This article compares the power spaces occupied by both donors and the Ministry of Education in the formulation of Ghana's Education Strategic Plan (ESP). It shows that the formulation of the ESP was more donor-led than Ministry-led due to the donor-initiated global policy frameworks also referred to as the non-negotiables. Consequently, donors and the Ministry were respectively positioned as the dominant and dominated. A comparison and analysis of their unequal positions illuminates some of the reasons why the principles of aid effectiveness in terms of ownership and partnership, which persistently drive donor-recipient interactions, remain rhetorical. (Contains 1 figure, 2 tables, and 7 notes.)