Foreign Aid

A Fight to Protect

BY JAMES TRAUB | OCTOBER 15, 2008

The New Colonialists

Only a motley group of aid agencies, international charities, and philanthropists stands between some of the world's most dysfunctional states and collapse. But for all the good these organizations do, their largesse often erodes governments' ability to stand up on their own. The result: a vicious cycle of dependence and too many voices calling the shots.

BY MICHAEL A. COHEN, MARIA FIGUEROA KÜPÇÜ, PARAG KHANNA | JUNE 16, 2008

Fund What Works

The problem isn't whether we are too generous or too stingy. We just need to help the poor help themselves.

BY ESTHER DUFLO | MARCH 31, 2007

Rogue Aid

What's wrong with the foreign aid programs of China, Venezuela, and Saudi Arabia? They are enormously generous. And they are toxic.

BY MOISÉS NAÍM | MARCH 1, 2007

The FP Index: Ranking the Rich

Poverty is blamed for everything from terrorism to bird flu. Rich nations have never sounded more committed to stamping it out. Is it all just hot air? The fourth annual CGD/FP Commitment to Development Index ranks 21 rich nations on whether they’re working to end global poverty -- or just making it worse.

AUGUST 8, 2006

Costly Diplomacy

BY RYAN GAWN | AUGUST 8, 2006

The Utopian Nightmare

This year, economists, politicians, and rock stars in rich countries have pleaded for debt relief and aid for the world's poorest countries. It certainly sounds like the right thing to do. But utopian dreams of alleviating poverty overlook some hard facts. By promising so much, rich-world activists prolong the true nightmare of poverty.

BY WILLIAM EASTERLY | AUGUST 30, 2005

Ranking the Rich 2004

The second annual CGD/FP Commitment to Development Index ranks 21 rich nations on how their aid, trade, investment, migration, environment, security, and technology policies help poor countries. Find out who's up, who's down, why Denmark and the Netherlands earn the top spots, and why Japan once again finishes last.

MAY 1, 2004

A Development Nightmare

What if poor nations actually caught up with rich ones?

BY KENNETH ROGOFF | JANUARY 1, 2004

Ranking the Rich 2003

In a groundbreaking new ranking, FOREIGN POLICY teamed up with Center for Global Development to create the first annual CGD/FP Commitment to Development Index, which grades 21 rich nations on whether their aid, trade, migration, investment, peacekeeping, and environmental policies help or hurt poor nations. Find out why the Netherlands ranks first and why the world's two largest aid givers -- the United States and Japan -- finish last.

BY FOREIGN POLICY, CENTER FOR GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT | MAY 1, 2003

The Aid Cartel's Golden Oldies

Many of the "new" themes that the international aid agencies emphasize today have actually been around for several decades.

JULY 1, 2002

The Cartel of Good Intentions

The world's richest governments have pledged to boost financial aid to the developing world. So why won't poor nations reap the benefits? Because in the way stands a bloated, unaccountable foreign aid bureaucracy out of touch with sound economics. The solution: Subject the foreign assistance business to the forces of market competition.

BY WILLIAM EASTERLY | JULY 1, 2002

Accountable Aid

JULY 1, 2002

A Few Strings Attached

BY WILLIAM EASTERLY | NOVEMBER 1, 2001

Think Again: Debt Relief

Debt relief has become the feel-good economic policy of the new millennium, trumpeted by Irish rock star Bono, Pope John Paul II, and virtually everyone in between. But despite its overwhelming popularity among policymakers and the public, debt relief is a bad deal for the world’s poor. By transferring scarce resources to corrupt governments with proven track records of misusing aid, debt forgiveness might only aggravate poverty among the world’s most vulnerable populations.

BY WILLIAM EASTERLY | NOVEMBER 1, 2001

Vox Americani

What do Americans want? The U.S. public's view of the world has long been a study in what seem like maddening contradictions, at times both altruistic and paranoid, protectionist and entrepreneurial, and isolationist and multilateralist. Like many other analysts, FP's editors have worn deep furrows into our brows trying to discern how Americans see the world and their place in it. So we invited Steven Kull, director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland and author of several groundbreaking studies of U.S. public opinion, to "interview" the American people on the most pressing global issues of the day. He created a composite of average Americans -- a virtual John/Jane Q. Public -- derived from the majority positions in extensive polling data and using the kind of language he commonly hears in focus groups. (An annotated version of this interview can be found at www.foreignpolicy.com with footnotes citing poll questions and data.) As it turns out, Americans defy simple labels, largely because they refuse to submit to simplistic choices.

SEPTEMBER 1, 2001

Does Foreign Aid Add Up?

BY WILLIAM EASTERLY | JULY 1, 2001

First Aid for Financial Crises

BY DEEPAK GOPINATH | JANUARY 1, 2001