The new EU development agenda is an adaptation of an old mismatch in development policy, which is the effort to join, on the one hand, donor-driven demand for good governance and democracy, and on the other hand, a commitment to the ownership of development strategies by the partner countries. This is an ambiguity because the two approaches oppose each other. We recommend to dissolve this mismatch by promoting a new global partnership with a specific emphasis on ownership. This entails context-sensitive analyses of the political and economic environment of the transition process in partner countries.