This study is motivated by the needs to critically reflect upon development aid. Foreign aid work has since the 1950s expanded to become a large and complex enterprise, where every country is either an aid donor or aid recipient, or being both. Foreign aid has always been viewed as a moral issue and the benefits have been contested and challenged. There are few voices that are questioning the provision of emergency aid, however, development aid have had its critics since the modern idea was raised of providing aid continuously. The question is whether it could ever produce the desired effect. It has also been criticized because of the way that decisions about who to give it to are influenced by political, strategic and commercial interests of donors. The purpose of this essay was to review the ideas that international aid workers have of development aid. This essay is based on qualitative data, where I have interviewed seven respondents about their experiences of working with international development aid. The empirical data has been interpreted using development theories specifically theories of social capital and human resources, rationality and the ideas of empowerment. The conclusions of this essay shows that it is very complex to talk about any obvious results of development aid, though it all depends on the significance of development. What where noticeable in this essay where that hardly anyone of respondents was committed to national aid work of any kind before they took the assignment. Since they got home, most of the respondents were devoted to national aid work. In order to generate help to self-help, the result shows that essential for development aid is cooperation.