Aiding Recovery?: The Crisis of Aid in Chronic Political Emergencies

In this important study of aid policy, Joanna Macrae argues that the disintegration of state authority and civil order has created acute problems in precisely those countries that need aid most. In a number of developing countries--including Cambodia, Uganda, and Kosovo--international aid no longer assumes the existence of stable, sovereign states capable of making policy. Instead, the major donor agencies have usually responded by suspending development aid and substituting some type of emergency aid or relief assistance. Now, as she shows, there are calls to make relief more development-oriented, and more focused on the underlying conflicts which cause these crises.