ABSTRACT
Aid in the form of transactions between rich and poor, but indepen dent, governments was very restricted in scopebefore 1960. France and Britain had been helping their colonies with development since the 1920s. The U S A had run a number of programmes with increasing emphasis on development, but nevertheless concentrated heavily on military strategy and supporting friendly governments. The Soviet Union had begun to lend on a small scale to non-Communist develop ing countries, with avowedly political objectives. Other countries were just beginning to be involved in aid for development. Table 2 (p. 48) shows how little bilateral aid there was in 1957-9, from O E C D members other than the U S A and the colonial powers. The most im portant part of aid history is almost indistinguishable from an account of current aid programmes, since most important changes in aid policy since 1960 have not yet been completed. In preference to describing the emergence of aid chronologically, we shall first de scribe the big changes of 1959 and 1960, and then turn to the develop ment of aid in the U S A , U S S R , Germany, and the main colonial countries, separately.
