Dear Warren Feek - you are asking a pertinent question - but it's a question that's been asked for at least two decades (if not more). The issue of ownership of policies and the futility of trying to drive change from outside, is not something the development sector has not discussed before. Surely the rhetoric of "putting the country in the driving seat" has been around for a while, and is what the Paris Declaration, no less, is based on? I think the lack of non involvement of developing country governments and people in setting the international development agenda, has little to do with lack of awareness of the need to do so, or with ignorance of how it can be done. It is more to do with the power relations that permeate development assistance - and if we look at it from that perspective, understanding the different trends in India and China is not difficult.

Priyanthi Fernando
Executive Director, Centre for Poverty Analysis
Colombo, Sri Lanka