Foreign Aid: New Perspectives

Introduction More than a decade ago, the World Bank argued that “underlying the litany of Africa’s development problems is a crisis of governance.” Poor quality institutions, weak rule of law, an absence of accountability, tight controls over information, and high levels of corruption still characterize many African states today. Aid levels have been reduced in many parts of Africa during the past decade. Yet in many of the countries with poor governance records, aid continues to contribute a very high percentage of government budgets. This article explores the institutional impact of these high levels of aid and the way that large amounts of aid are delivered. There are many reasons why governance is poor in much of sub-Saharan Africa. Colonialism did little to develop strong, indigenously rooted institutions that could tackle the development demands of modern states. Economic crisis and unsustainable debt, civil wars, and political instability have all taken their toll over the past 2 decades and more. It is difficult to separate the impact of these problems from the possible impact of foreign aid, which is often high in countries that suffer from precisely these problems. Theory provides conflicting guidance here. On the one hand, aid can release governments from binding revenue constraints, enabling them to strengthen domestic institutions and pay higher salaries to civil servants. Aid can provide training and technical assistance to build legal systems and accounting offices. In many countries, aid personnel (sometimes expatriate) manage important government programs, and the infusion of resources and technical assistance can give an important boost to the efficiency and effectiveness of governance, if only in a partial sense. Yet despite these likely benefits, it is also possible that, continued over

Since the early 1990s, Japan has played an increasingly important and influential role in Africa. A primary mechanism that has furthered its influence has been through its foreign aid policies. Japan’s primacy, however, has been challenged by changing global conditions related to aid to Africa, including the consolidation of the poverty reduction agenda and China’s growing presence in Africa. This book analyzes contemporary political and economic relations in foreign aid policy between Japan and Africa. Primary questions focus on Japan’s influence in the African continent, reasons for spending its limited resources to further African development, and the way Japan’s foreign aid is invested in Africa. The context of examining Japan’s foreign aid policies highlights the fluctuation between its commitments in contributing to international development and its more narrow-minded pursuit of its national interests. The contributors examine Japan’s foreign aid policy within the theme of a globalized economy in which Japan and Africa are inextricably connected. Japan and many African countries have come to realize that both sides can obtain benefits through closely coordinated aid policies. Moreover, Japan sees itself to represent a distinct voice in the international donor community while Africa needs foreign aid from all sources.

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Foreign Aid and Foreign Policy. By Edward S. Mason [The Elihu Root Lectures.] (New York: Harper and Row, Inc., for the Council on Foreign Relations, 1964. Pp. ix, 118. Index. $3.50.) - Volume 21 Issue 3

The suspension of US foreign aid by President Trump in January 2025 marked a significant shock to the global aid ecosystem, raising critical questions about the behaviour of European official development assistance (ODA) donors as media coverage of the event and public opinion might affect political decision-making. Against this backdrop, we examine the German public’s opinion on the USAID shutdown and their preferences for Germany’s and the European Union’s aid policies. A rapid survey conducted in February–March 2025 (N = 1055) shows that while Germans broadly view the Trump administration’s decision to freeze US aid negatively, expressing particular concern about its impact on humanitarian issues, a substantial majority prefers no change to Germany’s foreign aid policy. Our analysis indicates that political ideology, populist attitudes and trust in the German federal government significantly shape whether individuals view the shutdown favourably and whether they support either mimicking US aid cuts or stepping in to fill the gap. By contrast, concerns about the German economy do not translate into support for foreign aid cuts.

