Success in development over the past half-century was based on manufacturing-led export growth. Because the share of global employment in manufacturing will decline, manufacturing won't play the same role in the coming decades. An increase in manufacturing employment won't suffice to meet the...

I discuss how aid can support growth in small, isolated economies. Small markets frustrate scale economies and competition. Combined with high transport costs, essential inputs become prohibitively expensive. Breaking the coordination problem requires pioneering investment. Since this generates...

The paper examines why the efforts to promote gender justice by development aid have not succeeded in dealing with deeply-rooted structural injustices which prevent the realization of social justice and gender equality. The study analyses the implementation of the UNSCR 1325 "Women, Peace, and...

Drawing from a growing body of literature on development aid in fragile contexts, this paper investigates the effectiveness of COVID-19 aid in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The paper uses the OECD's Principles for Good International Engagement in Fragile States and Situations to...

The majority of the world's poor, by income poverty and multi-dimensional poverty, now live in countries officially classified by the World Bank as middle-income countries. Of course nothing happens when a country crosses a (somewhat) arbitrary threshold in per capita income but it does matter...

Most rich countries developed without aid, and this 'self-development' has some intrinsic advantages. In today's massively unequal world, however, such an approach would imply very low levels of human development for several generations for many poor countries. Aid can therefore usefully be...

This paper examines the current security-governance-development nexus, something that is often also discussed under the concept of "transitional justice" (TJ). The paper analyses how the ambiguous, evolving and expanding nature of the concept of TJ affects the planning, coordination, evaluation...

Africa has come a long way since the economic turmoil of the 1980s, the decade of "structural adjustment". Growth has been strong, yet poverty remains high. Underlying the shortage of good livelihoods and high social inequality is the lack of diversification in Africa's economies-in contrast to...

This paper discusses past and current social policy strategies in the international aid architecture. From the 1990s, aid strategy and policy shifted to put a stronger emphasis on human development. This accelerated with the Millennium Development Goals and will continue under the Sustainable...

To continue its economic growth and create new and better livelihoods, Africa must transform the productive side of its economy. Ongoing globalization - in trade, finance, and technology - opens up new possibilities for structural transformation, but also new risks as Africa's integration with...