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Life Expectancy and Income Convergence in the World:A Dynamic General Equilibrium Analysis

This IMF working paper "introduces the concept of the dynastic general equilibrium value of life to measure welfare gains from the increase in life expectancy. A calibration study finds sizable welfare gains, but these gains hardly mitigate the large inequality among countries. A conventional GDP-based measure remains a good approximation for (non) convergence in world living standards, even when adjusted for changes in life expectancy."

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2008/wp08158.pdf

(Added: Mon Jun 30 2008   Hits: 8)

Aid for the Poor, Not for the Consultants

According to this article, a new Action Aid International report shows that no less than a quarter of annual development aid -- about 20 billion dollars -- is being used by donor countries to fund technical assistance, including the typical 200,000 dollars a year it costs to keep an expatriate consultant on staff. (Moyiga Nduru, IPS News, 5 July 2006)

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=33878

(Added: Fri Jul 07 2006   Hits: 378)

Billions in aid brought East Timor little

Despite billions of dollars in foreign aid and expert development assistance from the United Nations and the World Bank, recent studies indicate the people of East Timor remain impoverished. Recent violence has left many observers wondering how a country that once held so much promise has shown so little progress. (Jane Perlez, International Herald Tribune/The New York Times, 31 May 2006)

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/05/30/news/timor.php

(Added: Thu Jun 01 2006   Modified: Thu Jul 13 2006   Hits: 184)

Counterinsurgency Manual Shows Military's New Face

This story is part one of a two-part series on the transformation of Canada's military and humanitarian missions. Following closely behind their counterparts in the United States and Britain, Canada's Department of National Defence is preparing a comprehensive counter-insurgency field manual for its soldiers and officers.

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=37050

(Added: Thu Mar 29 2007   Hits: 45)

Counting chickens when they hatch: The short-term effect of aid on growth.

By Michael A. Clemens, Steven Radelet and Rikhil Bhavnani, 20 Jul 2004. Abstract: Past research on aid and growth is flawed because it typically examines the impact of aggregate aid on growth over a short period, usually four years, while significant portions of aid are unlikely to affect growth in such a brief time. We divide aid into three categories: (1) emergency and humanitarian aid (likely to be negatively correlated with growth); (2) aid that affects growth only over the long term, if at all, such as aid to support democracy, the environment, health, or education (likely to have no relationship to growth over four years); and (3) aid that plausibly could stimulate growth in four years, including budget and balance of payments support, investments in infrastructure, and aid for productive sectors such as agriculture and industry. Our focus is on the third group, which accounts for about 45% of all aid flows. We find a positive, causal relationship between this 'short-impact' aid and economic growth (with diminishing returns) over a four-year period. The impact is large: at least two-to-three times larger than in studies using aggregate aid. Even at a conservatively high discount rate, at the mean a $1 increase in short-impact aid raises output (and income) by $8 in present value in the typical country. From a different perspective, we find that higher-than-average short-impact aid to sub-Saharan Africa raised per capita growth rates there by about one percentage point over the growth that would have been achieved by average aid flows. The results are highly statistically significant and stand up to a demanding array of tests, including various specifications, endogeneity structures, and treatment of influential observations. The basic result does not depend crucially on a recipient's level of income or quality of institutions and policies; we find that short-impact aid causes growth, on average, regardless of these characteristics. However, we find some evidence that the impact on growth is somewhat larger in countries with stronger institutions or longer life expectancies (better health). We also find a significant negative relationship between debt repayments and growth. We make no statement on, and do not attempt to measure, any additional long-run effects of aid; four-year panel regressions are not an appropriate tool to examine those relationships.

http://www.cgdev.org/files/2744_file_CountingChickensFINAL3.pdf

(Added: Mon Jul 26 2004   Modified: Fri Aug 25 2006   Hits: 310)

MCA Monitor: Tracking the Millennium Challenge Account

The MCA Monitor provides rigorous policy analysis and research on the operations and effectiveness of the Millennium Challenge Corporation. It aims to contribute to the MCC's success by drawing lessons from relevant experiences, raising awareness, and linking related work on aid effectiveness.

