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Begin New Search Topic Foreign Aid Political Geography Global Focus

21. What Is “Country Ownership”? A Formal Exploration of the Aid Relationship

Author:
William Savedoff
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development (CGD)
Abstract:
The aid literature and high-level accords like the Paris Declaration argue that “country ownership” is critical to the effectiveness of aid. In response, donors and recipients renamed themselves “development partners,” obscuring the tendency for country ownership benefits (i.e. more successful and sustainable programs) to come at the expense of satisfying the funding countries’ priorities. This paper illustrates the tradeoff between country ownership and funders’ priorities with a formal model in which aid is governed by a contract to produce a jointly desired outcome. The model generalizes the Principal-Agent approaches for studying aid which treat countries as having multiple objectives. The new model illustrates how a recipient country’s rational resource allocation choices vary with different aid contracts, whether based on lump sum payments, input-based payments, conditional payments, matching grants or outcome payments. It reveals two critical aspects of the country ownership debate. First, even when funders and recipients agree on project goals, funders can only achieve their priorities through distorting domestic allocative choices. Second, funders are likely to fully embrace country ownership only in cases where they believe alternative uses of domestic funds have integrity (as defined by the funder). The model also shows that when funders put higher priority on achieving their goals than accommodating recipient allocation preferences, they should prefer conditional payments, matching grants, or outcome payments. Among these, the donor’s preferences would depend on the relative observability of expenditures to outcomes. If instead funders embrace country ownership and seek to maximize the country’s welfare, lump sum grants are better. In terms of Paris Declaration goals of sustainability, the aid contracts which are least aligned with recipient country priorities will not be sustained after aid ends unless domestic preferences are altered by a process of hysteresis.
Topic:
Development, Diplomacy, International Cooperation, and Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
Global Focus

22. The perils of development aid in resource-rich countries

Author:
Chiara Ravetti
Publication Date:
03-2018
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Environmental Studies, The Graduate Institute (IHEID)
Abstract:
The emergence of China and other new donors offering foreign assistance to mineraland land-rich African countries has spurred a renewed interest in the relationship between international aid and natural resources (Dreher and Fuchs, 2015; Dreher et al., 2018). Many low-income countries with valuable natural resources have historically received large amounts of aid from OECD donors (Fig. 1). Poor countries endowed with abundant fossil fuels or mineral reserves can have difficulties in converting their resource wealth into other forms of physical or human capital, because these subsoil assets take time to be managed, extracted and traded. Foreign aid can thus provide a complementary source of immediate liquidity for development. On the other hand, the provision of external finances has the potential to hinder political accountability, and ultimately economic development especially in countries with weak institutions.h countries
Topic:
Development, Humanitarian Aid, Foreign Aid, and Development Aid
Political Geography:
Global Focus

23. Payouts for Perils How Insurance Can Radically Improve Emergency Aid

Author:
Theodore Talbot, Stefan Dercon, and Owen Barder
Publication Date:
04-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for Global Development (CGD)
Abstract:
Millions of people face hazards like cyclones and drought every day. International aid to deal with disasters after they strike is generous, but it is unpredictable and fragmented, and it often fails to arrive when it would do the most good. We must stop treating disasters like surprises. Matching finance to planning today will save lives, money, and time tomorrow.
Topic:
Humanitarian Aid, Foreign Aid, and International Development
Political Geography:
Global Focus

24. The politics of foreign aid

Author:
Liz Schrayer
Publication Date:
07-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
In 2011, as the annual budget resolution hit the Senate floor, multiple amendments were offered to cut the foreign assistance account. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky offered the most dangerous amendment to cut billions from the International Affairs Budget. While it was defeated, it still garnered 20 votes. In the intervening years, Senator Paul offered similar amendments—but his final effort in 2015 was different. It was soundly defeated by a 96-4 vote.
Topic:
Humanitarian Aid and Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
Global Focus

25. Institutional architecture of U.S. foreign aid

Author:
George Ingram
Publication Date:
07-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
“Bureaucratically fragmented, awkward, and slow, its (foreign aid) administration is diffused over a haphazard and irrational structure... The program is based on a series of legislative measures and administrative procedures conceived at different times and for different purposes and many of them obsolete, inconsistent, and unduly rigid and thus unsuited for our present needs and purpose.”—President John F. Kennedy’s Special Message to the Congress on Foreign Aid, March 22, 1961, that led to the enactment of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the establishment of United States Agency for International Development.
Topic:
Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
Global Focus

