Making Development Work: Legislative Reform for Institutional Transformation and Good Governance

In recent years, development experts have increasingly recognized the importance of improving the use of law to foster good governance and implement more effective development strategies. In today's closely interwoven world, a country's law-makers must fit their government's emerging system of legislation into the continually changing rules of an emerging global society. Yet nowhere can they find a simple guide to building the rule of law and good governance to meet the needs of their own peoples. Making Development Work brings together the views of a number of commentators, each drawing on extensive experience as consultants in developing or transitional countries. The authors sometimes reach quite different conclusions about how law-makers might best go about building a national legal framework, as well as the necessary institutional structures of good governance which can serve as a foundation for their country's social and economic development. They differ on the extent to which each country's unique circumstances should be taken into account in drafting reform legislation, whether importing successful legislation from other countries is appropriate, and the role of legislative theory in formulating new laws. Bringing these divergent approaches together has produced a challenging book that will encourage readers to contribute creatively to improving national law-making processes, and help build the kinds of national--and increasingly global--legal frameworks required to make development work.