http://www.cgdev.org/section/initiatives/_active/mcamonitor

(Added: Fri Jun 20 2003   Modified: Mon Sep 11 2006   Hits: 213)

OECD DAC Development Cooperation Report 2006

2006 has seen another year of growth in income per head for most poor countries at rates which are above those of OECD countries, in many cases significantly so. This growth has been robust for some years now, and is gradually changing the realities of development. Despite these encouraging results, three important questions remain: are such rates of growth sustainable? Can they - in some cases - even be increased? And are the benefits of growth reaching the poor? Aid has a role to play in achieving all these goals. This year's Report looks at the prospects for increased aid; the issue of aid dependence; the need for greater domestic accountability; and the Aid for Trade agenda. It also provides preliminary results from the baseline survey which monitors the Paris Declaration aid effectiveness indicators, as agreed by the High Level Forum in March 2005. The Report notes some real progress on key goals set by the UN Millennium Assembly, but also notes the heavy toll of continuing crises on the aid programmes of the donor community. (OECD, 2006)

http://caliban.sourceoecd.org/vl=4967794/cl=16/nw=1/rpsv/dac/

(Added: Thu Mar 08 2007   Hits: 242)

The Millennium Project: A Sound Strategy for Reaching the MDGs?

ODI Opinions, by John Roberts, Feb 2005. The Millennium Project Report Investing in Development invites developing countries to formulate expenditure plans based on what they will need to do to reach the Millennium Development Goals. Additional aid needed will be very substantial, even after allowing for re-allocation of current aid flows away from non-MDG related purposes. The report estimates that the additional requirement, over and above current net ODA of some $65 billion p.a., will rise in constant prices from $70 billion in 2006 to $120 billion in 2015. Is this 'Big Bang' strategy realistic? This note welcomes the prospect of more aid for the world's most important project, points to some problems in getting started and to some pitfalls to avoid, and emphasises the need to sustain momentum in poverty reduction after 2015.

http://www.odi.org.uk/publications/opinions/37_mdgs_feb05.html

(Added: Tue Apr 26 2005   Modified: Mon Jul 02 2007   Hits: 352)

"Official" Development Aid: A Fundamental Failure?

By Rich Thomas, Thursday, April 04, 2002 . Aid to developing nations can take any one of three distinct forms. However, only two of them have been successful. The first is reconstruction aid - the rebuilding of damage created by wars or natural disasters. The second successful form of aid is charitable grants and loans to the developing world for education and health care services. But the third form of aid - for economic development - is another story. It has failed to accelerate income growth among the world's poor wherever it has dominated. (The Globalist)

http://www.theglobalist.com/DBWeb/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=2372

(Added: Mon Oct 14 2002   Modified: Wed Jun 29 2005   Hits: 526)

A Dangerous Mix: Religion & Development Aid

After the war in Iraq and again in the wake of the tsunami, Christian aid organizations were among the first to set-up relief operations in devastated countries. Many described the faith-based organizations lining up at the Iraq-Jordan border as a second army, preparing to fight a "battle for the souls" of Iraqi people. With The Faith-Based Initiative launched by the US president, concerns are raised about government's alliance with and sponsorship of Christian values and missionaries. It also lends credibility to the critics who attest that the war on terrorism is really a religious crusade. Should faith-based organizations be allowed to proselytize while providing development and humanitarian aid? (Eman Ahmed, WHRnet, 2005)

http://www.whrnet.org/fundamentalisms/docs/issue-aid_religion0507.html

(Added: Mon May 15 2006   Modified: Fri Sep 01 2006   Hits: 226)

A misguided quest: Community-based tourism in Latin America

This Oversees Development Institute Opinion piece written by Jonathan Mitchell and Pam Muckosy argues that Community based tourism in Latin America may be a misguided adventure and that linking local peoples with the mainstream tourism industry would likely achieve better outcomes.

http://www.odi.org.uk/publications/opinions/102_community-based_tourism_jonathan_mitchell.pdf

(Added: Mon Jun 16 2008   Hits: 100)

A new approach to the allocation of aid among developing countries : is the USA more selfish than the rest?

