Economic growth and foreign aid

Japan’s metamorphosis from a less developed country to one of the world’s most Important industrial nations was closely connected with increasing foreign pressures. Where did they result from and what will be their consequences for the country’s economic policy?     

Special drawing rights and development aid

The introduction of the Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) has not fulfilled the wishes of the LDCs. Whereas the industrialised countries look upon SDRs simply as international liquidity reserves, LDCs aim at the linking of SDRs with development aid. Is their concept really as out of place as the industrialised countries maintain it is?     

New approach to development aid

The prevailing disenchantment concerning the less developed countries (LDCs) has multiple roots. Two, however, are of particular importance. The first, symbolised by the report of the Club of Rome, is connected with the implications of the world’s finite resources. The second, underlined by Mr McNamara, is in the obstinately and grossly unequal distribution of the benefits of whatever progress is being made.     

Internal problems of development aid

The unsolved internal problems of Germany’s development aid require an early reexamination of the objectives and the concept of development aid against the quickly shifting world-economic background. Numerous hitherto unsettled questions concerning technical aid and its implementation have to be answered soon and expertly.     

The crisis of development aid

Measured in per cent of their Gross National Product (GNP), western industrialised countries currently spend far less on development aid than they did ten years ago. This is partly due to the very limited usefulness of the prevailing concept of development aid.     

Relief instead of development aid

Formerly an active supporter of the western industrialized countries’, and particularly Sweden’s, policy of development aid, Gunnar Myrdal has in recent years become increasingly critical of the present form of aid. In the following paper the Swedish Nobel Prize winner presents his case for a new line of aid policy.     

Is development aid superfluous?

The benefits of development aid have been increasingly called into question in recent times. In such aid superfluous or indeed harmful? Ulrich Hiemenz and Franz Nuscheler address this issue in the following two contributions.