10 Policies, Politics E ven the most well-intended and well-thought-out policies may not have an impact if they are not implemented properly. Unfor- tunately, the gap between intention and implementation can be quite wide. The many failings of governments are often given as the reason good policies cannot really be made to work. Government in- adequacy is also one of the older arguments advanced by some of the aid skeptics to explain why foreign aid and other attempts by outsiders to influence social policy are likely to make things worse in poor countries rather than better. 1 The Ugandan government gives per-student grants to schools to maintain their buildings, buy textbooks, and fund any extra programs that their students might need (teacher salaries are paid directly out of the budget). In 1996, Ritva Reinikka and Jakob Svensson set out to answer a simple question: How much of these funds allocated to schools by the central government actually made it to the schools? 2 It was a relatively straightforward exercise. They just sent survey teams to the schools and asked them how much they had received. Then they compared the numbers to computer records of how much had been sent. The answer they got was nothing short of stunning: Only 13 per- cent of the funds ever reached the schools. More than half the schools