Infrastructure Development in Edo State : Adapting to Constraints and Creating Capabilities
Governor Adams Oshiomhole assumed office in November 2008 following a successful court appeal to retrieve the mandate given to him by the people of Edo. Widespread support from a variety of interest groups buttressed the legal challenge and helped...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Report |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2015
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2015/04/24430244/infrastructure-development-edo-state-adapting-constraints-creating-capabilities http://hdl.handle.net/10986/21896 |
| Summary: | Governor Adams Oshiomhole assumed office
in November 2008 following a successful court appeal to
retrieve the mandate given to him by the people of Edo.
Widespread support from a variety of interest groups
buttressed the legal challenge and helped create the
political space for the Governor’s pursuit of an agenda
focused on both reform and speedy delivery. Popular demand
for reform was evident, but responding to this presented
major challenges. Historically,Edo had been one of the best
performing states in the country. Expectations were high
that he would restore this status and address the perceived
poor performance and allegations of corruption leveled
against previous administrations. This case study is an
attempt to better understand the process through which the
Administration was able to maximize its delivery. This
report is one product of several ongoing efforts by the
World Bank to better understand how to better tailor its
interventions to local realities with the overarching
objective of improving its impact. To do this in the case of
capital spending in Edo, it was necessary to craft a study
method that suspended judgments about actual practices.
Thus, rather than holding these practices up to
international standards, and highlighting deficits and
shortcomings in relation to those standards, the study
purpose was to depict how the State administration had
responded to the political priorities of the new Governor by
adapting to the constraints it faced and creating new ways
to deliver through infrastructure spending. This case study
underlines the very rich and often messy reality that
leaders frequently find when assuming office and the
trade-offs that they are forced to make. In doing so, it
reminds us of the political realities within which we work
and, like other case studies recently undertaken to inform
Bank engagements in Nigeria, finds that traditional blue
print approaches in such circumstances are unlikely to work
and that sequencing, tailoring to local contexts and
adaptation along a non-linear road to reform is more
feasible path. |
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