ESSAY 3
They rarely had much influence when decisions were made about priorities for
foreign assistance programs or strategies for carrying them out. But this model
of development assistance is changing rapidly.
The “donor-led” model of development has important disadvantages.
Development programs may be less effective, since they were often not part of a
well-thought-out plan and the people who were supposed to benefit were rarely
consulted. The governments of developing countries missed opportunities
to develop the skills and experience needed
to reach their national development goals
independently. In addition, governments had
to devote significant staff time and resources
to fulfilling the varied requirements of a host
of donors. Two examples of this: Vietnam
received 752 missions from donors in 2007,
while a study in Tanzania found that some
district health officials spent 25 working days
each quarter (100 working days every year)
writing reports for donors—time that could
have been spent delivering services.
The “aid recipient” approach is being replaced with more collaborative forms of development assistance, often called the “countryled” approach. Since the goal of development
assistance is ultimately to help countries reach
the point where they no longer need outside
assistance, country-led programs make perfect
sense. When countries are in charge of their own development plans, they can
also take advant