Ben Knapen, the minister of international cooperation for the Kingdom of the Netherlands has an interesting perspective on international aid. The Netherlands has an excellent track record of insightful development practices around the world. Here are a couple thoughts from his article in DEVEX...
A third reason behind the disappearance of the old aid architecture is the change in global poverty patterns. To begin with, the number of poor countries is on the decline. The International Development Association, the division of the World Bank concerned with lending money to poor countries, is expected to lose more than half of its clients in the next 10 to 15 years. At present, 68 countries are categorized as “poor”; by around 2025 that number will have fallen to around 36. Most of them will be those tragic places we call “failing states”: Afghanistan, Yemen, Congo and the like.
The idea of spending a proportion of gross domestic product on development aid originated in a world that came in only two flavors: poor countries and rich countries. The aim of development aid was an international and more equitable redistribution of wealth. But the spectacular drop in the number of poor countries shows that the dominant practice of dividing the world into poor countries and rich countries is no longer accurate.
See the whole article here.
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