Provided for over 60 years, and expanding more rapidly today than it has for a generation, foreign aid is now a $100bn business. But does it work? Indeed, is it needed at all? In this first-ever, overall assessment of aid, Roger Riddell provides a rigorous but highly readable account of aid, warts and all.

Foreign aid is now a $100bn business and is expanding more rapidly today than it has for a generation. But does it work? Indeed, is it needed at all? Other attempts to answer these important questions have been dominated by a focus on the impact of official aid provided by governments. But today possibly as much as 30 percent of aid is provided by Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), and over 10 percent is provided as emergency assistance. In this first-ever attempt to provide an overall assessment of aid, Roger Riddell presents a rigorous but highly readable account of aid, warts and all. Does Foreign Aid Really Work? sets out the evidence and exposes the instances where aid has failed and explains why. The book also examines the way that politics distorts aid, and disentangles the moral and ethical assumptions that lie behind the belief that aid does good. The book concludes by detailing the practical ways that aid needs to change if it is to be the effective force for good that its providers claim it is.

1. 'A Good Thing?'
PART I: THE COMPLEX WORLDS OF FOREIGN AID
2. The origins and early decades of aid-giving
3. Aid-giving from the 1970s to the present
4. The growing web of bilateral aid donors
5. The complexities of multilateral aid
PART II: WHY IS AID GIVEN?
6. The political and commercial dimensions of aid
7. Public support for aid
8. Charity or duty? The moral case for aid
9. The moral case for governments and individuals to provide aid
PART III: DOES AID REALLY WORK?
10. Assessing and measuring the impact of aid
11. The impact of official development aid projects
12. The impact of programme aid, technical assistance and aid for capacity development
13. The impact of aid at the country and cross-country level
14. Assesing the impact of aid conditionality
15. Does official development aid really work? A summing up
16. NGOs in development and the impact of discrete NGO development interventions
17. The wider impact of non-governmental and civil society organizations
18. The growth of emergencies and the humanitarian response
19. The impact of emergency and humanitarian aid
PART IV: TOWARDS A DIFFERENT FUTURE FOR AID
20. Why aid isn't working
21. Making aid work better by implementing agreed reforms
22. Making aid work better by recasting aid relationships