Foreign assistance philosophy no longer favours channelling aid almost exclusively to recipients' public sector; 'a bottomless pit'. Increasing preference has been accorded by the donor multilateral development community to the private sector, regarded as the engine of growth, poverty reduction and empowerment. Donors' professed development financing objectives now centre mainly on facilitation of sustainable long-term private capital flows to developing countries to support efforts to diminish aid dependence.
The book examines the practices of multilateral and bilateral donors and those of NGOs in private sector development financing, giving special attention to microfinance and micro-enterprises. It also explains the flow of foreign direct investment and why poor countries have often been bypassed, just as a framework is suggested and applied for identifying the fundamentals that drive private capital flows from developed to developing countries. Capital flight from developing countries and policies for its reversal are also examined.

'It seems that with each new book it issues, UNU-WIDER further establishes its reputation as the intellectual leader among international organisations.' -John Weeks, Professor of Development Economics, SOAS, University of London

Foreign Financing of Developing Countries' Private Sectors: Analysis and Description of Structure and Trends; M.O.Odedokun
Comparative Appraisal of Multilateral and Bilateral Approaches to Financing Private Sector Development; P.Gibbon & L.Schulpen
Bilateral Official and Non-Governmental Organizations' Supports for Private Sector Development; A.Jimoh
Multilateral Development Banks and Private Sector Financing: The Case of IFC; G.Mavrotas
Donors' Support for Microcredit as Social Enterprise: A Critical Reappraisal; M.Nissanke
Flow of Foreign Direct Investment in Developing Countries: A Two-part Econometric Modeling Approach; O.Akinkugbe
Flight Capital and Its Reversal for Development Financing; N.Hermes, R.Lensink & V.Murinde
The "Pull" and "Push" Factors in North-South Private Capital Flows: Conceptual Issues and Empirical Estimates; M.O.Odedokun

MATTHEW ODEDOKUN has taught in universities and worked in research institutions in several countries. Before joining WIDER as a Research Fellow and Project Director, he was an economist with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Washington. He has several research publications in international journals, many of them in development financing.