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South Bulletin Issue 38 (7 July 2009) Articles Article 1: Click here to download By Dr. Yilmaz Akyüz
South Centre Analytical Note - May 2008 This South Centre Analytical Note looks at the donor-driven agenda in the reform of public procurement – the rules that guide government purchasing of goods, works and services – as one of major components in the good governance agenda being incorporated by donors into their aid programmes. This Analytical Note stresses that such an agenda vis-à-vis government procurement not only restricts the flexibility of developing country governments to use public procurement as a policy tool for development, but also has significant consequences for local firms that rely on government contracts. T.R.A.D.E. Policy Brief No.2 IntroductionInternational aid to assist developing countries in their efforts to implement economic reforms is not new. However, aid has rarely been a simple transfer of resources from rich to poor countries. Often, aid comes to developing countries attached to a development “toolbox” in the form of aid conditionality. This toolbox traditionally involves neoliberal macroeconomic and trade policy prescriptions in the form of structural adjustment programmes that are more often a reflection of the political and economic ideology of donors than of the economic development priorities of aid-receiving countries. A report by the World Bank states that “[d]onors use aid to advance their values, their commercial interests, their cultural aspirations and their diplomatic and political objectives.” Aid for trade is a reflection of the fact that trade liberalization in itself does not automatically. |