Does aid work If so, where and how If not why Provide a solid and Essay

Does aid work If so, where and how If not why Provide a solid and coherent evidence base to back up your assertion - Essay Example If the event is especially destructive so as to threaten the very social, political, or economic structure of the affected state or country, longer term aid in the form of rehabilitation assistance is provided. In the discussion of whether aid is effective, it would be easy to see that humanitarian aid in the foregoing scenario would certainly seem to. This, however, excludes discourses and debates on whether the distribution of relief aid is effective; as to that, logistics would probably be the most determining factor (Thomas & Kopczak, 2005). The purpose of this report is to determine whether aid itself – measured against the purpose for which it is intended – is effective. Therefore, I would like to focus the discussion on the other kind of aid where the answer to such a question is somewhat blurred: development aid or what is more formally known as â€Å"overseas development assistance† (ODA). ODA is the official aid and according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development or OECD (1985), it specifically refers to loans and grants allotted to developing countries provided by the public sector (of mostly developed countries) with the aim of promoting economic development in the recipient country; to be rightfully classified as aid, the funds must be concessional and has a grant element of at least 25%. Aid in this context basically means the rich, developed countries providing the poor Third World with financial assistance so that the latter will have a much better economy. To ext rapolate it from there, the ultimate goal of aid would then be greater global economic equality or at least that is what it is promoting (Therien, 2002). Such an aid as we know it has been around for the past 70 years – ever since the United Nations and the World Bank (the recognized forerunners in multilateral aid agency) were