How Do We Make Aid Smarter?

Nicholas Kristof highlights some of the problems and promises of foreign aid in this op-ed. He also joins in the collective groan over the threatened cuts to MCA funding. America’s foreign aid apparatus has long been in need of reform; development wonks are fond of quoting President Kennedy’s 1961 criticism of American foreign aid as “a haphazard and irrational structure.” Brookings and the Smart Power Commission are looking at the issue now, and soon PCR will contribute its own assessment with a report on the role of Congress in foreign assistance. Meanwhile, on the micro level, P2P operations like iCare, Kiva, and Mukuru offer promising models for connecting individual donors/lenders to individual recipients.