So the strength of the assumed linkage between growth and poverty reduction varies across different sections of the report. Assistance should take a form other than financial aid allocations, however. Indeed, a key theme of Assessing Aid is that improving aid effectiveness requires a redefinition of the role of aid as a combination of money and ideas, with the appropriate mix tailored to suit a country's specific situation and problems. For example, the report cites the case of Zambia to show that aid can actually enable governments to delay reforms. But appropriate timing of aid allocation can be a key means of maximizing aid's effectiveness, notes Assessing Aid .
Aid disbursed too late is akin to a missed opportunity.
Aid disbursed too early could delay what might have otherwise been a concrete economic policy reform programme. Because aid money typically is fungible meaning that a recipient government can use the money as it chooses much of the targeted money never reaches the sectors or projects for which it is intended, the report points out. In this part of the analysis, the report says neither corruption nor other administrative interference explains this characteristic of aid flows. And even when successfully channeled, aid's impact is limited unless it produces more systemic, economy-wide change, the report says. The authors find that channeling sector or project-specific aid to many African countries generally is easier because donors tend to have stronger control of projects in this region.