Columbia International Affairs Online: Policy Briefs

CIAO DATE: 02/2012

What aid should and shouldn't do in order to support private sector development

Lindsay Whitfield

December 2011

Danish Institute for International Studies

Abstract

If foreign aid is to have a greater impact on reducing poverty in poor countries in a sustainable manner, then it needs to focus more on economic cooperation and changing productive structures, and to move away from a focus on social sectors and subsidizing the consumption of poor people.