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Publications (26)
The questions of whether aid has impact and is effective have been the subject of a considerable literature, including attention to the aggregate impact of aid on growth across countries (Arndt, Jones, & Tarp, 2010, 2015, 2016; Burnside & Dollar, 2000; Easterly, 2003; Hansen & Tarp, 2001; Jones &...
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Many practical and action-oriented international roadmaps to improve the quality of aid and its delivery and impact on development—including the Paris Declaration, Accra Agenda for Action, and Busan Partnership—emphasize a more active involvement of domestic institutions and procedures. Despite...
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– What can(’t) the data tell us?
Climate-related foreign aid is on the rise, with signatories to the Paris Climate agreement pledging US$100 billion annually to promote mitigation and adaptation in recipient countries. While this seems like a welcome development, we have little evidence that climate aid actually encourages...
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This paper critically reviews evidence on ‘thinking and working politically’ in development. Scholars and practitioners have increasingly recognised that development is fundamentally political, and efforts are underway to develop more politically informed ways of thinking and working. The literature...
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In 2010, the G8 placed renewed focus on maternal health via the Muskoka Initiative by committing to spend an additional US$5 billion on maternal, newborn, and child health before 2015. Following the end of the Millennium Development Goals and the advent of the Sustainable Development Goals, maternal...
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While significant amounts of foreign aid have been allocated to the group of so-called fragile and conflict-affected states in recent years, it is not clear whether that aid is targeted to where it is most needed. This paper extends recent work by Carment and Samy, and focuses on aid targeting in...
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– The division of financing in World Bank projects and project performance
The total funding envelope for World Bank projects is often divided among various state and non-state actors, each of which can have competing ideas about or interests in the project. How does the division of financing relate to overall project effectiveness? I argue that too many funding streams in...
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This paper presents a review of recent studies that estimate the trade effects of foreign aid. It also provides new results obtained using panel data techniques to estimate the direct effects of aid on international trade, accounting for countries’ participation in free trade agreements, and the...
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– Evidence from donor campaigns for temporary UN Security Council seats
In recent years, donor countries have increasingly used different aid allocation channels to boost aid effectiveness. One delivery channel that has grown tremendously is ‘multi-bi aid’—contributions to multilateral organizations earmarked for specific development purposes. This article examines...
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– What do we know?
Over the last 35 years, microfinance has been generally regarded as an effective policy tool in the fight against poverty. Yet, the question of whether access to credit leads to poverty reduction and improved wellbeing remains open. To address this question, we conduct a systematic review of the...
Much criticism of aid rests on no evidence at all, on out-of-date studies (many of which are methodologically weak) or on a misunderstanding of causation and country context. Many critics correlate weak or negative growth with aid flows, without much (if any) attention to the direction of causation...
Journal Special Issue
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
This special section on aid and institutions discusses how they constitute an important element of the global response to interlinked global developmental and environmental challenges. As such, these institutions are now being drawn into new arenas beyond the traditional focus on improving the...
This special issue of the Journal of International Development comprises a set of papers on the theme of aid and gender equality. While the topic of aid effectiveness has been examined in this journal and elsewhere, the focus on how well development assistance to countries and non-governmental...
The studies of this Special Issue aim to address the general question of how aid can better support the collective actions that seek to improve education systems in developing countries. Overall, they provide an analysis of key policy strategies that can improve the functioning of education systems...
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This paper discusses the recent history of education aid policy. It highlights an important shift in policy thinking in the international aid architecture that has dominated the global education aid agenda since the early 1990s. It argues that Rawlsian principles of social justice, human rights...
The UNU-WIDER Special Issue aims to address collectively the following questions: (1) What are the principles and facts that have underpinned the evolution of bilateral and multilateral social sector aid over the past 25 years? In particular, how pro-poor has aid to the social sectors been? (2) What...
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