Arguably, the strong aid pessimism that persisted during the 1980s and 1990s had faded a little at the turn of this century. In 2000, at the Millennium Summit at the UN Headquarters (the only UN gathering in which all heads of state were present) all governments agreed upon the Millennium Development Goals as a grand strategy to markedly reduce extreme, deadly poverty. Its first goal was the reduction of the percentage of people living in extreme poverty by half until the year 2015. The other goals set targets for school enrollment, universal primary education, maternal health and a “global partnership for development”. The foundational thinking for this approach is to be found in what has been termed the “unofficial” book behind the goals, articulating the views of their architect – The End of Poverty by Professor Jeffrey Sachs. Professor Sachs is a fervent advocate of the view that a drastic increase in development aid could achieve these goals, and the public largely bought these arguments.

It seemed like the days in which perceptions that aid would largely become embezzled, spent by gullible do-gooders or used by big powers to further their geo-political and economic interests dominated debates about development were numbered – a shift in perceptions that is has in recent years been incessantly challenged by New York University Professor William Easterly. His book The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good (New York: Penguin Books, 2006) left its imprint on the academic and public debate on development aid. (more…)