Targeting the Poor

Abstract

The election of a Labour government in 1974 and the appointment of Judith Hart as Minister of Overseas Development presaged a big shake up in aid policy. Hart was something of a development specialist in a strongly socialist tradition. In a book published two years earlier one of her key arguments was to dissociate aid from private investment, ‘it is a complete nonsense to regard private investment as aid’ and aid targets and statistics should be suitably purified.¹ There was a specific implication for CDC. ‘We should redefine the purposes and functions of the Commonwealth Development Corporation … and since it is scarcely appropriate for a socialist government itself to be involved in direct foreign private investment in developing countries, its present functions and practices would need review.’ The major policy thrust given to the ODM was for a greater concentration of aid on the poorer countries and on rural development. The outcome was an influential White Paper More Aid for the Poorest,² which has been the thrust of British aid policy ever since.