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Accepting that the problems of governance and state capacity are keeping poor countries from growing and from increasing the living standards of their citizens, the author argues against widely prevailing views about why governments do so badly. She also explains why many of these same governments sometimes do quite well. Presenting a set of cases involving public bureaucracies at work under an innovative state government in a poor region of Brazil, lessons are drawn from four different types of programmes, each representing a different sector with its own experts and literature - rural preventive health, emergency drought relief and public works, agricultural extension for small farmers and public procurement that favours small firms. The book offers a constructive basis for policy advice because it is grounded in the experience of developing countries themselves and shifts the terms of the prevailing debate away from the mistrust of government and public officials. Instead, it provides an understanding of the circumstances under which public servants become truly committed to their work and trust develops between them and the citizens they serve.