International governance assistance has evolved steadily since rising to prominence in the mid-1990s, but donors still face major challenges in designing, implementing, and evaluating effective governance programs. In a roundtable discussion, development scholars and representatives from North American and European donor agencies discussed the current state of governance assistance and possibilities for future collaboration.  The meeting was sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the UK Department for International Development (DFID), and the World Bank. Carnegie's Thomas Carothers hosted.

Seven key themes emerged from the discussion:

• What is Governance? There is no standard definition of governance across donor agencies and thus no common assessment tool. Several participants asked what a Millennium Development Goal on governance would look like, but no clear answer emerged. Some consensus emerged around participation, legitimacy, accountability, inclusiveness, transparency, effectiveness, and authority as key elements of governance. 

• Democracy and Development: Donors adopt divergent approaches to democracy, with some seeing it as a central goal, others staying away from it entirely, and a third group embracing democratic principles of governance but wary of explicitly promoting democracy per se. These differences reflect distinct institutional philosophies and are unlikely to be fully resolved. Yet participants agreed that the areas of consensus are larger than the areas of difference and constitute sufficient common ground for joint thinking and action.

• Developing Theories of Change: More research is needed to get beyond intuitive theories on the importance of governance and to better inform governance interventions. A grand theory on the relationship between democracy, governance, and development is probably not realistic but participants agreed on the need to develop mid-range theories of change which can explain what types of interventions are likely to work in different subsets of contexts. This will be crucial to advancing the idea of best fit institutions. If individual projects reflect their own mini theories of change, these theories can be tested and contribute to a broader understanding. Both quantitative and qualitative methodologies can be helpful in this research, though participants disagreed somewhat on the relative merits and limitations of each approach.  

• Managing Risk: Governance assistance must face several different types of risk. First, public sector projects are particularly susceptible to corruption. Donors are still struggling with how to manage expectations in this area without creating moral hazard. Second, donors are scaling up governance work in conflict-affected and fragile states where risks are much higher. Finally, testing and developing theories of change requires experimenting with new approaches and accepting the possibility of failure. Yet given intense pressure for results, donors do not want to appear to be failing. Additionally, institutional incentive structures often discourage staff from taking risks.

• Integrating Governance across Sectors: Most donors are in the process of establishing governance as a cross-cutting theme across socioeconomic areas of development, but are still unsure exactly how to do this. Considerable governance work already occurs within sectors, but it is often not mapped or coordinated. Integration will require breaking down silos between sectors and overcoming bureaucratic resistance. 

• Measuring Impact: Participants expressed a high level of dissatisfaction with current tools to measure the results of governance programs. They discussed the need to develop better performance indicators and create a convincing narrative around governance assistance.

• Next Steps: There was substantial interest in joint work in developing governance metrics and theories of change as well as experience sharing on integration, risk-management, and evaluation. Participants also suggested collaborative thinking on the place of governance in a post-2015 development framework.