Making Aid Work by Abhijit V. Banerjee


Making Aid Work
Title : Making Aid Work
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 0262026155
ISBN-10 : 9780262026154
Language : English
Format Type : Hardcover
Number of Pages : 170
Publication : First published April 1, 2007

With more than a billion people now living on less than a dollar a day, and with eight million dying each year because they are simply too poor to live, most would agree that the problem of global poverty is our greatest moral challenge. The large and pressing practical question is how best to address that challenge. Although millions of dollars flow to poor countries, the results are often disappointing. In Making Aid Work, Abhijit Banerjee--an aid optimist--argues that aid has much to contribute, but the lack of analysis about which programs really work causes considerable waste and inefficiency, which in turn fuels unwarranted pessimism about the role of aid in fostering economic development. Banerjee challenges aid donors to do better. Building on the model used to evaluate new drugs before they come on the market, he argues that donors should assess programs with field experiments using randomized trials. In fact, he writes, given the number of such experiments already undertaken, current levels of development assistance could focus entirely on programs with proven records of success in experimental conditions. Responding to his challenge, leaders in the field--including Nicholas Stern, Raymond Offenheiser, Alice Amsden, Ruth Levine, Angus Deaton, and others--question whether randomized trials are the most appropriate way to evaluate success for all programs. They raise broader questions as well, about the importance of aid for economic development and about the kinds of interventions (micro or macro, political or economic) that will lead to real improvements in the lives of poor people around the world. With one in every six people now living in extreme poverty, getting it right is crucial.

Making Aid Work Reviews

  • AJ

    This book starts with an essay by Banerjee about how to "fix" aid by making randomized trials to check the efficacy of aid programs. It's followed up by essays written by various economists and aid program representatives writing about how they think aid can be "fixed." To finish it up, Banerjee writes an essay about education and figuring out how to make it work.

    I really hate this book because it's a whole bunch of economists talking about how to fix the problems that economists made in the past. Why are some countries poor? Why is civil war a huge problem in Africa? Why might some areas in India not prioritize education? These issues are by and large completely ignored in this book, the authors are more interested in cost benefit analysis, market solutions, growth and making sure public funds go to the "right places."

    Instead, why not look at things like multinational corporations stealing natural resources in Africa (among many other places), the lasting impacts of colonialism, and the problem with capitalist growth in the first place. Just because countries have growth doesn't mean that their poorest citizens are doing better than they were before giant corporations started making profits in their country.

    I do agree that the aid that is given to countries needs to be better formatted, I disagree with handing it out along the lines of the World Bank and other capitalist supporting foundations like the Bill Gates Foundation. While you could file this book under liberal, it sure isn't radical, and I doubt it is ultimately helpful.

  • Lauryl

    Thoughtful, timely, and unsatisfying. It had more questions than answers, and the questions themselves were innovative but not nearly enough. The book might have benefitted from asking What is poverty? What keeps us trying so hard to stop it? How do we do it while still respecting those we're barging in to help? How do we get countries (or communities in our own country) to empower themselves and keep their own programs going? These questions were not only asked but answered in When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert, which also had a more hopeful viewpoint. Making Aid Work would be an excellent companion work, as it delves more into the science of economics.

  • Ben Jaques-Leslie

    Two essays by Abhijit Banerjee and a former of other development thinkers. The main thrust of Abhijit's writing is the need for more randomized evaluations in development to understand the inner workings of poverty alleviation.