Foreign Aid and Development Goals: Revisiting the Evidence

In this chapter, the authors examine the impact of foreign aid on eight development targets capturing poverty, education, extreme hunger, gender equality, child mortality, maternal mortality, prevalence of HIV and access to portable water. Findings show that an increase in net Official Development Assistance (ODA) is associated with a decline in the prevalence of HIV and child mortality. The authors further examine the role of sectoral aid in the development process and show that targeted aid is likely to be more beneficial for development.