This chapter will help readers to:
Revise and recap the range of arguments concerning the definition, measurement and effectiveness of aid from a range of perspectives
To make informed predictions with regard to what the aid sector might look like in the coming years
To understand three views on the future of aid – pessimistic, realistic and optimistic
To consider the possibility of aid beyond ODA
In this book we have examined aid and the ways it is defined and distributed, how this has changed over time and whether or not it has been seen as successful and effective. We started by suggesting that there is no agreement about how it is defined, how it is measured and whether it works or not. There exists a wide range of views on all of these matters, from a variety of perspectives. We are now able to reflect on these various debates and look forward and speculate about how aid might change in the future. We begin by recapping and extending the discussion concerning effectiveness and then move onto explore a number of future scenarios.
Debates about the effectiveness of aid covered a wide spectrum of views. There were those who generally felt that aid has the potential to bring about beneficial change to the lives of many millions of people by improving their access to resources and social services. It can help provide jobs, new goods and services, improved schooling and health services and better infrastructure. It can also assist developing country governments in augmenting what they provide to their citizens and improving the way they operate. Aid is also seen positively not just by governments and big international agencies, such as the World Bank, but it is also supported through donations by many people worldwide who see human suffering and feel they can help improve the well-being of distant others.
On the other hand, the critics of aid come from two main strands. On the political right are those who believe that aid does harm because it distorts economies and disrupts the incentives for poor people to work and determine their own life paths. Dependency, inefficiency, corruption and poor economic performance are the consequences of large amounts of aid given to governments. Conversely, on the political left, are those who argue that aid is little more than a tool of new imperialism, a mechanism for rich and powerful countries to exert their influence and control over struggling states and communities. They argue that aid misses its stated targets of helping the poor and instead serves the interests both of the donor side (both governments and big business) and the recipients (the elites and businesses tied to aid flows).
Our view in this book does recognise that aid can be poorly designed and distributed. It can indeed distort economies and be co-opted by elites and special interests. And it often fails to meet its objectives of poverty alleviation and economic development. However, we also recognise that there are many ways in which in its various forms aid can, and does, work well. Humanitarian assistance, albeit with examples of failure, has helped bring relief to many who have suffered from natural and human-induced disasters. To end such forms of aid would be to magnify the suffering of many. Over the coming generations, with the certainty of increased climate change-related natural disasters and conflicts over water and other resources, such aid may be even more desperately needed. We are likely to see public appeals and government responses for relief aid for many years to come. We have also seen that some other forms of aid can work very well. Often, small projects – with aid inputs that build on local communities’ needs, resources, knowledge and initiatives – can have a profoundly positive impact on the daily lives of people whether that be through ready access to potable water, the provision of a health clinic, a road or primary school, or training and support for a village-run microcredit scheme. However, we feel the greatest promise for positive aid outcomes rests in higher-order modalities and long-term commitments, particularly SWAps and GBS (see Chapter 4). These support state agencies to provide essential services to a wide population. It is these mechanisms, with substantial volumes of aid backed by trust in local agencies to plan, manage and allocate resources, that have the greatest potential to bring improvements on a large scale. This approach was endorsed strongly in the early 2000s, backed by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) (and later Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)) and agreements such as the Paris Declaration of 2005, and seemed to represent a consensus at the time as to what constituted effective aid. In short, we are of the view that aid can be an effective tool in channelling resources from wealthy economies to those who need support to tackle widespread poverty and inequality if effectively conceptualised, distributed, managed, and applied.
More broadly, we might also argue that the aid debates regarding the effectiveness or not of aid in promoting growth or alleviating poverty rather miss the point. Aid may appeal to the rhetoric of ‘development’ or ‘humanitarian relief’ or ‘poverty alleviation’, but it only survives because donors believe it is in their best interests to give aid. Aid is not a one-way transfer of resources but rather a means to secure political and economic position and strategic leverage for donors. It involves two-way exchanges, often transparent in terms of ODA flows from donors to recipients, but frequently opaque and varied in terms of reverse flows. So, in addressing the question of whether aid works or whether it is effective, perhaps we should just note that it must be – in meeting the broad objectives of donors that is – as long as they continue to fund it.
