This study examines how aid can facilitate government efforts to address governance constraints in public service delivery, and in particular what types of aid-funded activities and enabling factors seem to allow for this in practice.

To do so, it draws on the experiences of four aid programmes in Africa that appear to have engaged successfully with the constraints. These include a rural water programme in Tanzania, a pay and attendance monitoring programme in Sierra Leone, support to the Strategy and Policy Unit in Sierra Leone and a local government programme in Uganda.

This study is exploratory: it examines the types of aid-funded activities that seem most relevant to improving governance constraints, making some speculative conclusions about their ability to do so, as well as  the elements of the design and implementation approach that have facilitated the execution of these activities.