ABSTRACT
The Food for Peace program was and is a case in point. Of course there were those among its proponents who were genuinely concerned about hunger in the Third World, but the program owes its existence for the most part to those whose interests are closer to home. The most popular projects at the grass-roots level in the 1990s have been those involving microcredit and microenterprise. They appeal to development professionals because they can be an effective means of channeling assistance to the poorest, of generating income and promoting self-sufficiency, and even of nurturing community solidarity and activism. The idea of establishing partnerships between First World donor agencies or nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and Third World NGOs is not really a new one. Albuquerque-based Futures for Children came into being in the 1970s as the partner of an organization established in Colombia in the 1960s. Private development agencies also constituted a big business in Ecuador.
