3. What is Aid?

About this Lecture

Lecture

In this lecture, we think about the meaning and definition of foreign aid, focusing in particular on: (i) some of the key elements of the DAC’s original definition of Official Development Assistance (ODA), which determines what constitutes official aid by donors in the global north; (ii) critiques of the DAC’s definition, for example its limited scope and its exclusion of southern providers; (iii) efforts to reform the definition of aid.

Course

In this course, Dr Nilima Gulrajani (Overseas Development Institute) explores global aid and its relationship to development. In the first lecture, we consider the emergence of the modern global aid system from mid-twentieth century. In the second lecture, we think about states’ motivations for giving aid and the proliferation of aid providers from the global south. In the third lecture, we look at how aid is defined, focusing especially on the Development Assistance Committee’s definition of Overseas Development Assistance. Next, we focus on aid effectiveness and the debate between aid radicals, who argue that aid should be discontinued, and aid reformers who seek to improve the aid system. In the fifth lecture, we look at aid reform. In the sixth and final lecture, we consider UK aid policy and the global rise of aid nationalism.

Lecturer

Dr Nilima Gulrajani is a Senior Research Fellow at the Overseas Development Institute. She has written very widely on international development assistance, and her expertise includes the management and governance of aid assistance, aid effectiveness, and principled aid.