Readers interested in the intricacies of international assistance may consult some of the very thorough surveys on the subject, including two comprehensive articles by Radelet , and Quibria , and the extensive literature cited therein. Although this chapter runs for almost pages, there is not even a mild suggestion that the home nation should provide systematic financial assistance to its colonies.
Although this Act intended to improve the social conditions in the colonies — especially in the rural sector — its main objective was to promote British exports at a time when the overvaluation of the pound had greatly reduced British competitiveness. Until the passing of this legislation the colonies were supposed to be, largely, self-financing, and any aid was confined to emergencies.
Marshall in a speech at Harvard University on 5 June , played an important role in defining US policy towards foreign aid. The Nordic countries created their own aid agencies in See, also, Johnson and Subramanian , Rajan and Subramanian , Collier and Dollar , Bourgouignon and Saunders , and Quibria , and the literature cited therein. See Booth for a discussion on aid effectiveness and governance. Published in collaboration with VoxEU. Image: A Bozo fisherman casts his net from a pirogue in front of Saaya village in the Niger river inland delta February 7, The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.
US consumer prices have risen to their highest rate since , with consumer prices up 6. Economists say the inflation could be long-lasting. World-renowned leadership expert, Michael Useem, has developed a checklist that includes 16 mission-critical principles to make good and timely decisions.
I accept. Future of Economic Progress How effective is foreign aid? Take action on UpLink. Explore context. Explore the latest strategic trends, research and analysis. Three distinct camps may be distinguished: One believes that official assistance is ineffective, and has harmed poor countries throughout the years.
Another camp believes that aid levels have been too low, and that large increases would help reduce poverty. Foreign aid policies from a historical perspective Foreign aid is a relatively new concept in economics. In the s, two research lines influenced aid policy. Work on incentive compatibility and strategic behaviour persuaded aid officials in donor countries to become more flexible, and to incorporate recipient governments in the design and management of aid programmes. New research on capital mobility and the international transmission of crises, resulted in a more nuanced and pragmatic view regarding the use of capital controls.
Econometric studies Academic and aid-community economists have used a battery of econometric methods to analyse whether aid is effective in the sense of generating higher growth and better economic outcomes. Fragile and inconclusive results Overall, the results from this large body of research have been fragile and inconclusive. Intermediate positions For an increasing number of economists, the issue of aid effectiveness is neither black nor white.
Footnotes [1] For a detailed discussion of these issues see Edwards b. License and Republishing. In , the U. Millennium Declaration, The African Summit on Malaria, and the G8 Declaration all addressed the burden of malaria and committed the world to action. The debate soon turned to the issue of policy: how could the malaria burden be reduced?
Here we must look at some key details in order to keep aid in careful perspective. Starting in the late s, malariologists at WHO, in academia, and in various government agencies around the world, described how malaria control could be made highly effective. The malariologists emphasized the ability of insecticide-treated bed nets to reduce the transmission of the disease. They also emphasized the urgency of shifting to a new generation of first-line medicines, notably those using artemisinin a powerful anti-malaria drug developed by Chinese scientists in combination with other medicines, because the old-line medicines mainly chloroquine were losing efficacy to growing drug resistance.
The combination of bed nets and effective medicines known in the jargon as "vector control" and "case management" respectively , supported by rapid diagnosis of infections, makes for a powerful one-two punch in saving lives and reducing malaria transmission. Indeed, epidemiological theory and practical experience strongly suggested that if bed net coverage could be raised to a sufficiently high rate typically around three-quarters, depending on local conditions , the transmission of malaria would be sharply reduced even for those not directly protected by their own bed nets.
The "spillover" of protection to the non-users is called a mass-action effect, similar to the way that high vaccine coverage protects even unvaccinated people because the disease stops spreading when fewer people are susceptible to infection.
This mass-action phenomenon of course strongly argued for a malaria control strategy that would lead to a high level of bed net coverage. There was one more detail of great policy significance: Not all bed nets are equal. The high-quality bed nets work not only mechanically by covering the body but also chemically, by a treatment with insecticide that repels or kills mosquitoes that land on the bed net.
A bed net without insecticide treatment is far less effective than a treated net. Until the early s, bed nets required frequent retreatment with insecticide e. Then, Sumitomo Chemical developed long-lasting insecticide-treated nets LLINs that were specially engineered to keep the insecticide intact even when the nets were repeatedly washed. The new nets could therefore remain effective for around five years or even more. This was a great breakthrough, but the new nets were more expensive to manufacture than the preceding generation of simpler nets.
All of these developments — new nets, new medicines, improved diagnostics, and a surging epidemic — were crucial to developing a successful malaria control policy after the year Taken together, they motivated the case for increased donor aid to support the mass free-distribution of LLINs and free access to the new generation of artemisinin-based medicines and rapid diagnostic tools.
Without financial support, poor people could not afford either the LLINs or the new medicines. Attempts to sell the nets at a discount, known as social marketing, had very little take up, since many poor families simply lacked any cash income at all.
The prospect of achieving "mass action" protection through social marketing was very small. Moreover, impoverished households would often scrape together the needed money only to buy the cheaper but ineffective nets, rather than the more expensive but more effective LLINs. Governments of low-income African countries needed donor support for the scale-up effort since their own domestic tax revenues, even when amply allocated to public health, could not cover the costs of a basic primary health system including scaled-up malaria control.
Easterly would have none of it. Yet despite this anti-aid narrative, a global turning point finally came in This turning point was helped by the early success of Kenya. Next, WHO swung its powerful weight behind the mass free distributions of bed nets throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Soon after, U. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon established the mass free distribution of bed nets as policy for all U. The evidence is overwhelming that malaria declined precipitously as a result of these bold measures.
These results are historic. Roughly a half-million children, if not more, are being saved each year that otherwise would have succumbed to malaria. Even more success is possible, but only if development aid continues to back the effective control of malaria. Foreign aid has not been the major driver of development progress over the last 20 years, nor will it be in the future.
Long-term development progress depends primarily on the economic and political institutions that are built over time in low-income countries, and the actions taken by those countries themselves. Aid programs alongside diplomacy and other tools of international engagement are not the driving force behind development, but they can help support development progress along the way. That was the message of retired generals and admirals in a recent letter to Congress calling on them not to cut funding for diplomacy and foreign aid, which was echoed by a similar letter from more than faith leaders.
Fortunately, both Democratic and Republican members of Congress understand the importance of aid and diplomacy programs, and just last week wisely voted to increase funding for the international affairs budget for the fiscal year ending on September 30, These members of Congress, our national security leaders, faith leaders, and others know that the right way forward is to strengthen our aid programs and build on their success, not to cut them and leave developing countries in the lurch while undermining our own security.
Future Development. The Future Development blog informs and stimulates debate on key development issues. This blog was first launched in September by the World Bank and the Brookings Institution in an effort to hold governments more accountable to poor people and offer solutions to the most prominent development challenges. Continuing this goal, Future Development was re-launched in January at brookings. For archived content, visit worldbank. Future Development Aid is not oil: The source of non-tax revenue affects its impact on democratization Sarah Bermeo.
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