University of Manchester School of Economic Studies discussion paper by Jane Harrigan and Chengang Wang.2004. Attempts to explain the factors that determine the geographical allocation of foreign aid. Develops a theoretical model and uses panel data taking account of the truncated nature of the dependent variable. The authors run regressions for different groups of donors (USA, non-USA bilateral and multilateral). They find that all the donors respond to recipient need in their allocation of aid, but compared to the rest the USA puts less emphasis on need and more emphasis on donor interest e.g. geopolitical, commercial, and other links with specific recipients. Concludes that the USA is a more selfish aid donor than other bilateral and multilateral donors when allocating its aid.

http://les.man.ac.uk/ses/research/Discussion_paper_0412.pdf

(Added: Tue Oct 26 2004   Modified: Tue Jul 19 2005   Hits: 207)

A Wider Approach to Aid Effectiveness

In this paper the authors discuss the results of research into the impact of foreign aid on human development. Rather than focussing on per capita income, as is common in the existing literature, they look at how aid impacts on a range of human development indicators, including measures, of health, education and fertility, and allow for the fact that these different dimensions of wellbeing are likely to interact with each other. Overall, aid is found to have a substantial positive impact on many development outcomes. (David Fielding et. al. UNU Wider Paper, February 2006)

http://www.wider.unu.edu/publications/rps/rps2006/rp2006-23.pdf

(Added: Wed Aug 09 2006   Hits: 345)

Accountability and aid effectiveness

The purpose of the 2005 Paris declaration on Aid effectiveness is to improve aid delivery in a way that best supports the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. It highlighted the importance of predictable, well aligned, programmed, and coordinated aid to achieve results. (African Forum and Network on Debt and Development, December 2007)

http://www.afrodad.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=253&Itemid=109

(Added: Wed Jan 23 2008   Hits: 115)

Accra 2008: The bumpy road to aid effectiveness in agriculture [pdf]

In agriculture, there are several reasons why development cooperation in that sector struggles to comply with the Paris principles. The paper sets out areas requiring focused attention in the run-up to Accra 2008 (Lídia Cabral, ODI, April 2008)

http://www.odi.org.uk/publications/nrp/NRP114.pdf

(Added: Tue Apr 08 2008   Hits: 107)

Afghanistan, Inc: A Corpowatch Investigative Report (pdf)

Fariba Nawa, an Afghan-American who returned to her native country to examine the progress of reconstruction, uncovers some examples of where the money has (and hasn't) gone, how the system of international aid works (and doesn't), and what it is really like in the villages and cities where outsiders are rebuilding the war-torn countryside. (Fairba Nawa, CorpWatch, May 2006)

http://corpwatch.org/downloads/CorpWatch%20Afghan%20report.pdf

(Added: Thu May 04 2006   Modified: Tue Jun 27 2006   Hits: 352)

AFGHANISTAN: Oxfam calls on donors to overhaul aid policy

Billions of dollars of international aid money spent on rebuilding, development and humanitarian efforts over the past six years have contributed to social and economic progress, but the process has been "too centralised, top-heavy and insufficient"(Oxfam, 31 January, 2008)

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=76503

(Added: Mon Feb 11 2008   Hits: 36)

Africa's Village of Dreams

This article in the Wilson Quarterly, written by a former development consultant, provides a critical analysis of the Millennium Villages concept (pioneered by Jeffrey Sachs as part of the push to meet the MDGs). In the article the author visits one of these villages. He argues that while considerable improvements have been made to the lives of the people in the village, mistakes have also been made.

http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=wq.essay&essay_id=231264

(Added: Thu Jun 07 2007   Modified: Mon Jul 02 2007   Hits: 124)

