Development cooperation has spent decades wrangling over the merits, evidence, and implications of what we may term "the learning hypothesis": the idea that increased knowledge by development organisations must logically lead to increased effectiveness in the performance of their development...

Earmarking financial contributions for specific geographic, thematic or other priorities has emerged as an important modality for funding multilateral development organisations. Earmarking has had positive consequences, such as the mobilisation of resources for multilateral organisations and new...