ABSTRACT. Thirkell-White depicts an international organization created, defined and experiencing its formative years in an era quite different from the current; it is struggling to make sense of its formal mandate in the context of an increasingly politicized and diverse development agenda, brought about by normative and material shifts in its institutional environment. Hayek notes that the free market does not recognize merit or desert in any objective sense, but simply the value others place on one's capacities or services.