As a critique of development assistance from 2000-2005, this Global Policy Forum paper presents an overview of development assistance and its targeting and geographical allocation from 2000-2005. It analyses various features in rich countries' development assistance policies that make aid both insufficient and inefficient despite the recent increases in nominal aid amounts that make rich nations seem generous. The following issues are examined: new aid targets and the millennium development goals, aid and how it services strategic interests and the inflation of statistics to make non-aid look like aid.