Review Essay: Partners in Development <i>Report of the Commission on International Development</i>

PARTNERS IN DEVELOPMENT Report of the Commission on International Development Lester B. Pearson, chairman and editor New York: Praeger, 1969. 399PP, $2.50 paperShortly after its first print run in 1969, the UKPrime Minister Harold Wilson said of the Pearson commission, I am convinced that it will become one of the most important documents of the twentieth century. Forty years later, there is evidence to support Wilsorfs prediction. It is worth revisiting the main recommendations of the Pearson report and tracing how they affected the organizations and the debates that the commission and its World Bank sponsor sought to influence.Much has changed in four decades but many of the conditions that made the commission necessary then are still with us today. Late in George Woods's presidency at the World Bank (1963-68), he grew concerned with waning government support for international development cooperation, a concern that the bank's current president, Robert Zoellick, shares. In a timely intervention in 1967, Edward Boyle, who had a significant hand in establishing the UK's bilateral aid agency, invited Woods to attend a meeting to explore ways to rejuvenate government support for international development. As a result of these discussions, the idea of commissioning a major report on the subject began to gain ground.Woods publicly proposed a report in a 1967 speech to the Swedish Bankers Association and then sought out Sir Oliver Franks to lead the study. Franks had been instrumental in formulating the European response to the implementation of the Marshall plan. The report's goal, Woods explained, was to identify what has worked well and to propose new ideas to raise living standards in low- and middle-income countries. The mandate fit well with Franks' s own experience in the European context. Nevertheless, Franks declined to participate.In August 1968, incoming World Bank President Robert McNamara seized on Woods's idea. McNamara agreed with the assessment that World Bank members were turning their backs on development cooperation. The mood in the United States was particularly worrisome. McNamara demanded empirical analysis and astute advice on how best to rejuvenate government support for official aid. This evidence-informed approach was consistent with McNamara' s leadership at Ford and the Pentagon, but it had never been used to justify the importance of foreign aid. During the 1950s and 1960s, governments with aid programs relied largely on two arguments. Idealists argued for a Marshall plan for the developing world. It had worked in Europe and could work again for the poor in developing countries. Realists pointed to the creeping threat of communism and suggested that aid and military assistance could help to restrain Soviet influence. Both of these arguments proved so convincing that there was little demand for a systematic examination of whether foreign aid actually worked.McNamara turned to Lester Pearson to chair the report. Pearson was a curious choice. As US secretary for defense during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, McNamara had had tense relations with Pearson because of Canada's opposition to the expansion of the Vietnam War. Moreover, it was no secret that McNamara wanted the report to influence American government policy, which meant that its chair had to carry weight. Pearson's international stature was evident, but he was not a universally popular figure in Washington. Nevertheless, he was interested, available, and widely respected. McNamara decided he could do the job.In accepting the chairmanship, Pearson signed on to study the consequences of twenty years of development assistance, assess the results, clarify the errors and propose the policies which will work better in the future (i). He demanded considerable independence from the bank in order to conduct the study. Pearson selected seven commissioners, established a small secretariat with offices in Washington and Ottawa, convened experts, and conducted field visits. …

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