Donor Aid The Determinants Of Development Allocations To Third World Countries

This fascinating study on international development aid addresses a central, yet too often neglected question: what does account for the variation in commitments to economic aid across the OECD donors? Building on a theoretical framework derived from «bounded rationality», Louis M. Imbeau elaborates a number of competing explanations and proceeds to test them on data collected for 17 OECD donors over the period 1966-1981. In so doing, this book makes a significant contribution to an interesting body of literature.

Assessing Aid determines that the effectiveness of aid is not decided by the amount received but rather the institutional and policy environment into which it is accepted. It examines how development assistance can be more effective at reducing global poverty and gives five mainrecommendations for making aid more effective: targeting financial aid to poor countries with good policies and strong economic management; providing policy-based aid to demonstrated reformers; using simpler instruments to transfer resources to countries with sound management; focusing projects oncreating and transmitting knowledge and capacity; and rethinking the internal incentives of aid agencies.

Foreign aid to developing countries is a subject of heated debate among politicians, economists, and development specialists. Does aid promote economic growth and reduce poverty? Some argue that foreign aid has no effect on growth and may sometimes even undermine growth in aid recipient countries. Others suggest that foreign aid positively influences economic growth. Still others suggest that foreign aid has a positive impact on growth but this impact is conditional on a good institutional and policy environment. This debate has high stakes, given that foreign aid in the form of official development assistance (ODA) by leading donor nations reached over US$120 billion in 2010, the highest level ever recorded. This study contributes to the debate by taking a different approach from conventional analyses of the aid–growth relationship. Analysis of the aid–growth relationship shows no significant connection between aggregate aid and per capita GDP growth. Rather than treating ODA as a single category, the study disaggregates it into several different categories, based on which sector of a recipient’s economy the ODA is meant to help or promote. The study investigates whether changes in sectoral allocation of ODA influence the effectiveness of foreign aid in promoting economic growth. Although this is not an entirely new direction for research in this area, little is known about the possible causal impacts of aid to different sectors on economic growth. The results of the study are presented in Foreign Aid Allocation, Governance, & Economic Growth, recently published by the University of Pennsylvania Press for IFPRI.

Peter Hjertholm, Editorial Assistant Aid has worked in the past but can be made to work better in the future. In this important new book, leading economists and political scientists, including experienced aid practitioners, re-examine foreign aid. The evolution of development doctrine over the past fifty years is critically investigated, and conven

The determinants of foreign aid allocation have shifted significantly. In the post-2001 period, aid allocation is consistent with donors pursuing a strategy of targeted development. Industrialized states are increasingly unable to insulate themselves from spillovers caused by underdevelopment abroad. Donors attempt to use aid to decrease these spillovers, targeting developing countries where the effects on the donor are anticipated to be large. Once a recipient is chosen, concerns for recipient government capacity guide the composition of aid. Targeted development emerges as an important, additional framework for understanding donor motivations, alongside traditional explanations of “donor interest” and “recipient need” that have dominated the aid allocation literature since the 1970s. Empirical analysis of aid allocation from 1973-2012 demonstrates that, while explanations based on security and economic ties to the donor explain allocation well in the cold war, the post-2001 period is best understood by incorporating a role for targeted development.

Foreign aid is one of the few topics in the development discourse with such an uninterrupted, yet volatile history in terms of interest and attention from academics, policymakers, and practitioners alike. Does aid work in promoting growth and reducing poverty in the developing world? Will a new 'big push' approach accelerate progress towards the Millennium Development Goals or will another opportunity be missed? Can the lessons of almost half a century of aid giving be learnt? These are truly important questions in view of the emerging new landscape in foreign aid and recent developments related to the global financial crisis, which are expected to have far reaching implications for both donors and recipients engaged in this area. Against this shifting aid landscape, there is a pressing need to evaluate progress to date and shed new light on emerging issues and agendas. This volume brings together leading aid experts to review the progress achieved so far, identify the challenges ahead, and discuss the emerging policy agenda in foreign aid. A central conclusion of this important and timely volume is that, since development aid remains crucial for many developing countries, a huge effort is needed from both donors and aid recipients to overcome the inefficiencies and make aid work better for poor people. After all, as global citizens, we have a moral obligation to do the best we can to lift people out of poverty in the developing world. The findings of this book will be of considerable interest to professionals and policymakers engaged in policy reforms in foreign aid, and provide an essential one-stop reference for students of development, international finance, and economics.

This book addresses several gaps in knowledge of aid allocation and effectiveness and provides new analytical insights. Topics covered include the interface between aid allocation and perceptions of aid effectiveness, the year-on-year volatility of aid and evaluation of the country-level impacts of aid.

In a globalizing world, the world's wealthiest nations have found it increasingly difficult to insulate themselves from the residual impacts associated with underdevelopment abroad. Many of the ills associated with, and exacerbated by, underdevelopment cannot be confined within national borders. In Targeted Development, Sarah Blodgett Bermeo shows how wealthy states have responded to this problem by transforming the very nature of development policy. Instead of funding development projects that enhance human well-being in the most general sense, they now pursue a "targeted" strategy: advocating development abroad when and where it serves their own interests. In an era in which the ideology of "globalism" is in decline, targeted development represents a fundamental shift toward a realpolitik approach to foreign aid. Devising development plans that ultimately protect and benefit industrialized donor states now drives the agenda, while crafting effective solutions for deep-seated problems in the neediest nations is increasingly an afterthought.

The Oxford Handbook of the Social Science of Poverty builds a common scholarly ground in the study of poverty by bringing together an international, inter-disciplinary group of scholars to provide their perspectives on the issue. Contributors engage in discussions about the leading theories and conceptual debates regarding poverty, the most salient topics in poverty research, and the far-reaching consequences of poverty on the individual and societal level.