What is important though, aside from this rather cynical view, is that we continue to monitor aid negotiations, agreements and policies to help prevent abuses and the mistakes of the past. In addition, as students of aid and development, we should keep parties to account – to ensure that the putative objectives of aid they espouse (and justify it to their electorates) are kept in mind and that the best practices for achieving these goals are adopted.
Moreover, it is possible to suggest that there are ways aid can work effectively with regard to public rhetoric and support for it: those objectives based on social justice, human rights, democracy and eliminating poverty. Aid, we argue, can and should bring demonstrable gains for the poor in terms of survival, well-being, security, justice, sustainability and widened options for future livelihoods.
Looking to the future, and knowing something of where we have come from, it is possible to speculate about what aid practices might emerge in coming years. There are already some signposts for these that we can extrapolate forward. Three scenarios are suggested here: a pessimistic view that sees the demise of aid as a progressive force for tackling poverty; a realistic view that notes the rising overlap between conflict, military intervention and humanitarian and development assistance; and a more optimistic view that sees in the SDGs the basis for a new global aid project.
Firstly, in terms of the pessimistic view, some commentators (Mawdsley et al. 2014) have pointed to the possibility of a ‘post-aid world’ or argue that aid is becoming less relevant and we need to look ‘beyond aid’ (Janus et al. 2014). There are certainly some strong indications that we are heading in this direction. Firstly, the important example of China demonstrates that some countries (on both sides of the aid relationship) prefer to see relationships framed in terms of South–South co-operation rather than North–South aid. China has been very active in providing grants and loans to build infrastructure throughout the world. And it has been quite open about the fact that it sees this as a way of promoting its own interests in trade and in employing its own companies to construct the roads, buildings and telecommunications it funds. Two-way flows and expanding economic relationships are explicit goals of this approach. China has also resisted the efforts of the DAC and Western donors to ‘join the club’ and work as they do. The continued rise of the South–South co-operation model seems to not only challenge the old North–South framing of aid, it is perhaps influencing a move away from our very notions of ‘aid’ (Mawdsley 2019).
Western donors have changed their approach. The retroliberal era, as we describe and analyse it, has seen a move away from the neostructural approaches of poverty alleviation and high-level modalities to more overt self-interest on the part of donors, greater support for their own business interests (as seen in emerging public-private partnerships and new models of funding for development) and the adoption of the mantras of ‘shared prosperity’ and ‘sustainable economic growth’. Indeed, this represents a sort of convergence with Chinese practices and a divergence from the old models of aid based on supposed Western altruism and the grand narrative of poverty alleviation on a global scale (Mawdsley 2017; Overton and Murray 2018; Gulrajani and Faure 2019). These seem to be steering us increasingly towards a situation in which aid as we knew it is fading away, aid institutions and mission statements are being transformed and aid, if it survives, is seen as just another means for states to support market-led economic growth.
Furthermore, even this ‘post-aid’ scenario seems to be open to further change and retreat. With the election of more inward-looking, conservative populist and overtly nationalist governments in the USA and UK, together with knock-on effects across the world there is an emerging autarkic nationalism. UK and USA are two of the largest donors and this is likely to have an influence in real financial flows as well as policy direction. Conservative critics of aid may well be more in the political ascendancy and further reductions and restructuring of aid programmes are likely. Aid in this scenario is currently under threat.
