The linkage of development aid to the promotion of human rights, democracy and good governance was a striking departure in the post-cold war foreign policies of Northern 'donor' governments. Uniquely, this book provides a systematic and comparative investigation of policies and practices in the 1990s to promote political reform in Southern 'recipient' countries by four donors, the governments of Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States, plus the European Union. The use of both carrot and stick, that is democracy assistance and aid sanctions, is examined and sharp criticism of current practice offered.
In Jan. 2006, Sec. of State Rice announced the ¿transformational development¿ initiative to bring coordination and coherence to U.S. aid programs. She created a new Bureau, which developed a Strategic Framework for Foreign Assistance to align aid programs with strategic objectives. The Framework became a guiding force in the FY 2008 and FY 2009 budgets, as well as the FY 2010 budget request. Numerous studies have addressed various concerns and provided recommendations regarding U.S. foreign aid policy, funding, and structure. Of the 16 recommendations, only enhancing civilian agency resources has the support of all of the studies covered in this report. This report is a review of selected studies written between 2001 and 2008. Table.
"Talk of reform is on the lips of many in Morocco, from the salons to the slums, and far into the countryside. Moroccans talk about reform in their country as an imperative, and the country s young king has been a key driver. Because of that, Morocco has drawn the attention of governments in the United States and Europe, which have seen their own strategic interests being tied to economic, political, and social reform in the Middle East and North Africa. Given all of the interest in reform, are the Moroccans going about it the right way? Are outside powers playing the proper constructive role, or are they undermining their own and Moroccans efforts toward positive change? This study analyzes U.S. and European policies to promote reform in Morocco, as well as the efforts of Moroccans themselves, and it seeks to understand the most effective ways to create complementary strategies toward reform." -- Product description.
Finally, when the country enters the second generation of reforms, such as public sector institutional reform, short-term, conditionality-based aid can once again be harmful - by reducing ownership, participation, and sustainability of the reform process."--BOOK JACKET.
An original analysis of American interventions in the developing world, asking what can be done to reduce their economic and human cost. Kapstein shows the conditions under which American policies are most likely to produce political stability, and when they are most likely to fail.
When this volume was published in 1993 it was the first comprehensive analysis of the major policy issues confronting Japan’s massive foreign aid programme. It deals with the philosophy behind Japan’s aid, Japanese reactions to the severe criticisms of its programmes and the beginnings of meaningful administrative reform of the complex aid system. Alan Rix goes on to examine the widespread innovation in programmes and policies to make Japan’s aid more responsive and the impact of the Asian bias in Japan’s aid.
A Brookings Institution Press and the Center for Global Development publication The plight of the poorest around the world has been pushed to the forefront of America's international agenda for the first time in many years by the war on terrorism and the formidable challenges presented by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. In March 2002, President Bush announced the creation of the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA). This bilateral development fund represents an increase of $5 billion per year over current assistance levels and establishes of a new agency to promote growth in reform-oriented developing countries. Amounting to a doubling of U.S. bilateral development aid—the largest increase in decades—the MCA offers a critical chance to deliberately shape the face that the United States presents to people in poor nations around the world. This book makes concrete recommendations on crafting a new blueprint for distributing and delivering aid to make the MCA an effective tool, not only in its own right, but also in transforming U.S. foreign aid and strengthening international aid cooperation more generally. The book tackles head on the tension between foreign policy and development goals that chronically afflicts U.S. foreign assistance; the danger of being dismissed as one more instance of the United States going it alone instead of buttressing international cooperation; and the risk of exacerbating confusion among the myriad overlapping U.S. policies, agencies, and programs targeted at developing nations, particularly USAID. In doing so, The Other War draws important lessons from new international development initiatives, such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria, the mixed record of previous U.S. aid efforts, trends in the U.S. budget for foreign assistance, the agencies currently involved in administering U.S. development policy, and the importance of the relationship between Congress and the executive branch in determining aid outcomes. The MCA holds the promise of substantially increasing U.S. development assistance and piolicy, and the importance of the relationship between Congress and the executive branch in determining aid outcomes. The MCA holds the promise of substantially increasing U.S. development assistance and pioneering a new era in aid, but the authors caution against creating yet another example of wasted aid that could undermine political support for foreign assistance for decades to come.
The United States is the world's leading foreign aid donor. Yet there has been little inquiry into how such assistance affects the politics and societies of recipient nations. Drawing on four decades of data on U.S. economic and military aid, Aiding and Abetting explores whether foreign aid does more harm than good. Jessica Trisko Darden challenges long-standing ideas about aid and its consequences, and highlights key patterns in the relationship between assistance and violence. She persuasively demonstrates that many of the foreign aid policy challenges the U.S. faced in the Cold War era, such as the propping up of dictators friendly to U.S. interests, remain salient today. Historical case studies of Indonesia, El Salvador, and South Korea illustrate how aid can uphold human freedoms or propagate human rights abuses. Aiding and Abetting encourages both advocates and critics of foreign assistance to reconsider its political and social consequences by focusing international aid efforts on the expansion of human freedom.
