ABSTRACT
The problems created for recipients, and indeed for development, by the multiplicity of donors were discussed in Chapter VIII. We there dismissed full multilateralism as impossible, and suggested that the most promising approach lay in co-operation between donors in the field of aid administration, if possible with recipient participation. The idea would be to set up an organization in the recipient country, multilateral but almost certainly donor-controlled, to carry out the job of plan and project evaluation, surveillance, etc., that all donors should be doing. Donors would delegate to this agency all the tech nical, advisory, and supervisory, functions that are at present carried out by A I D Missions, or the U K ' S Middle East Development Division, and would follow the advice of the agency as to project selection, and the terms and conditions of aid, unless they had very strong and specific reasons for ignoring it. Donors would remain responsible for determining the amount of aid, and for drawing up specific aid agree ments. They would also be free to make certain ideological stipula tions-which should be kept to a minimum-for example that their aid may not be used to support public ownership of projects which they believe should be left to the private sector. There would be no question of bilateral aid losing its identity.
