ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the motives and interests of those involved in the giving and receiving of aid, in order to identify the distortions that these can cause in addition to those attributable to the machinery of aid. It aims to distinguish five different parties in the aid process: the politicians and civil servants on the donor side, their counterparts on the recipient side, and the intermediaries—the contractors, consultants and advisers. For each group, the chapter discusses what is their interest in aid and what is the effect of this on the nature of the aid process. Politicians from donor countries are generally not particularly interested in foreign aid. Advisers wish to improve their career prospects, and are recruited and paid by the donor agency, although their appointment is subject to acceptance by the recipient country. Advisers stay for rather longer than consultants, have a more open-ended responsibility, and work more closely with a government department within the recipient country.
