Against the backdrop of an international economic downturn and changes in government leadership in the United States and United Kingdom, donors, development officials and economists are looking hard at how to improve the way foreign assistance is administered and used in Africa.
"The global recession… means that spending public money has got more serious, so the hard questions have to be asked and answered. There’s a new seriousness of purpose," says Paul Collier, author of The Bottom Billion, a book that focuses on 50 of the world’s failing states and the billion people who live in them.
He says the development and global security challenges posed by fragile states, such as Afghanistan and Somalia, have also contributed to the rethink. Additionally, discussion around foreign aid intensified with the release earlier this year of the book Dead Aid by Zambian economist **Dambisa Moyo.
