Building Public Support for Development Cooperation

The current development agenda envisages a substantial increase in volumes of development assistance along with changes in other policies which affect developing countries, including trade, debt and migration. Successful and sustainable international development cooperation policies and expenditures are believed to require a constituency for aid in donor countries. The paper explores the question of how public support for international development cooperation in donor countries can be built and nurtured. It attempts to identify factors which determine public attitudes towards development assistance and measures that can be undertaken by state authorities to exploit these factors to the advantage of a greater support for development cooperation. It reviews rationales and arguments which can be used to explain to the publics of donor countries the need of transferring a part of their national income to developing countries. It also presents approaches which have been developed by donors in order to enhance public understanding of the need for development cooperation and to strengthen support for development assistance.