Foreign Aid and Development


Book Description

Aid has worked in the past but can be made to work better in the future. This book offers important new research and will appeal to those working in economics, politics and development studies as well as to governmental and aid professionals.




Foreign Aid for Development


Book Description

Foreign aid is one of the few topics in the development discourse with such an uninterrupted, yet volatile history in terms of interest and attention from academics, policymakers, and practitioners alike. Does aid work in promoting growth and reducing poverty in the developing world? Will a new 'big push' approach accelerate progress towards the Millennium Development Goals or will another opportunity be missed? Can the lessons of almost half a century of aid giving be learnt? These are truly important questions in view of the emerging new landscape in foreign aid and recent developments related to the global financial crisis, which are expected to have far reaching implications for both donors and recipients engaged in this area. Against this shifting aid landscape, there is a pressing need to evaluate progress to date and shed new light on emerging issues and agendas. This volume brings together leading aid experts to review the progress achieved so far, identify the challenges ahead, and discuss the emerging policy agenda in foreign aid. A central conclusion of this important and timely volume is that, since development aid remains crucial for many developing countries, a huge effort is needed from both donors and aid recipients to overcome the inefficiencies and make aid work better for poor people. After all, as global citizens, we have a moral obligation to do the best we can to lift people out of poverty in the developing world. The findings of this book will be of considerable interest to professionals and policymakers engaged in policy reforms in foreign aid, and provide an essential one-stop reference for students of development, international finance, and economics.




Does Foreign Aid Really Work?


Book Description

Foreign aid is now a $100bn business and is expanding more rapidly today than it has for a generation. But does it work? Indeed, is it needed at all? Other attempts to answer these important questions have been dominated by a focus on the impact of official aid provided by governments. But today possibly as much as 30 percent of aid is provided by Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), and over 10 percent is provided as emergency assistance. In this first-ever attempt to provide an overall assessment of aid, Roger Riddell presents a rigorous but highly readable account of aid, warts and all. Does Foreign Aid Really Work? sets out the evidence and exposes the instances where aid has failed and explains why. The book also examines the way that politics distorts aid, and disentangles the moral and ethical assumptions that lie behind the belief that aid does good. The book concludes by detailing the practical ways that aid needs to change if it is to be the effective force for good that its providers claim it is.







Lessons on Foreign Aid and Economic Development


Book Description

A response to the pressing need to address and clarify the substantial ambiguity within current literature, this edited volume aims to deepen readers’ understanding of the impact of foreign aid on development outcomes based on the latest findings in research over the past decade. Foreign aid has long been seen as one of two extremes: either beneficial or damaging, a blessing or a curse. Consequently, many readers perceive aid’s effectiveness based on the work of scholars who are assessing the impact of aid from one of two antithetical perspectives. This book takes a different approach, shedding light on recent research that can deepen our understanding of the complex relationship between aid and its aftereffects. Drawing from an extensive set of studies that have explored micro and macro impacts of foreign aid for recipient nations, chapter authors highlight more layered and nuanced findings, with a focus on donor characteristics, political motives, and an evaluation of aid projects and their effectiveness, including the differential impact based on type of aid. This volume is the first of its kind to unpack aid as a complex rather than a unitary concept and explore the wide areas of grey that have long enshrouded foreign aid.







Foreign Aid


Book Description

A twentieth-century innovation, foreign aid has become a familiar and even expected element in international relations. But scholars and government officials continue to debate why countries provide it: some claim that it is primarily a tool of diplomacy, some argue that it is largely intended to support development in poor countries, and still others point out its myriad newer uses. Carol Lancaster effectively puts this dispute to rest here by providing the most comprehensive answer yet to the question of why governments give foreign aid. She argues that because of domestic politics in aid-giving countries, it has always been—and will continue to be—used to achieve a mixture of different goals. Drawing on her expertise in both comparative politics and international relations and on her experience as a former public official, Lancaster provides five in-depth case studies—the United States, Japan, France, Germany, and Denmark—that demonstrate how domestic politics and international pressures combine to shape how and why donor governments give aid. In doing so, she explores the impact on foreign aid of political institutions, interest groups, and the ways governments organize their giving. Her findings provide essential insight for scholars of international relations and comparative politics, as well as anyone involved with foreign aid or foreign policy.




Development


Book Description

What is development -- How does development happen? -- Why are some countries rich and others poor? -- What can be done to accelerate development? -- The evolution of development aid -- Sustainable development -- Globalization and development -- The future of development.




Handbook on the Economics of Foreign Aid


Book Description

It would be fair to say that foreign aid today is one of the most important factors in international relations and in the national economy of many countries – as well as one of the most researched fields in economics. Although much has been written on the subject of foreign aid, this book contributes by taking stock of knowledge in the field, with chapters summarizing long-standing debates as well as the latest advances. Several contributions provide new analytical insights or empirical evidence on different aspects of aid, including how aid may be linked to trade and the motives for aid giving. As a whole, the book demonstrates how researchers have dealt with increasingly complex issues over time – both theoretical and empirical – on the allocation, impact, and efficacy of aid, with aid policies placed at the center of the discussion. In addition to students, academics, researchers, and policymakers involved in development economics and foreign aid, this Handbook will appeal to all those interested in development issues and international policies.




Foreign Aid and Development in South Korea and Africa


Book Description

This book compares the rapid development of South Korea over the past 70 years with selected countries in sub-Saharan Africa to assess what factors contributed to the country’s success story, and why it is that countries that were comparable in the past continue to experience challenges in achieving and sustaining economic growth. In the 1950s, South Korea’s GDP per capita was $876, roughly comparable with that of Cote d’Ivoire and somewhat below Ghana’s. The country’s subsequent transformation from a war-ravaged, international aid-dependent economy to the 13th largest economy in the world has been the focus of considerable international admiration and attention. But how was it that South Korea succeeded in multiplying its GDP per capita by a factor of 23, while other Less Developed Countries continue to experience challenges? This book compares South Korea’s politics of development and foreign assistance with that of Ghana, Nigeria, and Zambia, which were also major recipients of the U.S. aid, to investigate the specific contexts that made it possible for South Korea to achieve success. Overall, this book argues that effective state capacity in South Korea’s domestic and international politics provided an anchor for diplomatic engagement with donors and guided domestic political actors in the effective use of aid for economic development. This book will be of interest to researchers and students working on development, comparative political economy, and foreign aid, and to policy makers and practitioners looking for a greater understanding of comparative development trajectories.