Aid works (on average)

Abstract

There is considerable controversy about whether foreign aid helps poor countries, with several prominent critics arguing that it doesn’t. Dr. Ord shows that these critics have only reached this conclusion because they have failed to count the biggest successes of aid, such as the eradication of smallpox, which have been in the sphere of global health rather than economic growth. These health successes have often been neglected in analysis of aid because they have only made up a small proportion of aid spending. When we look at the impact of this spending, though, we see that it the big wins have been so utterly vast that they more than justify all aid spending to date.