International development cooperation has evolved since the 1960s. The effectiveness of aid is still topical, but studies have not paid adequate attention to the relationship between sectoral aid, politics, institutions, and aid effectiveness in fragile states. Using data from 2002 to 2020, this...

The objective of this paper is to focus on fragility research findings and examine what works or does not work in development aid and development cooperation in fragile and conflictaffected contexts. We draw on our own research findings as well as country-level studies. We examine questions of...

The aid effectiveness principles have limits if the recipient is fragile. The problem of relevance exists if the recipient has an authoritarian or totalitarian regime. In situations of weak statehood and fragility, a large portion of aid would likely bypass the state because of high demand for...

The Yemen Social Fund for Development (SFD) was established in 1997 with the support of the international community, and in particular the World Bank, to combat national poverty and reinforce the limited existing social safety net. Since its inception, SFD has been widely viewed as successful in...

Dramatically increased international agricultural commodity prices from 2007 to mid-2008 brought food inflation and greater incidence of poverty and malnutrition to developing countries. Higher food prices in 2011 threaten to repeat that crisis. The international community responded strongly to...

This paper explores the current evidence underlying the debate on aid effectiveness, with a specific focus on the health sector. It summarizes the history of aid and outlines the methodological challenges encountered when assessing its effectiveness. The current evidence on 'what works' in the...

In accounting for the rather gloomy trend of the aid effectiveness literature over the last few years, one explanatory strand has been fiscal, suggesting in particular that aid flows in weak states have tended to erode the taxbase and the structure of institutions. We pursue this idea, tracing...

Most rich countries developed without aid, and this 'self-development' has some intrinsic advantages. In today's massively unequal world, however, such an approach would imply very low levels of human development for several generations for many poor countries. Aid can therefore usefully be...

This paper addresses the issue of the impact of aid supply on aid effectiveness. We proceed in two steps. First, we review research works that deal with the problem of governance in donor-recipient relationships and are susceptible of highlighting effects of aggregate aid availability. Second,...

This paper examines whether foreign aid, together with other economic, social and environmental factors, contributes to sustainable development. It starts with a theoretical model where sustainable development is modelled as a different kind of growth that protects the environment. Using factor...