Responsibility and its Avoidance: The Case of Aid

What is good practice in aid administration? This article, based on thereflections of an insider practitioner, finds that unequal relationshipsbetween donor and recipient and the ambiguous nature of aid as a giftbetween one country and another, creates a complexity that is difficult tonegotiate in practice. A key finding is that neither market nor administrativerationality fit the needs of the exchange, although the rules of aidadministration feature both. Instead, a third logic; the ambiguous sociallogic of the gift, creates opportunities for practitioners of good intent oneither side to go beyond the contract obligations or rules of office toovercome negativities and achieve positive outcomes. At project level this toadvocate a role for the mutuality of friendship that both administrativenorms and market theory disallow as dangerous. At intergovernmentallevel, inequality persists in ways that are not masked by the language ofpartnerships that now pervades aid administration. The paper concludeswith the thought that this may change, as will the nature of aid, ascountries North and South negotiate a shared destiny in a warming World.