Today international development policy is converging around ideas of neoliberal reform, democratisation and poverty reduction. What does this mean for the local and international dimensions of aid relationships?The Aid Effect demonstrates the fruitfulness of an ethnographic approach to aid, policy reform and global governance. The contributors provide powerful commentary on hidden processes, multiple perspectives or regional interests behind official aid policy discourses. The book raises important questions concerning the systematic social effects of aid relationships, the nature of sovereignty and the state, and the working of power inequalities built through the standardisations of a neoliberal framework. The contributors take on new challenges to anthropology presented by a ‘global aid architecture’ which no longer operates through discrete projects but has moved on to sector wide approaches, budgetary support and other macro-level instruments of development; but they remain faithful to the fieldwork methodology that is anthropology’s strength and the source of rare insight.

Anthropological interest in new subjects of research and contemporary knowledge practices has turned ethnographic attention to a wide ranging variety of professional fields. Among these the encounter with international development has perhaps been longer and more intimate than any of the others. Anthropologists have drawn critical attention to the interfaces and social effects of development’s discursive regimes but, oddly enough, have paid scant attention to knowledge producers themselves, despite anthropologists being among them. This is the focus of this volume. It concerns the construction and transmission of knowledge about global poverty and its reduction but is equally interested in the social life of development professionals, in the capacity of ideas to mediate relationships, in networks of experts and communities of aid workers, and in the dilemmas of maintaining professional identities. Going well beyond obsolete debates about ‘pure’ and ‘applied’ anthropology, the book examines the transformations that occur as social scientific concepts and practices cross and re-cross the boundary between anthropological and policy making knowledge.

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.

Aid has become a tangle of donors and recipients, so unwieldy that it is in danger of collapse. This ground-breaking book presents fresh thinking that transcends the 'more' verses 'less' arguments. Drawing on complexity theory it shows how aid could be transformed into a truly dynamic form of global cooperation fit for the twenty-first century.

One of the key principles for effective aid programmes is that recipient agencies exert high degrees of ownership over the agendas, resources, systems and outcomes of aid activities. Sovereign recipient states should lead the process of development. Yet despite this well-recognised principle, the realities of aid delivery mean that ownership is often compromised in practice. Aid, Ownership and Development examines this ‘inverse sovereignty’ hypothesis with regard to the states and territories of the Pacific Island region. It provides an initial overview of different aid ‘regimes’ over time, maps aid flows in the region, and analyses the concept of sovereignty. Drawing on a rich range of primary research by the authors and contributors, it focuses on the agencies and individuals within the Pacific Islands who administer and apply aid projects and programmes. There is indeed evidence for the inverse sovereignty effect; particularly when island states and their small and stretched bureaucracies have to deal with complex and burdensome donor reporting requirements, management systems, consultative meetings and differing strategic priorities. This book outlines important ways in which Pacific agencies have proved adept not only at meeting these requirements, but also asserting their own priorities and ways of operating. It concludes that global agreements, such as the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness in 2005 and the recently launched Sustainable Development Goals, can be effective means for Pacific agencies to both hold donors to account and also to recognise and exercise their own sovereignty.

Based on a detailed account of an actual development project, this book addresses an important question: Is development practice actually driven by policy? Development agencies and researchers are preoccupied with policy; with exerting influence over policy; linking research to policy, and with implementing policy around the world. In this book, David Mosse argues that rather than being driven by policy, development practice is actually shaped by the exigencies of organisations and the need to maintain relationships. At the same time, however, development actors work hard at maintaining the fiction of representing authorised policy in their actions. This book (which can be characterised as being a social investigation) asks pertinent questions about international aid, in particular of British aid for rural development. It does so by examining in depth the experience of a development project in western India over a period of more than ten years and as it falls under different policy regimes. Mosse analyses development processes in the light of the broad experience of the project workers (which included himself), even if it means destabilising policy representations. The book is a compelling re-examination of the politics and ethics of engaging with development and a rare self-critical reflection practice.

How US foreign policy affects state repression

Europe's "Black Death" contributed to the rise of nation states, mercantile economies, and even the Reformation. Will the AIDS epidemic have similar dramatic effects on the social and political landscape of the twenty-first century? This readable volume looks at the impact of AIDS since its emergence and suggests its effects in the next decade, when a million or more Americans will likely die of the disease. The Social Impact of AIDS in the United States addresses some of the most sensitive and controversial issues in the public debate over AIDS. This landmark book explores how AIDS has affected fundamental policies and practices in our major institutions, examining: How America's major religious organizations have dealt with sometimes conflicting values: the imperative of care for the sick versus traditional views of homosexuality and drug use. Hotly debated public health measures, such as HIV antibody testing and screening, tracing of sexual contacts, and quarantine. The potential risk of HIV infection to and from health care workers. How AIDS activists have brought about major change in the way new drugs are brought to the marketplace. The impact of AIDS on community-based organizations, from volunteers caring for individuals to the highly political ACT-UP organization. Coping with HIV infection in prisons. Two case studies shed light on HIV and the family relationship. One reports on some efforts to gain legal recognition for nonmarital relationships, and the other examines foster care programs for newborns with the HIV virus. A case study of New York City details how selected institutions interact to give what may be a picture of AIDS in the future. This clear and comprehensive presentation will be of interest to anyone concerned about AIDS and its impact on the country: health professionals, sociologists, psychologists, advocates for at-risk populations, and interested individuals.

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.

Foreign aid is about charity. International development is about technical fixes. At least that is what we, as donor publics, are constantly told. The result is a highly dysfunctional aid system which mistakes short-term results for long-term transformation and gets attacked across the political spectrum, with the right claiming we spend too much, and the left that we don't spend enough. The reality, as Yanguas argues in this highly provocative book, is that aid isn't – or at least shouldn't be – about levels of spending, nor interventions shackled to vague notions of ‘accountability’ and ‘ownership’. Instead, a different approach is possible, one that acknowledges aid as being about struggle, about taking sides, about politics. It is an approach that has been quietly applied by innovative development practitioners around the world, providing political coverage for local reformers to open up spaces for change. Drawing on a variety of convention-defying stories from a variety of countries – from Britain to the US, Sierra Leone to Honduras – Yanguas provides an eye-opening account of what we really mean when we talk about aid.