26. Handle with care: The challenge of fragility

Author:
Nancy Lindborg
Publication Date:
07-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
Despite enormous gains in poverty reduction and a long, steady drop in global violence over the past 70 years, progress is stubbornly stalled in those states considered most fragile. In the last de- cade, rising levels of violent con ict in states and regions like Syria, South Sudan, Yemen, Libya, Nigeria and East Africa have spawned four civil wars, the specter of four famines, and historic numbers of people displaced by violence, all of which are straining the global humanitarian sys- tem and threatening precious development gains. The world has responded with ever-larger pack- ages of humanitarian, military, and peacekeeping action. What remains missing, however, is a concerted focus on the underlying dynamics of fragility, which will ultimately require a different way of doing business and, importantly, a shared blueprint for action among political, security, development, and humanitarian actors.
Topic:
Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
Global Focus

27. American public support for foreign aid in the age of Trump

Author:
Stephen Kull
Publication Date:
07-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
Is President Donald Trump’s “America First” policy a reflection of a larger isolationist trend in public attitudes? And what do Americans think about foreign aid in particular? The answer is complex. On the one hand, recent polls suggest a robust majority support an engaged U.S. role in the world, a moral dimension to U.S. foreign policy, and giving foreign aid, especially humanitarian aid. On the other, many are dissatisfied with America’s role in the post-Cold War era, and Trump has effectively played on that disillusionment. The U.S. is seen as having overextended itself in playing a hegemonic role in the world, a role that has served corporate interests and the wealthy, but that has not effectively served the middle class, which is largely footing the bill for it. This overextension is seen as being reflected in the U.S. budget deficit, which troubles the public more than the elites.
Topic:
International Affairs and Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
Global Focus

28. Development assistance for peacebuilding

Author:
Rachel M. Gisselquist
Publication Date:
02-2017
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Development assistance to fragile states and conflict-affected areas is a core component of peacebuilding. It includes support for the restoration of core government functions, delivery of basic services, the rule of law, and economic revitalization. Yet, while aid has been among the largest financial inflows to fragile states in recent years, its impact has been mixed. Better understanding of what works and why thus remains a core challenge for development researchers and practitioners.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Foreign Aid, Conflict, and Peace
Political Geography:
Global Focus

29. Aid, environment and climate change

Author:
Channing Arndt and Finn Tarp
Publication Date:
12-2017
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Development aid by itself cannot ‘save the planet’. Yet, development aid and institutions have the potential to remain important catalytic actors in achieving developmental and global environmental objectives. Developing countries must be crucial players in successful climate change mitigation as they are responsible for 88% of the growth in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions since 1970. However, the current aid architecture — which was designed in the 1970s when environmental issues were a distant concern — is not well suited to support environmental challenges that extend beyond low-income countries.
Topic:
Climate Change, Development, Environment, and Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
Global Focus

30. The Politics of Effective Aid and Interstate Conflict

Author:
Ömer F. Örsün
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
The link between foreign aid and military conflict has received little attention in both aid effectiveness and interstate conflict research. This study provides a first-cut analysis of the impact of foreign aid on interstate conflict among recipient countries. In doing so, it opens the black box of state and builds on the previous research in the aid effectiveness literature and on the signaling processes in the conflict literature. Previous research indicates that the effectiveness of aid in improving citizen welfare is conditional on the presence of democratic institutions. This study shows that this conditional relationship has a detrimental effect on crisis bargaining outcomes. Foreign aid, on the one hand, increases citizen welfare in democratic regimes; hence, also governments’ ex- ante re-election prospects. On the other hand, foreign aid retards government ability to generate audience costs and to send informative signals to their opponents. Analyzing all dyads from 1961 to 2001 yields robust support for this view. As aid inflows increase, targets’ resistance propensity against threats issued by democratic governments becomes statistically indistinguishable from threats issued by autocratic governments. Moreover, democratic states are not significantly more peaceful to each other than non-democratic pairs once we take into account the amount of foreign aid they receive.
Topic:
Foreign Aid, Democracy, Conflict, and Aid Effectiveness
Political Geography:
Global Focus