Aid
Aid refers to the assistance or support provided to individuals, communities, or countries in need, often in the form of resources, expertise, or funding. It can be aimed at addressing various social, economic, or humanitarian challenges, and is typically delivered by governments, non-governmental organizations, or international agencies. The goal of aid is to improve the well-being and development of the recipients.
3 Key excerpts on "Aid"
eBook - ePubRe-Framing Foreign Aid History and Politics
From the Fall of the Berlin Wall to the COVID-19 Outbreak
- Igor Pellicciari(Author)
- 2022(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...3). From the time of childhood when asking for the intervention of a parent, the concept of Aid is innate long before even having developed an awareness of other pure universal ideas that are ontological (such as “Life/Death”) or theological (such as “God”). This precocious universality and immediacy of the idea starting from the personal sphere has made it a “super-term” of very wide diffusion, loaded from time to time with different meanings, often bordering on each other (Halloran Lumsdaine, 1993; Morgenthau, 1962, pp. 301–309). It is recalled in different, sometimes contradictory, contexts. For this reason, it is still often used today with surprising approximation, even in its public sphere transposition. The (all in all little) historical research on the subject has contributed to increasing the confusion surrounding the term. When dealing with Aid interventions, the social sciences as a whole do so in a prescriptive form, referring to the future. They are more dedicated to assessing the values that inspire them or the best ways to put them into practice and manage them, with respect to the objectives that are formally declared upstream by the Donor. Less importance is granted to descriptive observations, which are inevitably critical when looking for deviations from the original plan, when considering what has already happened and has been concluded in the past. Even when the gaze is turned back in time, attention is more focused on self-standing assistance intervention as such and on its efficiency rather than on the broader key issue of effectiveness and real impact (Van Bilzen, 2015). In any case, the dynamic that is established between the actors involved is largely avoided, even more so if they are related to Sovereign States located in the international system...
eBook - ePubThe Illusion of Progress
Unsustainable Development in International Law and Policy
- Alexander Gillespie(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...6 Aid DOI: 10.4324/9781849776226-6 International Financial Assistance Overseas Development Assistance (ODA), or ‘Aid’ as it is commonly known, is the transfer of resources on terms which are more generous or ‘softer’ than loans obtainable on the world's capital markets. This usually involves loans with at least a 25 per cent grant component. ODA may be bilateral (country to country) or multilateral (where one country gives money to an international institution to distribute). ODA is typically given from one government (usually a ‘developed’ country) to another (usually a ‘developing’ country). In principle, social ecology disagrees with providing an endless supply of international financial assistance to Southern countries. Many social ecologists are also deeply sceptical of Aid because of its long history of ecologically and socially disruptive results. 1 Additionally, the kinds of environmental and social sustainability emphasized by social ecology, such as upholding civil and social rights, decentralized democracy and overall empowerment, typically do not require large infusions of external finance. 2 Nevertheless, this is not to argue against all financial transfers. The social ecology perspective generally recognizes that international financial assistance may be currently necessary to alleviate the socially and environmentally destructive poverty and disenfranchisement that currently engulfs millions of people in Southern (and pockets within Northern) countries. Moreover, it can be accepted as a principle that Aid, when properly conceived, controlled and encased within suitable and supportive foundations (from population control to market structure), can be effective in achieving its goals. 3 The task therefore is to apply the correct types of Aid and foundations to help alleviate the crushing burdens and disenfranchisement of millions of people...
eBook - ePubForeign Aid and Foreign Policy
Lessons for the Next Half-century
- Louis A. Picard, Robert Groelsema, Terry F. Buss(Authors)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...A case in point is Aid that was provided for industrialization in the early postwar era. Because the Aid was intended to foster capital formation and hence, at least in theory, to spur economic growth, its direct impacts on education and health were minimal. Conclusion In sum, what is the connection between conceptualizations of Aid and the field of development theory and development economics in particular? As has been demonstrated in this chapter, the connections are many. The concept of Aid has often been shaped by an underlying concept of development, and the role of Aid has often been informed by the perceived needs of the development process. The jury is out on the question of whether Aid has, in balance, Aided in the process of development. This is partly because of the changing concept of development since the 1950s, which has led to the allocation of Aid at different times to achieving goals that at one time may be considered to be development oriented and at other times to be ineffectual drivers of development. It is also partly because the process of Aid provision and implementation is fraught with agency problems that can only be mitigated by an agency structure that is centered around the ultimate recipients of the Aid, and is not based on the directionality of resource flows in the system. Note In recent years, the growth of the service sector has become an increasingly important part of the structural change that accompanies development. References Easterly, William. 2003. “Can Foreign Aid Buy Growth?” Journal of Economic Perspectives 17: 34–41. Fei, John C.H., and GustavRanis. 1964. Development of the Labor Surplus Economy: Theory and Policy. Homewood, IL: Irwin. Haq, Mahbubul. 1995. Reflections on Human Development. New York: Oxford University Press. Harris, John, and Michael P.Todaro. 1970. “Migration, Unemployment, and Development: A Two-Sector Analysis.” American Economic Review 60: 126–142. Lewis, W. Arthur. 1954...
