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...

This paper studies the causal effect of transport infrastructure on the spatial concentration of economic activity. Leveraging a new global dataset of geo-located Chinese government-financed projects over the period from 2000 to 2014 together with measures of spatial inequality based on...

This paper studies the causal effect of transport infrastructure on the spatial concentration of economic activity. Leveraging a new global dataset of geo-located Chinese government-financed projects over the period from 2000 to 2014 together with measures of spatial inequality based on...

Some of the ways that have recently been discussed for increasing significantly the own resources of developing countries, or the amount or usefulness of the overseas aid that they receive, are potentially promising politically. This is because the obstacles that they face are those of inertia...

This paper argues that in view of the resource crunch confronting many developing countries and the fall in overseas development aid flows to them, new sources of development finance need to be found. We consider international taxes, fees and levies that could considerably augment aid flows to...

Efforts to realize the issue of development-focused Special Drawing Rights (SDR) by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have been on-going for many years. Recently, however, the campaign first gained a new momentum immediately after the Asian financial crises with the new liquidity problems of...

‘Country ownership,' ‘partnership' and ‘participation' are key pillars of what has become increasingly referred to as the ‘new aid architecture.' Catalysed primarily by the inception of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) framework, introduced in 1999 as preconditions for debt...

Developing countries requests for technical and financial assistance in the Doha Round negotiations prompted the WTO to collaborate with donors and development agencies. This led to the Aid for Trade Initiative. However, no attempt at increasing coherence between trade policy, aid policy, and...

The volume of foreign aid has increased during the last four decades, albeit with interruptions in certain years. Over time, the major recipients have changed: while the share of aid to Asia has diminished since the 1980s, that destined for sub-Saharan Africa has grown. There is some evidence...

The role of foreign aid in the growth process of developing countries has been a topic of intense debate. Foreign aid is an important topic given its implications for poverty reduction in developing countries.Since the second World War, foreign aid has been one of the most prominent policy tools...