Oxfam GB: Does aid work?
Duncan Green exemplifies how aid is working in Nepal. Ok I’m getting tired of picking holes in the arguments of aid sceptics, so here’s something positive – a specific example of what aid can achieve in a country like Nepal, which is recovering from a decade of conflict with devastating consequences for the delivery of basic services. One third of its population lives below the poverty line and one woman dies every two hours during pregnancy and childbirth. Together with other donors, the UK gives money directly to the Nepalese government for the health sector, allowing it to scale up and strengthen its public health system. In January 2008, aid helped the government of Nepal to abolish user fees in health care. Nepal has made impressive progress. In just five years the under five mortality rate was reduced by around a third, and since 1996 the maternal mortality rate has fallen by 50 per cent. Nepal is on target to meet the Millennium Development Goal on child mortality before 2015 if
