Assessing Aid

Aid and Reform in Africa

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Assessing Aid—What Works, What Doesn't, and Why summarizes the findings of a multi-year research program on aid effectiveness. Official Development Assistance has declined by one-third in real terms in the 1990s. There are a number of reasons for this, but one factor has been a sense that aid does not work very well. Assessing Aid aims to understand when aid works and when it does not, so that the lessons can be used to make aid more effective. A key theme of the report is that aid is a combination of money and ideas. Money has a big impact, but only if countries have good economic institutions and policies. The ideas -- or knowledge creation -- side of aid is critical for helping countries reform and for helping communities effectively provide public services: education, health, water supply, and others.

Assessing Aid is the seventh in a series of Policy Research Reports that bring to a broad audience the results of World Bank research on development policy. The reports are designed to contribute to the debate on appropriate public policies for developing economies.

"The best and most comprehensive book on the effect of foreign aid. Everybody interested in the relationship between rich and poor countries (and who isn't?) should read this book. I hope any agency in charge of disbursing foreign aid will make this book compulsory reading for its managers."

"If donors are serious about using development aid to help people grow out of poverty they should read this book before doing anything else. The evidence presented by the authors shows that aid effectiveness can be vastly improved through simple, but radical, changes in aid policies."

"Assessing Aid is a further stage in the evolution of the World Bank's thinking about development strategy and development assistance. It takes another step away from a narrow, neoclassical world of perfect markets."

"Assessing Aid makes a compelling case that development assistance can and has worked—when it supports the reforms in policies and governance that are the key to rapid growth and poverty reduction. What a tragedy, then, that much aid continues to be wasted. This refreshingly frank assessment of the World Bank and the larger aid business is essential reading for the policy community dealing with the reform of aid and international institutions."

"A refreshing new analysis of an important topic, written with sophistication, forthrightness, and courage."