This article presents a comprehensive discourse analysis of the Marshall Plan’s administration, shedding light on a facet of history that has often been overlooked in favor of discussions on aid effectiveness and outcomes. Central to our inquiry is the hypothesis that the institutionalization of U.S. foreign aid, initiated with the Marshall Plan, played a critical role in its success and laid the foundation for future aid initiatives. By focusing on the administrative strategies and decision-making processes, the study offers novel insights into how these elements contributed to the Plan’s effectiveness and the overall evolution of U.S. foreign aid policy. The analysis draws on a variety of primary sources, including historical documents, speeches, and policy papers, to provide a detailed picture of the Plan’s implementation. In doing so, we unveil the complex dynamics and challenges of post-war recovery efforts and the strategic decisions that shaped them. The findings reveal the intricacies of the Marshall Plan’s administration and provide valuable lessons for contemporary policy discourse, particularly in the context of Ukraine’s ongoing recovery and its significance to Kyiv’s international partners. This study contributes to the existing body of literature by offering a nuanced understanding of the Marshall Plan’s legacy and its enduring impact on international development and foreign aid. It serves as a vital resource for policymakers, scholars, and practitioners engaged in shaping effective and sustainable foreign aid programs in the modern era. This study also examines the evolution of U.S. foreign aid from the mid-19th century technical missions to the modern era, highlighting key changes in aid administration and objectives. By tracing this evolution, it contextualizes the Marshall Plan within the broader narrative of U.S. international development policy. The role of the Truman administration in shaping the plan and its broader foreign policy implications, including containment of communism and promotion of democracy, are critically analyzed. This article thus fills a gap in the literature by offering a comprehensive view of the Marshall Plan’s administration and its lasting influence on U.S. foreign aid policy.

STRUGGLING FOR EFFECTIVENESS CID A and Canadian Foreign Aid Stephen Brown, ed. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queeris University Press, 2012. 384 pp, $32.95 (paper) ISBN 978-0-7735-4057-6Canadians - and scholars of Canada - have made a national pastime of assessing Canada's relative position in the world. Is Canada a power? Is Canada a major foreign policy (or development) actor? What is the future of Canada's place in the world? Struggling for Effectiveness: CIDA and Canadian Foreign Aid, edited by Stephen Brown, fits with this mode of questioning. Several of the volume's fifteen authors seek to understand Canada's relative ranking in the global foreign aid hierarchy through comparisons to donors such as Ireland, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. Surprisingly absent from the volume are comparisons to the United States or other donors, such as Japan, who deviate from some of the standards of the international aid donor community that this volume stresses.A less-than-complete understanding of Canada as a foreign aid donor emerges from the comparative approach thatmarks the book's early chapters. While these chapters highlight the positive aspects of other countries' aid programs, the reader learns that on many indicators Canada is simply a middle of the pack country. In multiple rankings in areas ranging from donor size to generosity, Canada sits squarely in the of developed country aid donors, if not ranking slightly above the average for donor performance (53, 89, and Chapter 1). While this situation is clearly a concern for those who see foreign aid as an integral part of Canada's humanitarian ethos and believe that this ethos should define our foreign relations, it may not be a concern for most Canadians: the book provides evidence that prior to the 2000 elections only a minority of Canadians favoured increased foreign aid spending (251). This volume therefore reflects a perpetual tension between how Canadians see themselves and their country and the policies they and their government support. The domestic political context for the recent changes in Canadian foreign aid policy that form the key interest of the volume is laid out well in the chapters by David Black and Adam Chapnick.The overarching message of Struggling for Effectiveness is that Canada's foreign aid policy has lacked a clear and inspiring vision for quite some time. The result of this absence of vision has been policy incoherence, which implies that Canada will remain a middle of the pack country in the area of foreign aid for the foreseeable future. The objective of the book is twofold: to identify precisely where Canada's shortcomings lie and to offer advice and potential solutions for raising Canada from its status. While the authors largely succeed in the former task, their ability to make progress on the latter is limited by the overly critical focus of much of the volume. Indeed, the vast majority of contributors focus on policy failings since Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party came to (minority) power. Rare exceptions to this focus on Harper's failings are found in Stephen Brown's critique of the contraction of Canada's aid budget under Prime Minister Jean Chretien (95) and David Black's acknowledgement in a chapter titled Between Indifference and Idiosyncrasy: The Conservatives and Canadian Foreign Aid to Africa that the Liberals presided over the deepest cuts in the history of the Canadian aid program (248). While this book may not have been edited according to a political agenda, it certainly reflects the contentious domestic politics of Canada of the past decade.Tensions also exist between the consensus of the international aid donor community (which many of the authors in this volume use as a foil to Canada's policies) and some of the prescriptions offered in the volume. The Harper government's focus on Latin America actually reflects the current aid donor consensus that Canada should have greater geographic or sectoral concentration in its foreign aid program (53 and 90). …

The economic development in Sub-Saharan Africa since independence has been disappointing (World Bank, 1993, Helleiner, 1990). Since large amounts of foreign aid have been channeled to the region during this period, it is no wonder that some observers have raised the question that foreign aid has held back growth. In this article we concentrate on only one of the arguments concerning a possible negative growth effect of foreign aid — the Dutch disease.

