South-to-South and Donor-driven Diffusion in Sub-Saharan Africa

Governments in sub-Saharan Africa began to adopt PB in the early 2000s. The World Bank, USAID, DFID, and other international organization led the push to expand PB. By 2019, the region included more than nine hundred programs. PB’s diffusion across sub-Saharan Africa has led to its transformation in scale, rules, and impact. Most PB programs in sub-Saharan Africa focus on building accountability and allowing participants to select small-scale development projects. These programs are located both in major cities (Maputo, Nairobi) as well as in poor, rural areas across the region. These programs are intended to improve local governance, but the involvement of international donors means that local governments must address their concerns as well as those of participants. The programs also emphasize placing new development projects in poor, marginalized communities, thus retaining potential for improving well-being. This chapter documents these trends by focusing on PB in Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Senegal, South Africa, and Uganda.