ABSTRACT
The history of sixty years of development aid can be described as a struggle during which citizens, governments and multilateral organizations searched, with only partial success, for ways of getting to grips with an extremely complex phenomenon. The question is what conclusions can be drawn from this with a view to future policy. A gloomy assessment about what has been achieved may lead to the conclusion that continuing development aid is not desirable or sensible, while the fact that development is a difficult task can quickly become a licence for continuing along the same, chosen path. The material presented in the previous five chapters implies, however, that we should neither give up nor blindly carry on. This chapter is devoted to formulating a more poignant conclusion.
