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...

The COVID-19 pandemic, as with previous major crises, such as the 2008 financial crisis, has had a severe negative impact on international trade flows. The present paper aims to contribute to the debate concerning how to foster resilience against future crises, in terms of countries' aggregate...

I examine impacts of general budget support in 12 countries using the synthetic control approach. First, I analyse changes in government expenditures on health before and after the introduction of budget support. Second, I look at neonatal mortality (a presumed proxy for improvements in health...

This paper discusses the recent history of education aid policy. It highlights an important shift in policy thinking in the international aid architecture that has dominated the global education aid agenda since the early 1990s. It argues that Rawlsian principles of social justice, human rights...

This paper seeks to evaluate whether there is any impact on aid effectiveness when there is a different gender composition of parliaments in recipient countries. The sample observed refers to 40 Sub-Saharan African countries over the period 2007-2019. The findings gained demonstrate that a...

Despite the voluminous literature on the effect of aid-for-trade (AfT) flows on recipient countries’ trade performance, little is known about the relationship between AfT flows and other capital flows to developing countries. This paper contributes to the literature by exploring the effect of...

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...

We argue in this paper that cancelling the debt of the poorest countries was a good thing, but that it should not imply that the debt instrument should be foregone. Debt and debt cancellations are indeed two complementary instruments which, if properly managed, perform better than either loans...

Following the financial crisis that broke in the US and other Western economies in late 2008, there is now serious concern about its impact on the developing countries. The world media almost daily reports scenarios of gloom and doom, with many predicting a deep global recession. This paper...

This paper reviews what has been learned over many decades of foreign aid to education. It discusses what works and what does not and in this discussion draws attention to the fact that even a simple assessment requires more than providing a uniform check-list of inputs. It shows the positive...