To Speed Recovery from Conflict, Focus on Local Small Businesses

As foreign aid budgets shrink, international aid agencies are being forced to become more efficient with less money. Increasingly, these donors recognize that fostering healthy private-sector growth is one of the most promising ways to help aid recipients become self-sustaining and ultimately self-financing. Aid to the private sector is especially important in countries affected by conflict and violence, where limited access to capital can inhibit much-needed growth, even more so than in more stable (if still poor) developing countries.