L EVELS of aid have begun to recover and seem likely to continue to increase following a protracted decline in the 1990s. yet both donors and recipient countries generally agree that aid is still underperforming in terms of development effectiveness. It has become clear that what matters in reaching development goals is not just the amount of aid but also the quality of that aid. Decades of dev...

International development cooperation has evolved since the 1960s. The effectiveness of aid is still topical, but studies have not paid adequate attention to relationship between sectoral aid, politics, institutions, and in fragile states. Using data from 2002 2020, this paper examines effects education health on outcomes It uses Arellano-Bover/Blundell-Bond system generalized method moments es...

This study draws on a rigorous systematic review—to our knowledge the first in this area—to take stock of literature aid and democracy. It asks: Does aid—especially democracy aid—have positive impact democracy? How? What factors most influence its impact? In so doing, it considers studies that explicitly focus ‘democracy aid’ as an aggregate category, subcomponents (e.g. to elections), ‘develop...

The ultimate measure of aid effectiveness is how aid affects the lives of poor people in developing countries. The huge literature on aid’s macroeconomic impact has remarkably little to say on this topic, and less still in terms of practical advice to government officials and aid administrators on how to improve development effectiveness. But there is an expanding toolbox of approaches to impac...

This Working Paper should not be reported as representing the views of the IMF. The views expressed in this Working Paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the IMF or IMF policy. Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to further debate. With official development assistance (ODA) set to rise as cou...

Clinical trials rigorously demonstrate the efficacy of new products and justify their marketing. However, it is only after use in real-life settings that the clinical value (effectiveness) of a new treatment is fully known. The purpose of this review was to summarise the effectiveness data for bupropion SR as an aid to smoking cessation. Available reports of effectiveness data for bupropion SR ...

How people choose to help each other can be just as important as how much people help. Help can come through relatively paternalistic or agentic aid. Paternalistic aid, such as banning certain foods to encourage weight loss or donating food to alleviate poverty, restricts recipients' choices compared with agentic aid, such as providing calorie counts or donating cash. Nine experiments demonstra...

China has made substantial health commitments to Africa in the past several decades. However, while much has been written regarding China-Africa aid overall, relatively little attention has been given to China's health aid. To better understand these investments, we provide an overview of the current framework and characteristics of China's health aid to Africa. China's health assistance has be...