Aid Requirements and Donor Preferences

Abstract

It is sometimes assumed that putting an aid programme together is a mechanical business involving no more than the exercise of a little arithmetic. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even the arithmetic is not easy, for it depends on many assumptions of dubious validity; while matching the amount of aid that might be required, both in total and in its components, to that which might be on offer is a multi-dimensional problem of great complexity, not least in its political aspects. All aspects of the problem interact and it is not possible to say logically that one can be solved ahead of the others; the solution is essentially interactive by nature. It is only for the convenience of exposition that we examine the procedures adopted for the formulation of aid requirements first and follow this with a discussion of the problems involved in matching aid requirements to the readiness of particular donors to provide assistance in the amounts and forms ultimately determined by them.