What to Read on Foreign Aid

Over the course of the twentieth century, the richer, more industrialized nations of the world shifted from seeing the poorer nations as targets of conquest or exploitation to seeing them as problems in need of solutions. After World War II, the question of how to help newly decolonized countries in the so-called Third World came to the fore, and a consensus emerged on the need for a variety of financial and other assistance programs. Debates over the propriety, value, and methods of such foreign aid have continued ever since. In the last decade, the subject reappeared in headlines as celebrities and economists rubbed elbows in Africa, the United Nations promoted its Millennium Development Goals, and critics reiterated their concerns over the effectiveness of a half century of previous aid efforts. Since 9/11, there has been a growing institutional convergence of security and development concerns, even as the aid field has become more crowded, with national and international aid efforts increasingly matched or exceeded by those of foundations and nongovernmental organizations.

See full Article.