Foreign Aid for Development

Issues, Challenges, and the New Agenda

Edited by George Mavrotas

WIDER Studies in Development Economics

Contributions by leading foreign aid scholars
Rigorous and timely analysis of a broad range of aid issues including Millenium Development Goals
Facilitates cross-country comparison
Essential one-stop foreign aid reference for professionals and scholars of development economics and international finance

Foreign Aid for Development

Issues, Challenges, and the New Agenda

Edited by George Mavrotas

WIDER Studies in Development Economics

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.

Foreign Aid for Development

Issues, Challenges, and the New Agenda

Edited by George Mavrotas

WIDER Studies in Development Economics

Part I. Foreign aid for development
1. Introduction and overview, George Mavrotas
2. Aid, growth, and development, Finn Tarp
Part II. Enhancing aid effectiveness
3. Toward the enhanced effectiveness of foreign aid, Gustav Ranis
4. Reconstructing the aid effectiveness debate, Machiko Nissanke
Part III. Aid to fragile and conflict-affected countries
5. The implications of horizontal inequality for aid, Graham Brown, Frances Stewart, and Arnim Langer
6. Conflict prevention as a policy objective of development aid, Sakiko Fukuda-Parr
7. Aid to fragile states: do donors help or hinder?, Stephen Browne
8. Foreign aid and economic development in post-war Lebanon, Ghassan Dibeh
Part IV. Aid modalities
9. Can new aid modalities handle politics?, Arjan de Haan and Max Everest-Phillips
10. Monitoring and evaluation reform under changing aid modalities, Nathalie Holvoet and Robrecht Renard
11. Practical and theoretical implications of the Joint Evaluation of General Budget Support, Michael Hubbard
12. New aid modalities and reporting support for child rights: lessons from assessing aid for basic social services, Eva Jespersen and Julia Benn
Part V. Managing aid flows
13. Big push versus absorptive capacity: how to reconcile the two approaches, Patrick Guillaumont and Sylviane Guillaumont Jeanneney
14. Aid and rent-driven growth: Mauritania, Kenya, and Mozambique compared, Richard Auty

Foreign Aid for Development

Issues, Challenges, and the New Agenda

Edited by George Mavrotas

WIDER Studies in Development Economics

Author Information

George Mavrotas is the Chief Economist of the Global Development Network (GDN), formerly a Fellow and Project Director at UNU-WIDER and, prior to that, in the Economics Faculties of the Universities of Oxford and Manchester. He is also a Visiting Professor at CERDI, University of Auvergne in Clermont-Ferrand, France. He is the author and co-author of more than 100 publications, including papers in leading peer-reviewed journals, chapters in edited volumes and books on a broad range of development issues. His publcations include Commodity Supply Management by Producing Countries (OUP); Advancing Development: Core Themes in Global Economics (Palgrave Macmillan) and Development Aid: A Fresh Look (Palgrave Macmillan). He holds a PhD in Economics (DPhil) from Oxford.

Contributors:

George Mavrotas, Global Development Network
Finn Tarp, University of Copenhagen
Gustav Ranis, Yale University
Machiko Nissanke, SOAS, University of London
Graham Brown, University of Bath
Frances Stewart, Centre for Research on Inequality, Human Security, and Ethnicity, University of Oxford
Arnim Langer, Centre for Research on Inequality, Human Security, and Ethnicity, University of Oxford
Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, the New School
Stephen Browne, International Trade Centre, Geneva
Ghassan Dibeh, Lebanese American University in Byblos
Arjan de Haan, Institute for Social Studies, The Hague
Max Everest-Phillips, UK Department for International Development
Nathalie Holvoet, University of Antwerp
Robrecht Renard, University of Antwerp
Michael Hubbard, University of Birmingham
Eva Jespersen, UNICEF
Julia Benn, OECD
Patrick Guillaumont, CERDI, Université d'Auvergne
Sylviane Guillaumont Jeanneney, CERDI, Université d'Auvergne
Richard Auty, Lancaster University