Some contributors (Hoebink, Visser, Meertens, Beerends, Willems) draw attention to the ‘political economy of aid’ (Gunning) and ask why apparently logical solutions are not included in policy. After all, people have been arguing for decades in favour of more self-reliance and other sound proposals made by the WRR. The WRR report is part of a long critical tradition within development theory that has even permeated deeply into practice and policy but then primarily as rhetoric (the WRR is right on this point).
Jan Willem Gunning points out that ‘the report … does not ask the obvious question: Why would reform succeed now if strong vested interests have successfully blocked it so often in the past?’