Ownership of development aid

I recently went to a seminar at the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), for a presentation of two books. Firstly, The Politics of Aid: African Strategies for Dealing with Donors, edited by Ms. Lindsay Whitfield, a book that is the result of a three year research project on "ownership" of international development assistance, using the case of eight African countries: Ghana, Tanzania, Mozambique, Botswana, Ethiopia, Mali, Rwanda and Zambia (if they had included Uganda, they would have had chosen all the countries that are chosen for nearly all studies on aid in Africa...).
I must admit that I have not yet read the book (but ordered it), but still found the presentation quite simplistic, and overly academically looking at development aid, an area that is too dominated by academics and pop-stars.
In the presentation summarizing the the book, it was said that "ownership" was greatest in Ethiopia and Rwanda, due to the specific conditions there. However, it never problematised the concept of ownership, and clearly meant government ownership (the presenter at one point talked about sovereignty, equalizing it with ownership, something that in my post-modern view of the world is quite old-fashioned, not to say naive), which is quite problematic when the presenters later found "bad governance" as being a problem in many of the countries.
Also, there seemed to be no consideration (at least in the presentation) on "ownership" and development outcomes; some of the countries found to have next to no ownership, such as Ghana or Mozambique, have shown great strides in economic development over the last years, and this could lead one to ask whether "ownership", as defined in this book, matters at all...?
As I mentioned, I have not read the book, but will - hopefully they consider many of the questions I came out with from the presentation, in which case it was an excellent marketing of the book!.
Still, I think that some of the final recommendations from the seminar, about donors having to reconsider how they work with "ownership", totally misses the point: what needs to be reconsidered is whose "ownership" we talk about!

"Ownership" is crucial, indeed. It is common sense that people will always want to improve their own lives, and that this is not done on command. But when you speak of the development of entire countries, you cannot just look at the government, in particular in countries where these governments don't have full legitimacy and/or are not fully accountable to their people, or where large groups are not even represented!
Having worked in Africa some years, I have a big problem with governments and donors talking about ownership. In truth, to the poor people in a poor rural community, it could matter less that the "poverty reduction strategy" is elaborated and decided in some African or in some European capital; both are at the other side of the world! (let me illustrate this by the community of Nivali, in Mozambique, where I worked)
There are indeed alternative definitions of "ownership", in particular among civil society groups, than the ones presented at the seminar. I think that there should be more consideration on concepts such as accountability, and more broadly, on "ownership from below" - it is only from there that real change will be initiated and sustained, no matter who "owns" the strategies!