There are plenty of accounts of development failure, but what about success? In what circumstances do governments and their partners manage to produce policies that endure and meet their aims? What are the consequences of success when the result is a shift in the balance of opportunities in society towards poor people? An understanding of success is crucial for the practice of development, for theories of development and, in particular, for examining the role that governments can play.
Successes do indeed exist, often against the odds. The contributors in this collection examine nine cases of success in Africa, Asia and Latin America in order to understand what made them possible, and what will make it possible to repeat those successes in other countries and across other policy areas. This volume provides a guide to how success can be repliated and how policy failure might be avoided.