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is not uncommon, the rules themselves are known
to everyone and not renegotiated while playing the
game. Players and managers are expected to follow
the rules, and that’s largely that.
In development, particularly in developing
countries, the relationship between the game and
its rules is tenuous at best. In recent years, often in
response to donor pressure, several countries have
undergone reform. These have produced a raft
of new laws, regulations, and institutions. Many
of these, such as anticorruption laws and agen-
cies, ethics commissions, and public-expenditure
management systems, are meant to strengthen
governance. In Uganda, for example, so many
laws and agencies were created, with overlapping
mandates, that no one could quite keep track,
and a new body had to be created to coordinate
the other new bodies. The problem is that all this
impressive rule-making bears little connection
to how people go about their daily business. It’s
not that people lack respect for the rule of law.
But how a rule comes about, and the manner in
which it can be and is enforced, makes all the
difference. Ironically, in many cases, the zeal for
reform appears to have led to “too much too fast,”
preventing change from taking root.
When poorly established, rules fail to fulfill
their key function, which is to provide credible
and predictable guidelines with which to con-
duct affairs and adjudicate differences. Observe,
for instance, a negotiation between government
and donor representatives on the Performance
Assessment Framework (PAF) for General Budget
Support (GBS). There is constant haggling over
the small details: whether a report gets published,
which civil society should be around the table,
what constitutes adequate accountability, and
so forth. Not only do the goalposts keep chang-
ing, but also many of the basic rules. If soccer
were development aid, before the whistle blows,
there would be drawn-out negotiations on the
definition of a penalty, a task force established to
appoint the referee, and a manual drafted on how
to procure the whistle. That this is frustrating,
wastes time, and generates ill will is bad enough.
Worse still, it disrupts the flow of achieving devel-
opment, draining it of creativity, motivation, and
a clear-headed strategy.
Soccer Has Independent Referees
Like most professional sports, soccer has indepen-
dent referees. The principals are the teams, but it
is the referees who are fully in charge on the field,
responsible for making the game flow, upholding
the rules, and serving as impartial judges of con-
duct. Referees are not immune from undue influ-
ence and corruption, but on the whole, they need
to play their roles ably—because they have little
wiggle room to do otherwise. The value of inde-
pendent referees in soccer is taken as a self-evident
truth; no one would even think about proposing
that a professional game be played with refereeing
by a player from one or both the teams.
Yet, in development, where the stakes are
arguably higher than most games of professional
soccer, that is precisely what happens much of the
time. In many countries, the executive branch of
government is to be held in check by the parlia-
ment, but its ministers themselves are members of
parliament. In Tanzania, for instance, about a fifth
of parliament is in the cabinet, and at least
another third have key appointments in the
boards of government agencies. Elsewhere too it is
not uncommon for heads of state to confer plum
assignments to members of parliament—the very
ones who cook in the kitchen then assess the
quality of the food. One possible exception is the
role of supreme audit institutions, whose indepen-
dence is often constitutionally enshrined. But
here, too, their powers are limited to stating
22 | USAID FRONTIERS IN DEVELOPMENT
