Evaluating Programme Aid

Edited by: Howard White and John Toye

October 1996
Volume 27 Number 4

Programme aid (import support, budgetary support and debt relief) has become an important form of aid in recent years. Unlike conventional project aid, there is no agreed evaluation methodology for these funds. At a time when aid budgets are under scrutiny in many countries it is important to know if these funds are well spent. Are they a good use of aid funds as compared to, for example, primary education? What impact, if any, do they have on the poor?