Technical fixes to political problems?

Over the last two decades, international donor agencies have started to design and implement interventions aiming to foster good governance in recipient countries. While results of aid promoting good governance at macro level are overall not very positive, results at micro level remain largely unclear due to a lack of rigorous research. This study aims to address this knowledge gap through a systematic assessment of governance interventions implemented in Rwanda in the area of justice and decentralization with support of Dutch Official Development Assistance (ODA). The central research question guiding this study is: How do interventions fully or partly supported by Dutch ODA and implemented between 2007 and 2013 contribute to good governance in Rwanda? In order to answer this question, various steps have been undertaken. First, a comprehensive literature review has been conducted that revealed that results of both rule of law and decentralization interventions are often inconclusive and mixed at best. In addition, four conditions have been identified considered most conducive toward the effective implementation of interventions, including: 1) sufficient organizational capacity of local implementing partners; 2) the presence of political will; 3) a context-sensitive design of the intervention; and 4) a long-term perspective deployed by the donor. These four conditions formed in turn the basis for the formulation of hypotheses. Second, the results of the 13 selected Dutch-supported governance interventions have been systematically assessed based on existing evaluations, project documentation and academic literature. Third, a Fuzzy-Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) has been conducted in order to test the theoretically informed hypotheses and identify the conditions, or combination of conditions, accounting for the results achieved. The outcome and condition variables were scored based on: 1) a desk-review of Rwandan policy documents, project documentation, and academic literature; and 2) semi-structured interviews conducted during fieldwork in Kigali in March and July 2014. The study found that whereas results of Dutch-supported interventions appear to be relatively effective at output level, results at outcome level are mixed, and results at impact level remain largely unclear. The condition political will was found to be semi-necessary for results at outcome level, whereas two combinations of conditions were found to be sufficient: 1) the presence of political will combined with organizational capacity; and 2) the presence of context-sensitivity along with the presence of a long-term perspective and organizational capacity. The fsQCA indicated that the first configuration has the largest empirical relevance and has thus the largest explanatory power with respect to the realization of good governance outcomes.