"Comment aider les pays pauvres", Nancy Birdsall, Dani Rodrik, Arvind Subramanian

This article, published in "Foreign Affairs" in July/August 2005, questions a lot of ready-made ideas about foreign aid and about the way to namely "help poor countries". The main interest of this article is that it stands that foreign aid-as the provision of resources from a country to another- and trading opportunities, which are usually considered as the most efficient tools to promote poor countries' development, have only limited effect on the long-term development of these countries. The authors argue that the successes of poor countries remain mostly on internal factors, such as the development of their economical, political and social institutions, which enable them to make an effective use of the opportunities they face: in a word: "development is something largely determine by poor countries themselves".

They propose new and more efficient ways to "help the poor countries help themselves", in other words to allow them to enhance the development of key institutions. This includes allowing labour mobility for low-skilled workers, putting an end to unfair trading conditions and to the current pharmaceutical patent system, promoting governance and democracy, research and development etc... But although this article undoubtedly defends its stance very well, some weaknesses may be underlined, for instance what seems to be a typical Western bias.