Writing the History of Development Aid (original) (raw)

2007, Scandinavian Journal of History

International aid has been a significant element both in economic development and international politics since 1945, but has been insufficiently integrated in the discipline of history. The present article discusses the main problems of method, sources and discourse in the field of aid history, based on the recently published three-volume history of Norwegian development aid. The shifting conjunctures of aid are seen in relation to main paradigm changes in development theory. It is emphasized that history is not a macro-evaluation, but that it provides a basis for reflection, in this as in other fields. Keywords aid; historiography; development discourse International aid, or 'development aid', has played a significant role in the international economy over the last half century; it constitutes the single largest form of transfer of resources from developed to developing countries compared both to foreign direct investment and commercial loans. Up to half of the state budget of some African countries has been financed through international aid, and many local communities have for a more than a generation been strongly affected by aid projects. 1 For the donor countries aid has been an instrument of foreign policy and of national image-building, not least in the Nordic countries. Yet, the subject of aid is conspicuously absent from general historical surveys, both national and international, and monographs on aid history are rare. To remedy this situation work is now underway in all the Nordic countries on the history of development aid, and Nordic networks of cooperation have been established. What follows are reflections on some problems of method and theory in this field, based on the newly published threevolume History of Norwegian Development Aid. 2 The history of Norwegian development aid This project was initiated and financed by the Norwegian Foreign Ministry to mark the 50 years' anniversary of the Norwegian Agency for International Development, NORAD, in 2002. 3 In an ideologically loaded field of this kind the formal definition of the relationship between sponsors and researchers is of importance. In conformity