Save the poor, shoot some bankers

Bilateral or multilateral organizatior s control about 90% of official overseas development assistance (ODA), much of which s wasted This note traces aid failure to the daisy chain of principal agent-beneficiary relationships linking rich donors to aid bureaucrats to poor recipients Waste results when aid middlemen (un)intentionally misdirect ODA Waste can be reduced by clarifying domestic Foals for ODA, using fewer middlemen with greater intrinsic motivation, empowering recipients and/or replacing bureaucracy with markets