It has gone more than 50 years since Sweden officially started organizing and giving development assistance to needing countries. There have been many different Governments with differences in both ideological background and political aim during that time, not only in Sweden but also internationally. How much has circumstances and the different rule affected the Swedish development assistance policies? To answer that question has been the main aim for this thesis. In my study I have focused on the last 22 years, as from 1990 until 2012, and studied one budget proposition for development assistance per Government.  I have also studied some of the most important steering documents, important events and international decisions that have affected the Swedish development policies. Since the budget propositions show the ambitions of the Governments it is also their policies. It is these policies that I will analyze using the two variables: size of the aid, and the goal for the aid. The analysis is has been done using Nikolaos Zahariadis policy theory The Multiple Streams Framework. My study shows that the policies that were adopted 50 years ago still have a large, if not settling, impact on today’s policies. The main goal for the development assistance today only differs on a few words from what was written in proposition 1962:100. The economic goal which is one of the most fundamental parts of today’s development assistance, that one percent of Sweden’s GDP should go to international aid, was first decided in 1968. Finally, I have concluded that both the way the goal of the development assistance has been formulated and how extensive the frame of funding for development assistance has been, haven’t always percental been followed with how much money that have been spent on the budget point development work.