ABSTRACT
Development aid can be inspired by a number of different motives simultaneously. The existence of different and parallel motives does not, in itself, have to be a problem since social activities are usually driven by a variety of motives. The task facing the political system is to weigh up all these motives and combine them into a manageable structure for implementation. This is, however, tricky if the different motives give cause to engage in practices which continually diverge. In addition, as chapters 3 and 4 showed, helping with development is a tremendously complex job. It is therefore no surprise that the institutional system is running into all kinds of problems. In this chapter we discuss five persistent problems in more detail: the goals (the priority of poverty reduction), the organization (the proliferation of aid), the approach (the belief in social engineering and one size fits all), the view of aid (the absence of an intervention ethic) and the scope (the inability to involve other policy fields).
