6. German Aid Policy

The internal destabilization of many poor countries that accompanied the end of the Cold War and the general failure of structural adjustment programs have changed the nature and allotment of foreign aid around the world. Major donors of foreign aid such as the United States, Japan, and the European Union have been shifting their geographical priorities in allocating aid, as well as their project emphasis, since the end of the Cold War. In addition, multilateral aid agencies—the World Bank, the United Nations, and the Interna­tional Monetary Fund—are attempting to redress past failures of aid and revamp policies and priorities. Moreover, aid recipients in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Eastern Europe, the former Soviet republics, and Central America are establishing priorities of their own and evaluating the success and failure of past aid programs. This volume stands out in the literature on foreign aid because it includes contributions from eight policy representatives from a range of important donor and recipient countries—the United States, Japan, the Netherlands, Bolivia, Egypt, Bangladesh, El Salvador, and Poland. Timely in its assessment of the crisis and the transition in the foreign aid regime, the book pro­vides a view from inside the policy process and im­parts a researcher's perspective on the changing pri­orities for donors and recipients. The wide-ranging essay—most previously unpublished—aim to shed light on the changing political, economic, and regional geographies of aid at the end of the twentieth century.

This book investigates the geopoliticisation of foreign aid in recent years, against a background of global overarching crises such as climate change, conflict, Covid-19, economic crisis, energy shortages and migration. Foreign aid has historically been understood as assisting both with the development objectives of the recipients and with the trade and geopolitical interests of the donors. In the first decades of the 21st century, however, this balance has been shifted by a series of complex global challenges. This book argues that donors have now moved towards framing aid as a geopolitical instrument, wherein aid can be given or withheld based on power or political intent, thus imposing the donor’s specific values and norms. This book provides an in-depth analysis of this weaponisation of foreign aid within a framework of global disruption and ultimately concludes that the world is at a tipping point towards a new socio-political world order. Asking important questions about the power dynamics at play within the aid sector, this book will be an important read for researchers across development studies, political science, international relations and global affairs.

Assessing Aid determines that the effectiveness of aid is not decided by the amount received but rather the institutional and policy environment into which it is accepted. It examines how development assistance can be more effective at reducing global poverty and gives five mainrecommendations for making aid more effective: targeting financial aid to poor countries with good policies and strong economic management; providing policy-based aid to demonstrated reformers; using simpler instruments to transfer resources to countries with sound management; focusing projects oncreating and transmitting knowledge and capacity; and rethinking the internal incentives of aid agencies.

* A lucid primer on the complex topic of foreign aid written for a wide readership including introductory level students* Spells out the players in development assistance: the IMF, World Bank, United Nations, governments and NGOs* Differing perspectives on the timeless "aid debate" offer clarification on the subject of international aidIn a political climate where international assistance is under attack, it has never been more important that the general public understand the debate. "Players and Issues in International Aid" is a one-stop source of vital information on the politics, players, and issues surrounding international development assistance.

A Brookings Institution Press and the National Academy of Public Administration publication Even after years of receiving considerable foreign aid, Haiti remains an impoverished, tremendously fragile state. Over a span of ten years, the United States spent over $4 billion in aid to Haiti, yet the average Haitian still has to survive on one dollar a day. Why has assistance been so ineffectual, and what can we learn from Haiti's plight about foreign aid in general? Haiti in the Balance tackles those questions by analyzing nearly twenty years of Haitian history, politics, and foreign relations. Terry Buss and his colleagues at the National Academy on Public Administration found a general failure to reinforce the capacity of institutions at all levels of Haitian government. Building up that system of institutions appears to be a necessary precursor to a nation using foreign aid in the most effective manner. Such an effort demands improved security, a more professional (and less corrupt) bureaucracy, and eventually decentralization and perhaps even some privatization. Different levels of government must be willing to learn how best to work with one another: according to Buss, "Haitian governments seemed consumed by politics, rather than good governance." People still matter, and so does administration. Until we learn that lesson, even the most generous foreign aid will not fulfill its intent.