Print Price: $24.50

Format:
Paperback
536 pp.
156 mm x 234 mm

ISBN-13:
9780199544462

Publication date:
September 2008

Imprint: OUP UK

Does Foreign Aid Really Work?

Roger C. Riddell

Foreign aid is now a $100bn business and is expanding more rapidly today than it has for a generation. But does it work? Indeed, is it needed at all?

Other attempts to answer these important questions have been dominated by a focus on the impact of official aid provided by governments. But today possibly as much as 30 percent of aid is provided by Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), and over 10 percent is provided as emergency assistance.

In this first-ever attempt to provide an overall assessment of aid, Roger Riddell presents a rigorous but highly readable account of aid, warts and all. Does Foreign Aid Really Work? sets out the evidence and exposes the instances where aid has failed and explains why. The book also examines the way that politics distorts aid, and disentangles the moral and ethical assumptions that lie behind the belief that aid does good. The book concludes by detailing the practical ways that aid needs to change if it is to be the effective force for good that its providers claim it is.

Readership : Officials working in aid agencies and NGOs; graduate students on development-related or international relations courses; and informed lay readers with an interest in development or current affairs.

Reviews

• `'...[an] excellent and significant book...'
  '
  Alex De Waal, Times Literary Supplement
• `'...essential reading for anyone interested in the subject of aid and wishing to be informed about the issues involved.'
  '
  Nigel Grimwade, Times Higher Education Supplement
• `'Riddell provides a compelling and thorough account of the intricacies of foreign aid. The strength of this book is that it establishes the positive attributes of aid without avoiding the need to critically assess its failures. Through a combination of personal experience, conceptual insight and empirical substance, Riddell demonstrates that investigating whether foreign aid works could ensure its future, rather than undermining it.''
  Sara E. Davis, International Affairs
• `'For anyone who wants to know more about development assistance, this is a 'must- read'. Roger Riddell provides us with a nuanced and honest outline of past and current aid-flows, their complexities, trends and possible impact. Does aid really work? His answer is a conditional, cautious - yes. And he presents some bold proposals to address some of the systemic weaknesses. It was strong international leadership that delivered the aid-reforms of the 90's. The question is whether the current leaders in development are ready for this debate?''
  Hilde Frafjord Johnson, former Minister of International Development of Norway
• `'This book is a heroic achievement. Not only has Roger Riddell mapped out with great clarity the arcane world of international aid, in a way that will help the practitioner as much as the general reader, he has also produced visionary and challenging recommendations for reform of the system.''
  Sir Michael Aaronson, former Director General of Save the Children UK
• `'In this impressive new study, Riddell has surpassed even his distinguished Foreign Aid Reconsidered. It includes a rare and much-needed analysis of emergency and voluntary assistance. Complete and authoritative, the book will have a long life as the definitive account of its important subject.''
  Professor Robert Cassen, London School of Economics