Foreign Aid for Development: Issues, Challenges, and the New Agenda (WIDER Studies in Development Economics)

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.

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.