Bilateral and multilateral development agencies spend a great deal of time, money, and effort trying to shape the reform priorities and processes of their counterpart countries. However, the means by which development agencies can achieve these ends are poorly understood. This article draws upon the first-hand experiences and observations of more than 1000 public sector officials from 70 low- and middle-income countries to better understand which external sources of reform advice and assistance are most and least useful to public sector decision-makers—and why. We find that donors more effectively shape reform priorities when they choose to deliver their funding through the public financial management systems of counterpart countries, rather than using channels of aid delivery—in particular, technical assistance programs—that bypass host governments and signal a lack of trust in the motivations and capabilities of the local authorities. This finding holds true even after controlling for institutional quality, or the trustworthiness of public sector institutions, in aid-receiving countries. As such, our results call attention to the fact that development agencies can amplify their policy influence by entrusting their counterpart governments with aid management responsibilities.

中文翻译：

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援助管理、信任和发展政策影响：来自对低收入和中等收入国家公共部门官员调查的新证据

双边和多边发展机构花费大量时间、金钱和精力试图塑造其对应国家的改革优先事项和进程。然而，人们对发展机构实现这些目标的方式知之甚少。本文借鉴了来自 70 个低收入和中等收入国家的 1000 多名公共部门官员的第一手经验和观察，以更好地了解哪些外部改革建议和援助来源对公共部门决策者最有用，哪些最无用——为什么。我们发现，当捐助者选择通过对应国家的公共财政管理系统而不是使用提供援助的渠道提供资金时，他们可以更有效地塑造改革优先事项——尤其是，技术援助计划——绕过东道国政府并表明对地方当局的动机和能力缺乏信任。即使在控制了受援国的制度质量或公共部门机构的可信度之后，这一发现仍然成立。因此，我们的结果提醒人们注意这样一个事实，即发展机构可以通过委托对等政府承担援助管理责任来扩大其政策影响。