A second scenario, referred to here as the realistic view involves the continuing involvement of aid agencies and the increasing allocation of aid funds to conflict situations. Military interventions and conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and other theatres has, as we saw in Chapter 3, brought large amounts of aid in their wake. Often in the past, conflicts zones and sites of violence were places where all but the hardiest and most specialist of aid agencies (such as the Red Cross and UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees)) would go. Military force was used to secure peace and then aid agencies would move in to tackle development issues, build prosperity and, hopefully, help prevent future conflict. In the past two decades, however, not only have there been signs of more assertive intervention by the UN and other forces, aid agencies have been part of continuing efforts to bring about change in regions of conflict. Military solutions alone have not been effective in bringing about peace where conflict is deep-seated and complex. Violence continues to occur, historical tensions bubble away and there is no clear break between conflict and peace. Aid work then is pulled into these situations, sometimes working uncomfortably alongside military forces (with whom they are seen to be associated and from whom they receive protection and logistical support). Military institutions themselves have learned that they too need to be involved in development work, working with communities, helping to provide needed facilities and building stable institutions. As we saw in Chapter 2, Official Development Assistance (ODA) has been quietly redefined to now include some forms of military expenditure. This scenario provides some difficult challenges for aid agencies. It takes them into situations where violence and security are critical daily considerations, it takes away their preferred status as politically neutral agents when they appear alongside military forces, and redefines their work so that development for peacebuilding is seen as a key objective rather than, say, development for poverty alleviation.
A related aspect to this second scenario is the increasing involvement of aid in refugee work. Aid has always had this connection and many agencies have worked with both international refugees and internally displaced persons in many different countries. Yet these refugee crises were usually regarded as distant and to be dealt with far beyond the borders of donor countries. In recent years, however, the rise of flows of political and economic refugees from Syria and North Africa into Europe, from South and Central America towards other wealthier countries in the region, such as Chile and Argentina, or various people trying to land by boat in Australia, for example, has led to a rethink (and redefinition) of the relationship between aid and refugees. Refugee crises now occur within or on the borders of donor states, especially in Europe, and the costs of protecting and accommodating these flows has also become incorporated into aid definitions and ODA accounting. We are seeing more ODA being spent within many donor countries as a result. As with conflict situations and work within military-led missions, this has implications for how we see and practice international development assistance. Interestingly, it brings aid into the very countries where aid budgets are generated.
Our third scenario is a rather more optimistic view and sees a future for renewed and revitalised aid efforts directed to and meeting the real needs of the poor and marginalised. The replacement of the MDGs with the SDGs after 2015 seemed to signal a continuation of the global agreement to address issues of poverty, yet there were some important changes that came with the SDGs. Firstly, the goals were developed after a much deeper and longer process of consultation and discussion and, more than the MDGs, they had broad support with civil society and countries of the Global South much more involved in their formulation. The goals were larger in number (17 not 8) and complexity and moved beyond just poverty-focused objectives (income poverty, literacy, maternal health, gender equity etc.) to include a wide range of environmental and social justice issues, such as climate change, the health of oceans and peace and justice. And they appeared to be more ambitious: ‘poverty alleviation’ became ‘poverty elimination’ and ‘inequality’ appeared as a separate goal. Finally, the goals were designed to apply to all countries – gone was the old MDG model of the North–South divide where the goals were to be pursued in the South, funded to a large degree by the North. So the SDGs are ambitious, wide ranging and universal.
The SDGs are having and will continue to have significant implications for aid. Firstly, by being larger in number and more wide-ranging they may involve a more jigsaw-like approach to aid strategies. Countries will need to assess which goals are most appropriate for them and design development strategies accordingly. The old template approach of PRSPs to poverty alleviation, for example, may need to be replaced by more tailored national plans applied to a diversity of situations. Secondly, the applicability of the SDGs to all countries may further weaken the North–South imaginary that characterised the aid world of the past. Poverty and high inequality exist within wealthy countries, the majority of the world’s poor now live in middle-income countries not just the poorest, and the threats to sustainable development have to be seen as existing within the Global North (through the production of greenhouse gases or unsustainable use of non-renewable resources) as well as the Global South. Future aid may well involve more inward-looking action and (for donors) uncomfortable self-examination. Thus, the SDGs could well revive the global commitment for action and the allocation of significant resources towards improving the secure and sustainable lives and livelihoods of the world’s population. However, given the fading of the North–South divide this may not involve a significant re-allocation of resources to the Global South. Change under this scenario will not simply be a re-creation of the neostructural era’s poverty project. Rather it will be an explicitly global project aimed at ending poverty. It will need imagination, critical self-reflection and a substantial and sustained commitment of resources targeted in much more intricate and, hopefully, effective ways applied appropriately at various scales.
