فاعلية السياسات التنموية الخارجية في إصلاح القطاع العامّ في البلدان النامية ما بين متلازمة المعرفة المحلّية والهندسة الاجتماعية

This article has sought to confirm an alternative explanation that “Local Knowledge Syndrome” is a cause of the ineffectiveness of donor-promoting public sector reform programs. The main idea behind this explanation is that Knowledge and ideas that form the basis of donor reform programmes can seriously affect their outcomes and their level of effectiveness. There is clearly a growing appreciation that policy depends on local knowledge for implementation, but little attention has been paid so far to incorporate information on local knowledge successfully in inhospitable or poor political and social environments.

Since the 1950s, donors’ aid policies towards developing countries have mostly been developed based on the own experiences in reforming the governance system. An idealized model was exported in the conviction that the recipient countries would implement this model without the problems and obstacles experienced in the western societies. The export was one-way and that all the goods and persons were from western origin because quality was supposed to come from there.