Aid and Development

John Overton, Warwick E. Murray

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000179705
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business generale
• Index: Business

This book provides an overview of what aid is, how it has changed over time and how it is practiced, as well as debates about whether aid works, for whom and what its future might be.

The text shows how 'aid' is a contested and fluid concept that involves a wide and changing variety of policies, actors and impacts. It equips the reader with an understanding of what aid is, where it comes from and where it goes, how it is delivered and what its impacts are, and whether shortcomings are a result of a fundamental problem with aid, or merely the result of bad practices. It explores the changing political ideologies and conceptions of development that continually reshape how aid is defined, implemented and assessed, and how, despite a global commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals, we are at a point where the very notion of aid is being questioned and its future is uncertain. Each chapter includes case studies, chapter summaries, discussions, weblinks and further reading, to help strengthen the reader's understanding.

Aid and Development provides an important resource for students, development workers and policy makers seeking an understanding of how aid works.

1Aid

An introduction

Learning objectives

This chapter will help readers to:

• Understand some of the varying definitions of aid
• Appreciate in a broad sense the historic roots of aid and its present geography
• Understand the role of aid in the global economy and how this is changing
• Debate the justifications for and motivations of aid from different perspectives
• Understand in outline form the arguments of critics and supporters of aid

Introduction

In the Global North, the term ‘aid’ often conjures up images of human suffering being met by assistance from outside. Such assistance has become an integral part of the way we conceive and practice development. We see aid as a means to alleviate suffering but also to promote development and self-reliance. Such views have been reinforced over the years by well-meaning public campaigns which have encouraged the public to both dip into their own pockets to contribute to relief efforts and pressure their governments to increase their aid budgets.

However, as we will see, there have been many critics of aid: those who have suggested that aid does not achieve what it says it aims to; that it merely acts as another weapon for the rich and powerful to exploit the poor and vulnerable; or that it actually distorts the economy and makes poverty worse. These debates continue to rage. Some commentators have also suggested that the age of aid is coming to an end – we are entering an historical ‘post-aid’ period where new actors, new ways of operating and challenges to the old simplistic world order of rich aid donors and poor recipients, are ushering in fundamentally different sets of economic and political relationships and power structures (Mawdsley et al. 2014; Mawdsley 2018; Janus et al. 2015; Gulrajani and Faure 2019).

Yet we contend that forms of aid from some countries to others are still significant features of the global economy. Furthermore, there are signs that aid will continue to be used to support global ambitions to alleviate poverty, tackle the effects of climate change, lessen inequalities and promote economic growth. The Sustainable Development Goals of 2016–30, in particular, set some lofty objectives and specific targets to address major global challenges for the next decade (see Box 1.1) – and if these are to be pursued seriously, they will require significant funding from both public and private sources. Aid, in its many forms, will remain important for global development efforts for years to come. Therefore, there is a need for us to understand aid in its many forms and how it has changed over time, to see how it is delivered, to question its effectiveness and to identify lessons for the future.

Box 1.1 The Sustainable Development Goals 2016–30

Following the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of 2000–15, the United Nations launched the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2016 ostensibly to set the development agenda for the next 15 years. Unlike the MDGs, the SDGs were agreed on following a long period of consultation and they attempted to incorporate key environmental concerns and goals and alongside more poverty-related objectives. In addition, whereas the MDGs tended to focus on the developing world, the SDGs were more inclusive, recognising that development and environmental concerns affected every country and that poverty and environmental degradation were not confined to so-called ‘poor’ countries. The slogan ‘leave no-one behind’ represented an ambitious and all-encompassing mission to transform the way we think about and pursue development.

Seventeen Goals were set. These encompassed concerns embedded in the MDGs regarding poverty, hunger, health, education and gender equality. To these were added goals relating to environmental sustainability: clean water, clean energy, the health of oceans and land, responsible consumption and production and climate action. Furthermore, there are goals relating to the economic sphere: industry and infrastructure ‘decent’ work and economic growth. Obscuring the debates whether such goals are consistent, mutually compatible or attainable, there is also an interesting social objective in the form of ‘reduced inequalities’. The 17 Goals are supported by 169 targets and a large list of 232 targets.

The Goals represent a remarkable degree of global consensus regarding the crucial issues and priorities facing the planet. Environmental and development-related processes and outcomes are, of course, closely inter-related, as are economies, societies and environments world-wide. The SDGs do well to recognise this holistic and inter-connected framework. Yet the SDGs will require a great deal of commitment and adaptation so that local needs and priorities can shape on-the-ground action and change.

The SDGs will also require a huge investment of resources at the global scale if they are to be achieved. One estimate from The Economist is that the SDGs will cost between $US2–3 trillion per year or 4 per cent of global gross domestic product (GDP) (The Economist 2015). There is talk of both private and public capital being needed in very large amounts. Private investment and philanthropy will need to be complemented by public commitments – much of it in the form of Official Development Assistance (ODA). And, given the huge scale required, ODA would have to be increased to well beyond the 0.7 per cent target set, but not achieved, by all but a few donor countries. Whereas the MDGs were associated in the early 2000s with apparent public support for increased aid and things such as debt relief and poverty alleviation, the global political environment in the later 2010s appears to be rather less supportive of substantial increases in public funding for aid.

Therefore, the SDGs require us to look again critically at how aid works, or not, and how it might be used to address this new 2030 development agenda.

In this book we aim to better understand what aid is, and has been, where it comes from and where it goes, how it is dispersed and what its impacts are. We need to question whether any observed shortcomings are a result of a fundamental problem with aid, or merely the result of bad practices. We need to look at the motives and policies of donors as much as we do the conditions and efforts of recipients. We provide students of development and those who work, or intend to work, in the development and aid sector with a broad picture of the present aid ‘landscape’, together with some key concepts and methods, and an overview of debates concerning the impacts and possible futures of aid. We adopt a broad definition of ‘aid’ and appreciate its complexities and dynamism, with emerging new actors and modes of operation, though we continue to focus on dominant framings of aid, key agencies and mainstream ways of operating, as seen in the OECD-defined definitions and measurements of ODA.

In this first chapter we briefly outline the position of aid in the global economy and the motivations for giving and receiving it before examining some of the key criticisms and debates. The core chapters of the book then seek to address some key questions:

- What is aid? How is aid defined and measured in various ways and how might various forms of ‘assistance’ or ‘co-operation’ be considered aid, or not? (Chapter 2)

- What is the geography of aid in terms of volumes and flows? Who are the major donors and recipients and what are the key aid agencies? (Chapter 3)

- How has aid changed over time? How have the principles, objectives and methods of aid delivery evolved through various historical ‘regimes’ of aid? (Chapter 4)

- How is aid delivered? In what forms does aid appear, what are the various scales of operation and how do these different aid ‘modalities’ involve different actors? What new forms of aid delivery are emerging at present? (Chapter 5)

- Does aid work? How can we start to understand the effects of aid on economic systems, governance, welfare and social structures – and what debates exist regarding the impacts of aid? (Chapter 6)

- What have we learned about effective aid and what is the future of aid? (Chapter 7)

Aid and development

Before proceeding further, we need to pause and consider what we mean by ‘aid’ and ‘development’. Firstly, although we will examine the definition of ‘aid’ in some depth in Chapter 2, here we can suggest that aid involves some broad idea of ‘help’ or ‘assistance’ from one ...