From Good Governance to Development? A Critical Perspective on the Case of Norway’s Oil for Development

Abstract

Good governance is a key buzzword in development aid discourse. It is a catch‐all term denoting capacity building, poverty reduction and democracy, where the latter two elements function as legitimising factors. This paper discusses the Norwegian aid programme Oil for Development’s understanding of good governance. Good governance discourse rests on a vision of African states as ‘failed’, and explains the lack of development as a product of poor governance. In Oil for Development, good governance simultaneously works as a condition to qualify for aid, a tool to implement aid and a goal for aid. Oil for Development sees good governance as mainly technical capacity‐building, aiming to maximise government revenues from oil and clarifying roles in the state apparatus to contribute to a balance of power between the state and the oil industry. Poverty reduction and democracy building enter as legitimising elements providing the programme’s rationale. This approach to development rests on a hope of a ‘trickle‐down’ effect from increased capacity in the state apparatus to poverty reduction. This expectation is unlikely to materialise, as the formal structures of Oil for Development seeks to strengthen are trumped by informal ones. Further, the programme pretends to build its approach on an international consensus among researchers on governance, which effectively depoliticises aid and sees governance as an issue for experts. What constitutes ‘good’ in governance is however not a straightforward issue of clarity in roles and increased capacity.