The Paris Declaration defined five components of aid effectiveness: ownership, alignment, harmonisation, managing for results and mutual accountability. Afghanistan, which has received a high level of donor aid for health since 2002, has seen significant improvements in health indicators, expanded access to health services and an increased range of services. Do the impressive health outcomes in...

OBJECTIVE To determine the cost-effectiveness of hearing-aid fitting. DESIGN Cost-effectiveness analysis using a Markov model based on aggregate data and results from a prospective intervention study. SETTING The cost-effectiveness study was based in the general community. The prospective study was hospital based, as 85% of the first-time hearing-aid users attend a hospital in the process o...

We test how donors respond to new information about a charity’s effectiveness. Freedom from Hunger implemented a test of its direct marketing solicitations, varying letters by whether they include a discussion of their program’s impact as measured by scientific research. The base script, used for both treatment and control, included a standard qualitative story about an individual beneficiary. ...

In response to corruption and inefficient state institutions in recipient countries some foreign aid donors decrease bilateral government-to-government aid flows and increase the share of bilateral aid by outsourcing delivery to non-state development actors. Other donor governments continue to support state management of aid despite corruption and inefficiency, seeking to strengthen recipient s...

BACKGROUND Progress toward meeting Millennium Development Goal 5, which aims to improve maternal and reproductive health outcomes, is behind schedule. This is despite ever increasing volumes of official development aid targeting the goal, calling into question the distribution and efficacy of aid. The 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness represented a global commitment to reform aid prac...

In this Perspective, Eran Bendavid discusses the broader political and health consequences of US foreign aid in light of the study by Aleksandra Jakubowski and colleagues of the President's Malaria Initiative in sub-Saharan Africa.