ATP is dead: long live mixed credits.

The principal objective of international development policy as implied by the title of the 1997 White Paper on International Development: Eliminating World Poverty, is to improve the quality of life of the majority of people in developing countries. This objective implies that aid should be directed at, and guided by the interests of, the poor in developing countries with the objective of promoting development. Such an objective is often undermined in practice because other interests affect aid policy or other policies affect aid practice. This paper addresses the proposals relating to the accommodation of business interests in aid policy, in particular measures regarding tying, and the consistency between aid policy and policies regarding trade, agriculture and investment. In spite of many high sounding statements on the aspirations and intentions of international development policy, we conclude that there is little in the White Paper to suggest that there will be any appreciable changes in British aid policy in the next few years. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]