“Less aid, more investment”
22 januari 2010
The report is lengthy and well documented indeed and contains wide-ranging recommendations that undoubtedly will stimulate the domestic discussion. But we do not agree with the report’s decision to talk about “development aid” rather than “cooperation”. Although the report justifies this decision on philosophical grounds, it ignores the policy implications. This is clearly illustrated in the following sentence on development aid: “somebody who wants to eradicate poverty does not behave as a businessman” (page 149). In our experience, this is no longer true. Business plays a leading role in development, and its potential as a development partner could have been highlighted more in the report. There is a good section on the private sector and the emerging area of corporate social responsibility, but unfortunately this is not picked up in the conclusions. And the report states very little on the importance of the financial sector. For instance, promoting agriculture is fine, but a key constraint is access to finance, also in other sectors. Also, the report is ambivalent about the role of the World Bank but nowhere mentions the IFC (International Finance Corporation) or MIGA (Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency). The report would also have benefitted from a discussion on grants versus loans or investments. At the end of the day, it’s investments that eradicate poverty, not aid.
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