Water and sanitation sectors have been the 'natural' subjects of aid for several decades. However, these sectors also were among those most affected by changes in aid approaches and tools. The aim of this paper is to capture some of the complexity in assessing impact and effectiveness of aid in...

Horizontal inequality by ethnic group has remained remarkably persistent for wealth, education, and access to certain services in Nigeria. While significant gains in the reduction of inequality and improvement in access have been made for more locally administered services, outcomes are stickier...

Many concerns can be raised about the effectiveness of current aid programmes to developing countries. The appropriateness of aid is particularly questionable when one considers the likely character of the challenges that the global economy will confront in 2025, as suggested by alternative...

The emergence of climate finance has the potential to catalyze positive changes in the institutional architecture and distribution mechanisms for financial flows to lower income countries. The nature of the challenge of development in the context of climate change argues for recipient country...

This paper explores the current evidence underlying the debate on aid effectiveness, with a specific focus on the health sector. It summarizes the history of aid and outlines the methodological challenges encountered when assessing its effectiveness. The current evidence on 'what works' in the...

This paper examines whether foreign aid, together with other economic, social and environmental factors, contributes to sustainable development. It starts with a theoretical model where sustainable development is modelled as a different kind of growth that protects the environment. Using factor...

Studies of aid effectiveness abound in the literature, often with opposing conclusions. Since most time-series studies use data from the exact same publicly available data bases, our claim here is that such differences in results must be due to the use of different econometric models and...

Donor support for decentralization comes in two main categories: recommendations at the policy level and project activities at the programming level. At the policy level, donors promote decentralization by recommending greater autonomy for subnational actors. That is, they advocate for reforms...