Development Aid - Background

Background

While the concept of development aid goes back to the colonial era, that origin of modern development aid roots in the context of Post-World War II and the Cold War: Launched as a large-scale aid program by the United States in 1948, the European Recovery Program, or Marshall Plan was concerned with strengthening the ties to the West European states to contain the influence of the USSR. This political rationale is well summarized in the Truman Doctrine, in which United States president Harry Truman stated the anti-communist rationale for U.S. development aid in his inaugural address of 1949, which also announced the founding of NATO:

"In addition, we will provide military advice and equipment to free nations which will cooperate with us in the maintenance of peace and security. Fourth, we must embark on a bold new program for making the benefits of our scientific advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas. More than half the people of the world are living in conditions approaching misery. Their food is inadequate. They are victims of disease. Their economic life is primitive and stagnant. Their poverty is a handicap and a threat both to them and to more prosperous areas. For the first time in history, humanity possesses the knowledge and skill to relieve the suffering of these people."

Development aid was aimed at offering technical solutions to social problems without altering basic social structures. The United States was often fiercely opposed to even moderate changes in social structures, for example the land reform in Guatemala in the early 1950s.