Much of this book has focused on the type of aid most used and best understood on the global stage: ODA. This form of aid has been tightly defined, measured, monitored and analysed over the years. We have a fairly good picture of global ODA and it continues to dominate by far the flows from donors to recipients in the name of development assistance. Yet we also noted that it has itself been under review; its parameters and definitions have changed and the concept of ODA does not include many forms of assistance, quantitative and qualitative, that exist and have existed as part of the web of aid relationships. If, as above, we speculate that aid (and ODA in particular) is likely to change a great deal in the future, what can we say about forms of aid outside the ODA framework as well as how this might alter aid relationships and networks overall?
For a start, it is important to recognise that many people’s understanding of, and involvement in, aid is not part of the ODA framework in the first place. When disasters strike, non-government organisations (NGOs) move into action, raise public funds and provide relief and assistance. Many development NGOs in Western countries exist explicitly in order to raise funds and distribute these overseas. They continue to spread awareness of issues of poverty and hunger and many are able to survive without government support. Importantly too, much ‘disaster relief’ comes through familial and informal networks so that diasporic populations will raise money to send to families in need. These remittance flows, in cash and kind, may well be small by global ODA standards but they are significant for those involved and they continue to operate, and will operate in future, largely separate from government-led efforts. A ‘post-ODA world’ might emerge as governments retreat from established aid activities but people’s everyday understandings and involvement in assistance for ‘others in need’ continues, and in some cases grows to replace more formal networks. A ‘post-ODA’ world is different to a ‘post-aid’ world.
A critical form of assistance – labour migration – is also likely to continue and may even expand. We noted that migration and subsequent savings and remittances often brings substantial benefits to migrant-sending countries (despite some reservations and potential costs). Many developing country leaders are pressing wealthy countries to open their borders more to allow more labour migration to occur. At the time of writing, this has become a highly charged political point in a number of territories and is leading to considerable political shifts, especially to the right in the USA and Europe. This is not a form of ODA of course, but more liberal migration regulations can be considered a form of development assistance and migration schemes are frequently cast in development assistance terms. A receiving country’s migration policies are set by an assessment of its own labour needs, social policies and political climate, not by the development benefits it brings to sending countries and communities. Thus, migration as a form of development assistance will continue and may even become relatively more important but it will be determined by the vagaries of both the global economy, affecting labour demand and supply, and internal domestic politics. On the other hand, resistance to immigration is also affecting aid policies in that ODA is being used more explicitly in attempts to shore up the economic and security contexts of migrant-sending regions. We argue that migration, and its relationship to development, needs to become a much more prominent element in thinking about aid.
Aid – and ODA in particular – stresses material things, whether financial resources, equipment, consultants as advisors, construction and so on. But, as we have recognised, the motivations for aid are often associated with more abstract matters, tacit understandings, reciprocity, and relationships. And aid also has symbolic value in terms of the act of giving and receiving between the parties involved (Mawdsley 2012c). We are of the view that these ‘relationship values’ within aid exchanges are often understated and undervalued. Operating at different levels, they will continue to be important well into the future. For example, some aid agencies specialise in the sending of volunteers to work in developing countries. The volunteers get paid little and their costs may be very small compared to a private consultant sent to give ‘expert’ advice to recipients. The volunteers hopefully are of some use to their hosts, often bringing professional experience or technical skills when they work alongside counterparts within local organisations and communities. However, the essence of effective volunteer work is the relationships that are developed: volunteers on longer placements (of, say, two years) frequently develop friendships, trust, knowledge of the local environment and empathy. As a result, their work is more effective and they also gain from the placement in terms of personal satisfaction, life experiences and personal relationships. The personal also flows through to the institutional so that when volunteers from one agency continue to come to a host, long-term goodwill and understanding are built and mutual learning takes place.
