Development aid

A distinction is often made between development aid that is governmental ("official") on the one hand, and private (originating from individuals, businesses and the investments of charitable foundations, and often channeled through religious organisations and other NGOs) on the other.

The TOSSD data for 2020 shows more than USD 355 billion disbursed to support for sustainable development, from almost 100 provider countries and institutions.

OBA subsidies are offered in transport construction, education, water and sanitation systems, and healthcare among other sectors where positive externalities exceed cost recovery exclusively from private markets.

Additionally, there are "cross-cutting" aims; for instance, environmental protection, gender equality, urban and rural development concerns.

From this perspective, aid serves to finance "the core inputs to development – teachers, health centers, roads, wells, medicine, to name a few".

Also, in some cases the local population is not very interested in seeing the project to succeed and may revert to disassembling it to retain valuable source materials.

[36] There is also criticism because donors may give with one hand, through large amounts of development aid, yet take away with the other, through strict trade or migration policies, or by getting a foothold for foreign corporations.

[48] The bulk of the EU's aid for gender equality seeks to increase women's access to education, employment and reproductive health services.

However, some areas of gender inequality are targeted according to region, such as land reform and counteracting the effects of gangs on women in Latin America.

[54] Using publicly available data Una Osili an economist at the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis found that between 2000 and 2010 $1.15 billion in private aid grants over $1 million from the United States targeted gender equality.

Debussher criticized the EU's development policy in Latin America for focusing too much attention on gender inequality as a problem to be solved for women.

[66] She notes that men's role in domestic violence is insufficiently brought forward, with program and policy instead targeting removing women from victimhood.

[67] Debusscher notes that women's organizations in the region are often concerned with different social constructions of gender, as opposed to the economic growth structure favored by the EU.

[70] and that while feminist and women's organizations were represented in implementing policy programs they were not sufficiently involved in their development in EU aid to Southern Africa.

Changes in attitudes towards the moral purpose of the Empire, and the role that government could play in the promotion of welfare slowly led to a more proactive policy of economic and developmental assistance towards poor colonies.

Prior to the passage of the 1929 Colonial Development Act, the doctrine that governed Britain (and other European colonizers) with their territories was that of financial self-sufficiency.

The parliament began to discuss ways in which they could deal with Britain's unemployment rates and at the same time respond to some of the urgent needs of the colonies.

Its initial annual budget of £1 million was spent on schemes designed to develop the infrastructure of transport, electrical power and water supply in colonies and dominions abroad for the furtherance of imperial trade.

[81] The commission's recommendations urged health and education initiatives along with increased sugar subsidies to stave off a complete and total economic meltdown.

[82] The Colonial Office, eager to prevent instability while the country was at war, began funneling large sums of cash into the region.

Implemented by the Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA), the Marshall Plan also expanded its reconstruction finance to strategic parts of the Middle East and Asia.

[85] Although Marshall aid was initially offered to Europe in general, the Soviet Union forbade its neighbouring states from accepting it.

[86] The Soviet Union provided aid to countries in the communist bloc; for instance, on Poland's abstention from the Marshall Plan, Stalin promised a $450 million credit and 200,000 tons of grain.

[87] In January 1949 the inaugural address of U.S. president Harry Truman announced an extension of aid to "underdeveloped areas" in the form of technical assistance.

[88] While the main theme of the speech was strengthening the free world against communism, in his fourth point Truman also appealed to the motives of compassion and pride in civilization.

[94] This shifted the emphasis of U.S. economic aid away from immediate Cold War security needs, towards supporting the process of dismantling the empires of the UK, France and other European colonial powers.

[94] Following on, the U.S. encouraged the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) to set up a Development Assistance Group (DAG) composed of the main donor states, in order to help coordinate their aid.

Shortly after this, the OEEC was succeeded by the OECD, expanding its scope from Europe to the world, and embracing a particular concern with less-developed countries.

The International Development Association (IDA) was created as part of the World Bank (over which the U.S. and other Western countries exerted more influence than they did over the UN).

The traditional donors in the DAC have been joined by emerging economies (China, India, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Brazil, Venezuela, etc.