Poverty alleviation and poverty of aid

In: Routledge studies in development and society

Abstract

Aid effectiveness has emerged as an intensely debated issue amongst policy makers, donors, development practitioners, civil society and academics during the past decade. This debate revolves around one important question: does official development assistance complement, duplicate or disregard the local resource endowment in offering support to recipient economies? This book draws on Pakistan's experience in responding to this question with a diverse range of examples. It focuses on a central idea: no aid effectiveness without an effective receiving mechanism. Pakistan is among the top aid recipient countries in the developing economies. It was a shining model in the sixties and has descended to highly underperforming countries after the new millennium. This book as an attempt to understand the dynamics of success and failure of Pakistan in availing foreign financial and technical assistance for human development and poverty alleviation. This book draws on the field experiences to present case studies on water, shelter, health, education and health and safety at work to identify the causes and consequences of aid in relation to social reality. Findings relate to developing economies and would be of interest to a wide range of individuals within the development sector