At a larger level, person-to-person relationships are also crucial within and alongside aid. We have seen how aid is used to restructure recipient institutions so they align with donor systems and each can understand the other better; scholarships are also used to build relationships between members of future elite groups and the donor/host country; and aid helps cement diplomatic ties and relationships between government officials and community leaders. In this sense, there are strong reasons for maintaining aid as an important diplomatic tool. These reasons may also extend in interesting ways too. In August 2017, Hurricane Harvey hit Texas and caused large-scale floods with much damage and some loss of life. USA at that time was not on good terms with Venezuela with President Trump criticising President Maduro and even threatening military action. Venezuela, however, and as it had done in 2005 in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, offered an aid package to America of $US5 million (Erickson 2017). This may be regarded as a political stunt by some, but it is an important symbol that aid can run two ways, breaking down existing conceptions of wealth and power. In this regard it should be seen as a means to build positive relationships.
Given these considerations regarding the importance of relationships in aid, and in looking back to our analyses of whether and how aid works (Chapter 6), it is possible to suggest some lessons we may have learned with regard to the way aid might be used to achieve more effective and positive development outcomes. These lessons are directed towards aid practices which prioritise the objective of improving security, well-being, justice and sustainability for the poor (Box 7.1).
Aid has been part of the development landscape for the past 70 years and has involved billions of dollars flowing from donors to recipients and unquantifiable flows – both financial and political – in return. Ever since the Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of post-war Europe set the initial blueprint for aid in the late 1940s, aid has been used to accelerate development processes whilst also fulfilling the strategic and political goals of donors. Aid has always invoked a rationale based on ‘development’, albeit in many different forms and with various means, but it has also always been contingent on donors perceiving that it returned some benefits for them, whether in terms of economic or political gains, international standing and prestige, or satisfaction of domestic political demands.
Undoubtedly over the past 70 years much aid has been misguided, misdirected, stolen, lost or been harmful. We can agree that the allocation of aid has often not fulfilled its promises nor met its objectives. Despite the generations of aid and the massive volumes of financial disbursements, absolute poverty persists after all and fundamental global inequalities in wealth remain. We agree too that some forms of aid may well have exacerbated these levels of poverty and perpetuated social and economic inequalities. Aid has also been used, sometimes quite blatantly, as another way of imposing the will of rich and powerful on the countries and communities of the Global South. Critics, on the political left and right, are correct to keep scrutinising aid in terms of the motives of donors and recipients, and the impacts that aid has on all parties involved, whether open or covert. Aid – bad aid – can constrain, distort or limit the opportunities of individuals, groups and countries to improve their well-being.
However, many forms of aid do work. Aid can bring relief from disasters and hardship. Aid can provide needed resources and ideas. And, at its best, aid can help build the assets and capabilities of people and their governments so that they can pursue the development objectives and strategies that they define, manage and own. Whilst we might feel that aid is therefore justified because of this proven potential and has an underlying ethic of social justice and human concern, the reality of aid is that it can only be sustained at high levels (beyond the philanthropical support of millions of private individuals) if it has the backing of donor governments who can raise substantial and regular budgets to support major aid-funded development efforts. Aid therefore is predicated on an often-uncomfortable foundation of altruist narratives to ‘sell’ the idea and public motivation for aid alongside more opaque considerations of donor self-interest. Even though we may stress the value of the former in terms of a progressive transformation of the global economy, we have to accept that the latter will always need to be recognised and interrogated if aid is to continue.
