 In Recom, you and your wider global network of researchers gather and assess the best evidence on the impact of foreign aid. Here we look closer at how aid works to address the many challenges that poor countries face. The poverty landscape has been changing dramatically during recent years. The proportion of people living on less than $1.25 per day has fallen in every region since 1990, including sub-Saharan Africa. Scientists predict that the Millennium Development Goal of cutting extreme poverty by half will be achieved by 2015, and some have even declared the end of poverty. That is the good news. The bad news is it will be harder to drag the remaining one billion people out of extreme poverty. There are many reasons why poverty rates are falling. Foreign aid has, on average, helped countries to grow and reduce their poverty rates over recent decades. Despite some failures, rather solid academic evidence backs the argument that foreign aid has been doing the job, not always, but mostly. And for donors, aid has been a good investment in economic terms, with an internal rate of return rising to 16% annually. Aid donors must now adapt to the new poverty landscape. They need to learn how to deal with more complexity, including a hard core of fragile states, as well as how to deal with global public goods, such as climate change and health. Donors also need a better understanding on how development actually takes place. This means collecting more information on poverty, and how people are moving out of poverty. As countries grow, they can fund more of their own development. However, in the new middle-income countries, there is still much poverty. What are the ways that aid can help these, and the poorest countries, to mobilise resources for development? UNU wider researchers from all over the world have come together to find out what works, what could work, what is scalable, and what is transferable in foreign aid. To learn more, come visit our website at recon.wider.unu.edu.