How aid can work better for the poorest people

While a much greater proportion of official development assistance goes to places and investments that benefit the poorest people than other international resources, there is room for much better targeting of ODA. Development Initiatives' Tim Strawson shares how in this guest commentary.

By Tim Strawson // 20 January 2015

Ask a development expert: What should international aid be used for?

Then prepare yourself to be bombarded by a list of priorities, trade-offs and competing demands — not to mention reasons why this is too simplistic a question to ask anyway, and that we need to understand the context, politics, economics, effectiveness and many other factors before even beginning to think about how to answer it.

Ask the average person on the street the same question and they might say something along the lines of “ending poverty and meeting basic needs.”

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The views in this opinion piece do not necessarily reflect Devex's editorial views.

About the author

Tim Strawson
Tim is a senior analyst at Development Initiatives, where he works on mobilizing all resources to end poverty, with a focus on the post-2015 and financing for development agendas. Tim previously worked in the South African National Treasury as an Overseas Development Institute fellow and holds a master's degree in economics for development from the University of Oxford.