This publication offers an unique method of knowing the connection among reliable relief companies and aid-receiving African governments. the 1st half offers a problem to the hazy reliable claims of relief donors that they have got stopped attempting to strength African governments to do what 'we' imagine is better for 'them' and in its place are actually selling African 'ownership' of the rules and tasks which international reduction helps. The authors tease out the a number of meanings of the time period 'ownership', demonstrating why it turned well known while it did, but in addition the boundaries to this discourse of possession saw in relief practices. The authors got down to guard a selected imaginative and prescient of ownership--one that comprises African governments taking again keep an eye on in their improvement guidelines and priorities. dependent principally on interviews with the folk who do the negotiating on each side of the help courting, the rustic case stories positioned the rhetoric of the hot relief procedure to a more effective try out. The authors ask how donors search to accomplish their coverage pursuits with out being obvious to push too difficult, what preconditions they position on shifting authority to African governments, and what influence the consistent discussions over improvement coverage have on kingdom associations, democracy and political tradition in recipient international locations. It investigates the concepts that African states have followed to increase their pursuits in relief negotiations and the way profitable their efforts were. evaluating the rustic reports, it issues out the stipulations accounting for the various luck of 8 African nations: Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania and Zambia. It concludes via asking even if the stipulations African nations face in reduction negotiations are changing.