Doing Good or Doing Better

Monique Kremer, Peter van Lieshout, Robert Went

The objective of development cooperation should be development rather than fighting poverty. Moreover, ‘doing better’ means less moralising, intervening in a more modest and pragmatic manner, less prescribing how things should be done and a greater focus on a tailor-made approach. Countries should follow their own development path and not ours. That is stated in WRR Investigation Doing Good or Doing Better. Development Policies in a Globalizing World (WRR Investigations no. 21, 2009).

Using development aid for development and change

The question of whether development aid helps would be more likely to be answered with a resounding ‘yes’ if it were to be used for what it was once intended for 60 years ago: development and systematic change. There is now an overemphasis on projects, and donors in developing countries are tumbling over one another.

Development aid reconsidered

The authors offer insight into the development paths on various continents and reconsider the notion of development in a globalizing world with regard to migration, safety and international security. There are contributions from: Ha-Joon Chang, Raphael Kaplinsky, Roger Riddell, Ronald Skeldon, Rob van Tulder and Fabienne Fortanier. Martine van Bijlert, Chris van der Borgh, Michael Edwards, Peter Ho, Paul Hoebink, Evelyne Huber, Nadia Molenaers en Robrecht Renard, Jan Nederveen Pieterse and Pieter Pekelharing.

This investigation has been carried out in the context of the WRR report Less Pretension, More Ambition (report no. 84, 2010).