Sector reform and effective service delivery are among the key critical factors for making progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and for achieving sustainable and equitable growth.

There is increasing recognition that blockages for effective reform at the sectoral level (including for delivery, planning and procurement) can be political and that technical solutions alone may not be enough. Governance of a sector, and the way in which politics and institutions interact within that sector, will in practice have a critical impact on sector policies and services. This means that governance and political economy tools are increasingly seen as necessary to understand the context for sector reform.

A joint donor workshop, organised by the ODI Politics and Governance Programme, for DFID, the EC, UNDP and the World Bank, provided opportunities to discuss experiences to date in sector-level governance and political economy analysis.

This report sets out some of the donors’ experiences to date, outlines some cross-cutting issues and makes suggestions for next steps and ways forward.