Aid has also changed greatly over the past seven decades. We might like to suggest that it has become successively more effective over time as lessons are learned and good practices shared. However, sadly, what we have seen instead is evocative of a pendulum, where aid policies of donors have swung back and forth, sometimes stressing poverty alleviation, social justice and altruism, and at others highlighting economic growth and donor self-interest. Practices have also moved to and fro, so that what we see today are some elements of aid that have retrogressed to assumptions and modes that were in vogue 50 or 60 years ago.
It might be the case that aid, as we understand it today, may fade away and evolve into a quite different form of self-interested foreign and economic policy, not even carrying the epithet ‘aid’. We certainly see the seeds of this in the evolving retroliberal restructuring of aid, cuts in aid budgets, the discourse of ‘shared prosperity’ and mechanisms such as Viability Gap Funding. Yet we retain a degree of optimism. Because aid has been such an important part of foreign policy for so long, it is unlikely that donors will dispose of it completely. It does build diplomatic and personal relationships, it does bring a return to donors and it does satisfy important public demands to address issues of global poverty, inequality and environmental degradation. We believe aid will exist for many years to come, but it is likely to continue to evolve, regress, reinvent itself, expand and contract, shift geographies and experiment with new and old methods. Despite these inevitable fluctuations and contested debates, aid will remain, as it has always been, a potentially critical force for good within the goal of reducing global poverty and inequality.
There is a wide range of opinions concerning the definition, rationale, measurement and impact of aid.
In terms of the impacts there are critics from both the political left and right. Broadly speaking, the left sees aid as a tool of imperialism which creates dependency and exacerbates the North–South divide and the right sees aid as something which distorts free-markets, undermines self-responsibility and leads to corruption.
The rhetorical arguments of the right and left are seldom based on empirical studies. The evidence suggests that some aid has failed and some has succeeded.
The aid landscape is shifting and currently there is a clear move towards retroliberal, private sector-based models that place donor self-interest much more firmly in the centre.
It would be naïve to suggest that self-interest should not determine aid policy, for it always has. A sustainable future for aid requires that there be benefits for donors and recipients.
It is possible to envisage three broad futures for aid – pessimistic, realistic and optimistic. We tend towards the optimistic and see the SDGs as a framework for the projection of a positive model of aid that will bring more costs than benefits.
ODA is shifting in its nature and the range of aid types that exist is broadening. We feel we are moving into a ‘post-ODA’ world.
We suggest six lessons for effective aid. If thoughtfully conceptualised, designed, applied, measured and evaluated aid remains a progressive force for global prosperity, sustainability, and justice.
Summarise the viewpoint from the left and the right of politics with respect to the impacts of aid on recipient and donor countries.
What are the three views on the future of aid? Outline the global conditions that have given rise to each scenario and say which you think best predicts the future.
What is meant by the relationship value of aid?
Outline the six lessons for effective aid. How can these be criticised?
Discuss the difference between a ‘post-aid’ and a ‘post-ODA’ world. Which is most useful in terms of achieving development progress in your opinion?
Oxfam: 21st Century Aid, https://www.oxfam.org/en/research/21st-century-aid
Easterly, W. (ed.) (2008) Reinventing Foreign Aid. MIT Press, London and Cambridge, MA.
Janus, H., Klingebiel, S. and Paulo, S. (2015) ‘Beyond aid: A conceptual perspective of the transformation of development cooperation’, Journal of International Development 27(2), 155–169.
Mawdsley, E., Savage, L. and Kim, S.M. (2014) ‘A “post‐aid world”? Paradigm shift in foreign aid and development cooperation at the 2011 Busan High Level Forum’, The Geographical Journal 180(1), 27–38.
Mawdsley, E. (2019) ‘South–South Cooperation 3.0? Managing the consequences of success in the decade ahead’, Oxford Development Studies 47(3), 259–274.
Oxfam (2010) 21st Century Aid: Recognising Success and Tackling Failure. Oxfam Briefing Paper 137.