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Multilateral Versus Bilateral Aid: An Old Controversy Revisited

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Robert E. Asher
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Extract

At the beginning of the 1960's an unsophisticated observer—meaning, of course, someone other than the reader—might have concluded that, in the United States at least, the long-standing controversy over multilateral versus bilateral aid had been laid to rest. The funeral oration had been pronounced by no less a personage than President Eisenhower when he addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations in September 1960. He went right down the line for multilateral assistance via UN channels.

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Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 16 , Issue 4 , Autumn 1962 , pp. 697 - 719
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1962

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References

1 Address of March 7, 1960, before Tenth Annual Conference of National Organizations called by the American Association for the United Nations, Washington, D.C. (USUN Press Release 3367; Department of State Bulletin, 04 4, 1960 [Vol. 42, No. 1084], P. 525)Google Scholar.

2 United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, International Economic Assistance to the Less Developed Countries (New York, 1961), p. 48 (for 1954–1956 and 1958–1959 figures)Google Scholar. See also Document E/3556, International Economic Assistance to the Under-Developed Countries: Statistics of Official Contributions in 1960 (October 4, 1961); Organization for European Economic Cooperation, The Flow of Financial Resources to Countries in Course of Economic Development, 1956–1959, and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, The Flow of Financial Resources to Countries in Course of Economic Development, 1960. The figures are subject to a number of qualifications set forth in the aforementioned reports.

3 Lewis, John P., Quiet Crisis in India: Economic Development and American Policy (scheduled for publication by the Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., in 11 1962)Google Scholar.

4 Heymann, Hans Jr, “Soviet Foreign Aid as a Problem for U. S. Policy,” World Politics, 07 1960 (Vol. 12, No. 4), p. 532CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Claude, Inis L., “The Containment and Resolution of Disputes” in The United States and the United Nations, edited by Wilcox, Francis O. and Haviland, H. Field (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1961), p. 122Google Scholar.

6 See Lippmann, Walter, “Today and Tomorrow,” Washington Post, 04 17, 1961Google Scholar.

7 The New York Times, January 7, 1961.

8 Intangibles like good will are, of course, hard to measure and, after aid has become a factor, one cannot know what the state of international relations would be in the absence of such aid. Some may share die view of a prewar American investor recalled in a letter to The New York Times on August 10, 1962: “It cost us $100,000,000 to lose the friendship of Peru, when we could have lost it for nodiing.”

9 Niebuhr, Reinhold, The Irony of American History (New York: Scribner, 1952), pp. 36—37Google Scholar.

10 “A Political Theory of Foreign Aid,” The American Political Science Review, 06 1962 (Vol. 56, No. 2), pp. 304–305Google Scholar.

11 See “The Vienna Declaration on Cooperation for Development,” adopted by the Conference for Economic Cooperation and Partnership, 07 1–7, 1962 (Vienna: Theodor Körner Foundation, mimeographed), paragraph 2Google Scholar.

12 According to Joseph P. Lash,

While the Russians were delighted to use the UN as a lever with which to evict Western interests from the Congo, they were also probing for ways by which they could move in…. Alone of all the powers contributing food in response to the UN appeal, the Soviet Union furnished it directly to the Congolese Government rather than through the UN. And one of the first Soviet planes flying in food also brought in André Fomin, a top Soviet political expert on Africa, to direct Moscow's on-the-spot operations. Fomin went around Leopoldville openly telling the Congolese they were foolish to expect technical help from the UN; they would be much better off to follow the pattern of Guinea and make a direct deal with the Soviet bloc.

Lash, Joseph P., Dag Hammarskjöld: Custodian of the Brushfire Peace (New York: Doubleday and Co., 1961), pp. 241–242Google Scholar.

13 See Asher, Robert E., Grants, Loans, and Local Currencies: Their Role in Foreign Aid (Washington: The Brookings Institution, 1961)Google Scholar.

14 Section 303.

15 Section 619. See also Section 205 authorizing the President to lend funds to the International Development Association for use pursuant to the International Development Association Act, and Section 251 (b) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1962 requesting the President, in the Alliance for Progress, to take into account the principles of the Act of Bogotá and the Charter of Punta del Este.

For examples of associations of assistance from the UN Special Fund with assistance from other sources, see UN Document SF/L.68, May 14, 1962.

16 Morgenthau, , op. cit., p. 309Google Scholar.

17 See Morgenthau, op. cit., passim.

18 See Stoessinger, John G., The Might of Nations (New York: Random House, 1961), pp. 338–341Google Scholar.

10 Quote is from Preamble of the Charter of the United Nations.