ABSTRACT
In the last few years, anthropologists have undertaken ethnographies of international aid. A life-history approach to international aid includes aid practitioner's awareness of the contradictions in their work, such as that between their lifestyle and that of the people they want to help. The first twenty-five years or so of international development assistance were shaped by the Cold War, during which First and Second World countries used their aid to compete for political and commercial influence in the Third World. By 2011 a web of organisational relationships had developed, involving governments, both donors and recipients, as well as Southern civil society organisations, multilateral institutions, international Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and philanthro-capitalists such as the Gates Foundation. Civil society activists in the South, particularly in countries where Chinese influence has been growing, expressed alarm about the deleterious effect of this influence on human rights.
