ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explains how to evaluate the performance of aid investments, and by extension how to design them, so that aid money can be spent more consistently, wisely, and well, in building a richer and more equitable, rational, and stable world. It aims to make it possible for performance to improve in real terms, particularly in those fields where poverty, water, deserts, biodiversity, and climate change intersect in various combinations. The book also aims to make aid investments better in their own terms, and also to make them better at contributing to ecological sustainability during the global crisis. It intends to be useful across entire aid profession, from students and trainees, to ministers and officials in government departments, and to consultants employed directly or indirectly by those departments, who help deliver the policies, projects, programmes, partnerships, designs, and evaluations that together facilitate all aid expenditure.
