Hopes for development aid remain high among Western politicians and pundits, but the evidence is depressing. Foreign aid has on average probably no effect on long-run growth. To understand the failure of many development projects, we need a deeper consideration of the failure of top-down...

The most basic economic theory suggests that rising incomes in developing countries will deter emigration from those countries, an idea that captivates policymakers in international aid and trade diplomacy. A lengthy literature and recent data suggest something quite different: that over the...

Improved living conditions in Africa would lessen migratory pressure on Europe. The scope of Germany‘s "Marshall Plan with Africa" is too narrow; progress can only be made if Europe works together. A financial system that reaches as many people as possible could be one key to future...

Aid for Trade (AfT) came to prominence just over a decade ago at the launch of the World Trade Organization's Doha Round. With its focus on helping least developed countries and economies escape the poverty trap, it aims to strengthen their capabilities to meet market demand and to reduce...

In this paper we 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, we look at how aid impacts on a range of human development indicators, including measures, of health,...

The ability of low-income countries to productively absorb large amounts of external assistance is a central issue for efforts to scale-up aid. This paper examines absorptive capacity in the context of MDG-based development programmes in low-income countries. It first defines absorptive...

This chapter compares Japan and the US as they provide different types of capital to the developing world, focusing especially on foreign aid and, to some extent, also on remittances and the role of NGOs. The main focus is on the quality of aid and on past conceptual differences and on an...

Although the provision of security to all their citizens is a state's fundamental duty, over 50 countries experienced armed conflict in 2021. The international development community has identified armed conflict as an impediment to development and provides considerable resources to reduce armed...

We argue that donors could improve the effectiveness of foreign aid by pursuing complementary and coherent non-aid policies. In particular, we hypothesize that aid from donors that are open to immigration has stronger growth effects than aid from closed donors. We estimate the aid-growth nexus...

This working paper presents the main findings of the pilot study conducted in Burkina Faso in 2019 as part of the development of the statistical measurement framework for "Total Official Support for Sustainable Development (TOSSD)". The pilot study includes Burkina Faso’s perspective on the...