African Voices - Improving EC aid to Agriculture in Africa

African Voices in Europe has been launched by Practical Action to expose the failures of EC aid to improve the lives of farmers and livestock keepers in Africa and set a new agenda for ensuring aid reaches Africa's poorest communities. The site includes videos, photo stories, and in-depth research on EC aid to agriculture in Africa.

http://practicalaction.org/?id=africanvoices

(Added: Fri Mar 16 2007   Modified: Fri Dec 21 2007   Hits: 362)

Aid as Privatisation

Dave Prentis and Louise Richards Wednesday December 1, 2004. The Guardian. "For too long it has been the accepted practice of donors such as the UK government and the World Bank to attach a wide range of conditions to the financial assistance they offer developing countries. The message to those countries has been clear: if you don't accept the conditions, you don't get the aid. While aid is supposed to reduce poverty, the conditions attached to it have often had the opposite result."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5075380-103677,00.html

(Added: Tue Dec 14 2004   Modified: Tue Jul 19 2005   Hits: 191)

Aid Campaign: Commercialisation of Aid

The Commercialisation of Aid project seeks to address and uncover the commercial interests serviced by Australia's aid assistance. AID/WATCH is reviewing the processes and programs of the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) and the profits made by Australian private contractors derived from foreign aid projects.

http://www.aidwatch.org.au/index.php?current=16

(Added: Thu Jun 17 2004   Modified: Tue Jul 19 2005   Hits: 267)

Aid Effectiveness

This webpage houses publications and commentaries on aid effectiveness from the Centre for Global Development.

http://www.cgdev.org/section/topics/aid_effectiveness

(Added: Tue Jan 10 2006   Hits: 121)

Aid for the poorest? The distribution and maldistribution of international development assistance

Chronic Poverty Research Centre. CPRC Working Paper No 35. Bob Baulch, 2003. (pdf 456.5 KB) This paper examines the extent to which the distribution of development assistance is directed towards the poorest countries. Using the latest cross-country data available from the OECD and the World Bank, aid concentration curves are constructed for the major bilateral and multilateral donors. The ways in which different donors distribute their development assistance is shown to differ markedly. The two largest bilateral donors, the United States and Japan, and the largest multilateral donor, the European Commission, spend large amounts of their aid budgets in small, relatively well-off countries. In contrast, despite some bias towards small developing countries, the Netherlands, the UK and the World Bank direct most of their aid to the poorest countries. France, Germany and the UN System's aid programmes occupy an intermediate position. The paper concludes with a discussion of the questions the analysis poses for aid policy and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

http://www.chronicpoverty.org/pdfs/35Baulch.pdf#search=%22Aid%20for%20the%20poorest%20%3A%20The%20distribution%20and%20maldistribution%20of%20international%20development%20assistance%22

(Added: Fri Jul 09 2004   Modified: Tue Sep 12 2006   Hits: 330)

Aid to 'Poorly Performing' Countries: a Critical Review of Debates and Issues (pdf 600kb)

Overseas Development Institute, July 2004. One of the decade's hot topics: the question of international aid for countries which are seen to have 'performed poorly': the report tells us why it's an issue now; argues that the widely used country performance league tables are problematic; and that aid to countries which are 'difficult to assist' needs to be situated in an analysis of change over time not only in performance but also in the functioning of the state and its international relations.

http://www.odi.org.uk/publications/poorly_performing_countries/Aid_to_PPCs.pdf

(Added: Thu Sep 09 2004   Modified: Thu Aug 25 2005   Hits: 337)

Aid to Fragile States: Do Donors Help or Hinder?

The record of aid to fragile and poorly-performing states is the real test of aid effectiveness. Rich countries can justify aid to fragile states both through altruism and self-interest. But, with some exceptions, donors have appeared at the wrong times and with the wrong attitudes, even sometimes undermining development progress. (World Institute for Development Economics Research, January 2007).

http://www.wider.unu.edu/publications/dps/dps2007/dp2007-01.pdf

(Added: Tue Jul 10 2007   Hits: 192)

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