UNITED NATIONS - / MaximsNews Network / - 04 February 2008 -- This case study on Nicaragua analyses the changing governmental and institutional conditions in which aid to one of the most important “donor darlings” is implemented.

Following the change of government in early 2007, a rude awakening has been experienced by those trying to put the Paris Declaration [see full text of the agreement] into operation. Since the Ortega government took power, it has opted for a firm governmental ownership that has provoked doubts about its adaptability to the deliberative spirit of the previous administration, which was headed by Enrique Bolaños.

The Sandinista government has abandoned the established spaces for political dialogue and adopted a hard line on what it sees as European interference based on political conditionality. In this context, the National Development Strategy 2006-2010 barely seems workable, as Nicaraguan civil society do not back its contents.

In the polarised political panorama of Nicaragua, state institutions are being taken apart and rebuilt according to the interests of political clients. The donor community, taken aback by its former darling’s sudden change of heart, and the loss of the close relationship it enjoyed with the previous administration, meanwhile seems indecisive and impotent.

One of the principal lessons to be learned from the Nicaraguan experience, examined here in a close collaboration between a Nicaraguan expert and a FRIDE researcher, is that in order to push forward the sustainability of aid effectiveness, donors need to improve their understanding of the political-institutional context in which harmonisation is pursued.

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Keywords

Aid effectiveness Donors Latin America & Caribbean Nicaragua Political economy

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Bio author: Claudia Pineda

Claudia Pineda is an international development consultant. Her work focuses on governance and decentralisation, with a special emphasis on democratic and equitable development.

Bio author: Nils-Sjard Schulz

Masters Degree in Social Sciences at the Humboldt University Berlin and specialization in International Relations at the Complutense University Madrid. Complementing his research activities, he works as consultant in international development focussing on quality of aid and the improvement of delivery by Spanish and local institutions, mostly in Latin America and Africa.

Labels:  Nicaragua, FRIDE, Fundación para las Relaciones Internacionales y el Diálogo Exterior, Security, Elections, United Nations, U.N.,

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