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in preceding chapters of this book. The book examined the dynamics of the relationship between general budget support (GBS) donors and government. The principal-agent approach sees problems as one-sided, and misses a fuller understanding of how accountability operates in complex social contexts, where all parties are facing constraints and the problem is rather how actors act collectively in their best interests to find solutions. It focuses insights from economics, sociology, anthropology, psychology, political theory and philosophy that allow us to move beyond the limiting assumptions that constrain the traditional understanding of accountability. The interaction between procedural and relational accountability is important and it is only through the consideration of how both function together that an understanding and a complete picture of how accountability works in Tanzania can be generated. In the international aid environment, there is a meeting of actors from different cultures, operating within a non-Western societal context.
