Dealing with Coordination Issues in Rural Development Projects: Game Theory Insights

The purpose of this paper is to review the literature on coordination failures, apply game theory to coordination issues within selected rural development projects in order to develop a set of guidelines to avoid and minimize coordination failures. The ultimate aim is to promote development effectiveness by helping to improve project design. The intended audience is operational staff of the bank, staff in other donor agencies, policy makers, and academics interested in development effectiveness, enterprise development, and rural development. Case studies concern themselves with the rural agricultural and non-agricultural development in Latin America, but the theoretical insights can be applied to any sector or region of the world.