Terry Gibson combines large-scale industry analysis with attention to the lives and worlds of the people the aid industry aims to serve, and he demonstrates how to overcome barriers between the two worlds and free flows of learning, resources, and even political influences that might lead to better outcomes.

An encouraging account of the potential of foreign aid to reduce poverty and a challenge to all aid organizations to think harder about how they spend their money. With more than a billion people now living on less than a dollar a day, and with eight million dying each year because they are simply too poor to live, most would agree that the problem of global poverty is our greatest moral challenge. The large and pressing practical question is how best to address that challenge. Although millions of dollars flow to poor countries, the results are often disappointing. In Making Aid Work, Abhijit Banerjee—an "aid optimist"—argues that aid has much to contribute, but the lack of analysis about which programs really work causes considerable waste and inefficiency, which in turn fuels unwarranted pessimism about the role of aid in fostering economic development. Banerjee challenges aid donors to do better. Building on the model used to evaluate new drugs before they come on the market, he argues that donors should assess programs with field experiments using randomized trials. In fact, he writes, given the number of such experiments already undertaken, current levels of development assistance could focus entirely on programs with proven records of success in experimental conditions. Responding to his challenge, leaders in the field—including Nicholas Stern, Raymond Offenheiser, Alice Amsden, Ruth Levine, Angus Deaton, and others—question whether randomized trials are the most appropriate way to evaluate success for all programs. They raise broader questions as well, about the importance of aid for economic development and about the kinds of interventions (micro or macro, political or economic) that will lead to real improvements in the lives of poor people around the world. With one in every six people now living in extreme poverty, getting it right is crucial.

Debunking the current model of international aid promoted by both Hollywood celebrities and policy makers, Moyo offers a bold new road map for financing development of the world's poorest countries.

“What motivates any of us to do the work we do? And more importantly does that work make a difference?” This is the question film producer and founder of filmaid.org, Caroline Baron, reflects on when she calls Chasing Misery an “unblinking” account of what it's like to be a woman on the front lines of global humanitarian responses. Twenty-one first person essays and 23 stunning photographs give readers a glimpse into the lives of real women who respond to emergencies—their hopes, fears, questions, challenges, frustrations as well as glimpses of the humour, beauty, and hope they find in the midst of misery.

Working together to make aid more Effective : Ninth report of session 2007-08, Vol. 2: Oral and written Evidence

Since the Colombo Plan in the early 1950s, food aid has been an important and highly visible component of the Canadian development assistance program. Until the early 1970s, however, the Canadian food aid program was little more than a loosely connected collection of disparate programs designed to meet a host of sometimes conflicting objectives. In the wake of the world food crisis of 1972-75, a growing number of groups began to question the developmental effectiveness of food aid. In response, the Canadian government undertook an extensive review and assessment of its food aid program, which resulted in a series of new policy initiatives designed to change both the substance of food aid programs and the manner in which they were administered. These changes marked a watershed in the history of the Canadian food aid program, setting out the fundamental policy themes that have been consolidated and refined in the 1980s and early 1990s. Mark Charlton examines the evolution of the Canadian food aid program during this critical period of policy reform. Focusing on the rationale of the food aid program, the nature of the planning and programming process, the selection of delivery channels, the make-up of the food aid commodity basket, and the nature of donor-recipient relations, Charlton provides useful insights into the overall objectives and priorities of Canadian foreign policy in the developing world. He also reveals the impact of domestic economic interests, Canadian political culture, bureaucratic politics, and the global food aid regime on the evolution of Canadian aid policies.

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.

This book is about the institutions, incentives and constraints that guide the behaviour of people and organizations involved in the implementation of foreign aid programmes. While traditional performance studies tend to focus almost exclusively on the policies and institutions in recipient countries, this book looks at incentives in the entire chain of organizations involved in the delivery of foreign aid, from donor governments and agencies to consultants, experts and other intermediaries. Four aspects of foreign aid delivery are examined in detail: incentives inside donor agencies, the interaction of subcontractors with recipient organizations, incentives inside recipient country institutions, and biases in aid performance monitoring systems.

Provided for over 60 years, and expanding more rapidly today than it has for a generation, foreign aid is now a $100bn business. But does it work? Indeed, is it needed at all? In this first-ever, overall assessment of aid, Roger Riddell provides a rigorous but highly readable account of aid, warts and all.

This book explains why some international institutions succeed and others fail - and what we can do to improve them.