Chapter 5 | Page 209 achieves anything at all,95 and what needs to be done to make it more effective.96 It is argued that effectiveness will be improved by simplifying aid programmes with clearer and more realistic goals, better definition of development in the local context of the recipient State, targeting aid towards activities that can have a real, tangible impact, and allowing local players to take full ownership.97 The need to establish and nurture a productive relationship between donors and recipients is essential for achieving the objectives of development aid programmes. Such relationships ‘encourage and stimulate the process of policy learning and experimentation as well as institutional experimentation and innovation’98 between donor and recipient States. Despite these benefits, the experience of many Sub-Saharan African States indicates that the relationship between donors and recipients has not been conducive to achieving development objectives and is often rooted in the restrictive policy conditionalities attached to aid.99 Aid is also seen through a hierarchy of objectives which are linked to long term outcomes and achieved through a series of activities.100 From this perspective, development aid, particularly technical assistance, has produced very little long-term effect, given that the capacity of institutions in many poor countries seems not to have improved to the level where they can effectively function after the aid money and experts have left the country.101 Overall, the huge heterogeneity of the aid system and assessment methods makes it difficult to reach firm conclusions about aid effectiveness. 95 For example, Roger C Riddell, Does Foreign Aid Really Work? (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007). 96 Klingebiel, above n 3. 97 Eggen and Roland, above n 76. 98 Nissanke, above n 80, 74. 99 Ibid., 71. 100 Eggen and Roland, above n 76. 101 Ibid., 74.