Roger C. Riddell

Foreign aid is now a $100bn business and is expanding more rapidly today than it has for a generation. But does it work? Indeed, is it needed at all? Other attempts to answer these important questions have been dominated by a focus on the impact of official aid provided by governments. But today possibly as much as 30 percent of aid is provided by Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), and over 10 percent is provided as emergency assistance. In this first-ever attempt to provide an overall assessment of aid, Roger Riddell presents a rigorous but highly readable account of aid, warts and all. Does Foreign Aid Really Work? sets out the evidence and exposes the instances where aid has failed and explains why. The book also examines the way that politics distorts aid, and disentangles the moral and ethical assumptions that lie behind the belief that aid does good. The book concludes by detailing the practical ways that aid needs to change if it is to be the effective force for good that its providers claim it is.

There has been considerable interest in recent years in the ability of non-governmental organisations to work with the rural poor in developing countries in order to improve their quality of life and economic status through the provision of credit, skills training, and other inputs for income-generation programmes. This book brings together the results of 16 evaluations in 4 countries (Bangladesh, India, Uganda, and Zimbabwe) to provide a detailed assessment of the contribution that NGOs make to rural poverty alleviation. The results indicate that NGO projects are successful when they build in a high degree of participation, when the staff are committed to the goals of the project, and when they are managed by strong and competent leaders. Many of the projects studied contributed to increases in income and welfare. However, not all projects were successful, contrary to received wisdom about the efficacy of NGO interventions. many failed to reach the very poorest, most were costly to implement, and few of the projects demostrated an ability to continue once external funding was withdrawn. These findingd provide string support for viewing NGOs as a mechanism for helping to reduce rural poverty, but also demonstrate that many of the interventions are isolated or one-off. The impact of NGOs could be heightened by increasing the size of the intervention, encouraging greater cooperation among NGOs, and by fostering closer cooperation with governments. This study will make an impact in the development community, and its conclusions will help shape NGO and poverty agendas in the coming years. The book will appeal to all those concerned with rural development, NGOs, and development programmes.

A review of the theoretical debates around aid, providing a valuable resource for practitioners and students. Foreign aid has always been a controversial subject. Roger Riddell provides a rigorous analysis of the criticisms which are made against aid from all parts of the political and ideological spectrum, and examines in depth the moraland theoretical questions that are raised in the debate.