ADB Distinguished Speakers Program: William Easterly 18 January 2006 Philippines Only for the recipients of foreign aid is something akin to central planning seen as a way to achieve prosperity. In this presentation, Professor William Easterly, Professor of Economics at New York University, explained that the end of poverty is achieved with free markets and democracy—where decentralized “searchers” look for ways to meet individual needs—not Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) to achieve Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and that PRSPs and MDGs create lots of bureaucracy but hold no one specific agency in foreign aid accountable for any one specific task. He asserts that planners in foreign aid use the old failed models of the past—the “Financing Gap”, the “poverty trap”, the government-to-government aid model; and the “expenditures = outcomes” mentality, and that searchers in foreign aid would imitate the feedback and accountability of markets and democracy to provide goods and services to individuals until homegrown markets and democracy end poverty in the society as a whole. He also cited as an example of a more promising “searchers” approach in foreign aid is the 2006 Nobel Peace Laureate Mohammad Yunus and Grameen Bank. Program and Learning Materials 18 January 2006 Session / Activity Title Speaker(s) Presentation Disclaimer The views expressed on this website are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) or its Board of Governors or the governments they represent. ADB does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this publication and accepts no responsibility for any consequence of their use. By making any designation of or reference to a particular territory or geographic area, or by using the term “country” in this document, ADB does not intend to make any judgments as to the legal or other status of any territory or area. Event Coordinator/s Rowena Vicente ADB Organizer/s Economic Research and Development Impact Department Read Also Asian Development Review paper: Planners versus Searchers in Foreign Aid Photo Gallery Topics Economics Finance