ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that one must contextualize donors' attitudes towards providing international development in its entirety, since technical cooperation is one mechanism within this broader framework. It begins by exploring the history and reasoning behind development assistance of some of the member countries to the Development Assistance Committee (DAC), then focus on the DAC itself. Created in 1961, the DAC was a reconstituted version of the 1960 Development Assistance Group (DAG). DAC's goal was to create a forum for consultations among providers of development assistance, which at the time were almost all members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Finally, Nordic countries – particularly Norway – are helpful in highlighting current variations among DAC donors. These countries have commonly been "held up as examples of ideal donors" due to their overall generous levels of Official Development Assistance and with limited geo-strategic interests to divert their efforts toward narrower self-interested objectives.