Nearly 30 years have passed since the government of Japan unveiled its first Official Development Assistance Charter. Although it sets forth fundamental guidelines for the government’s foreign aid policy, previous studies have downplayed the influence of the ODA Charter. By contrast, this study argues that the ODA Charter changed Japan’s aid allocation behavior in relation to a number of issues. First, regarding military matters: since the introduction of the 1992 ODA Charter, testing of weapons of mass destruction by developing nations, as well as military expenditures for conventional weaponry by developing nations outside of Asia, have had a negative effect on aid from Japan. Non-military cooperation with military personnel was newly introduced as a principle in the 2015 Development Cooperation Charter, and that type of cooperation increased from 2015 on, a clear indication of the influence of the Charter. Foreign aid designed to serve Japan’s own interests was first discussed in the 2003 Charter, and the proportion of that type of aid has since increased. The aims of avoiding military force and returning economic benefits to Japan, which have long had strong domestic support in postwar Japan, were seamlessly incorporated into the ODA Charter. By contrast, the aims of promoting democratization and protecting the vulnerable—international norms for foreign aid, imported from abroad—are duly set forth in the ODA Charter, which ostensibly guides Japan’s foreign aid policy, but they have had no impact on its actual aid allocation behavior.

For decades, agriculture has been central to economic growth and development in Pakistan. However, endemic rural poverty hinders the performance of agricultural production, and thus deteriorates the sustainable development perspectives of the agricultural sector and the entire country. The need for agricultural reform emphasizes raising farmers’ incomes as a cornerstone of the sustainable development of rural areas, and this study attempts to reveal the effects of foreign aid and government policies on the level of rural poverty in Pakistan. In total, 384 farmers from major agricultural areas of Pakistan completed the survey-based questionnaire. The partial least square structural equation modelling technique tested the results. They, using sustainable agriculture practices, improved agricultural production positively and significantly. Agriculture production positively and significantly reduces or mitigates poverty. This study aimed to reveal the role of foreign aid in sustaining agricultural production and eradicating rural poverty. Foreign aid positively moderated the association between sustainable agriculture practices and agricultural production. In addition, government policies negatively, yet insignificantly, moderate the association between agriculture production and poverty reduction. Furthermore, the findings indicate that agriculture production positively and significantly mediates the association between sustainable agriculture practices and poverty reduction. The study contributes to the literature by improving the understanding of linkages within the poverty-policies-aid-sustainability framework.

The paper explores a number of long standing questions surrounding how foreign aid has influenced the fiscal behaviour of the PNG Government. This includes whether grant aid has encouraged the PNG government to be less fiscally responsible and accumulate higher levels of foreign debt; whether grant aid has tended to lower the PNG government's domestic revenue raising efforts; whether grant aid has drawn government expenditures away from key service delivery sectors; and whether budget support and project and program aid have had differential effects with respect to any of the foregoing questions. The analysis reveals several important insights regarding the interplay between foreign aid and public sector fiscal behaviour including evidence that grant aid has been an important source of debt reduction during this period. However, grant aid has tended to erode the domestic tax base, which has limited the government's ability to increase aggregate expenditure levels. Evidence is also found that suggests a significant portion of budget support was spent on key development sectors, although it also undermined domestic revenue collection. A number of policy implications follow.

Much has been made of the move from a welfare to a development paradigm in Africa without any serious interrogation of what this means in relation to the development discourse. Though the focus of this book is social work and social development in Africa, really understanding the meaning of a 'development paradigm' – and social work's role in, and contribution to, social development – requires exploration of the discourses shaping development, foreign aid, and poverty reduction in Africa. Social work more often than not uses a value-driven approach undergirded by human rights and social justice. On the basis of these values, its emancipatory claims are seen as self-justifying: social workers are said to champion the rights of vulnerable and oppressed people and to work toward poverty alleviation without serious consideration of how they do this located in government or nongovernment organisations with various goals and missions. In Africa, international financial institutions (IFIs) and international nongovernment organisations (INGOs) exert a strong influence on national development policy and exactly what the relationship is between development, foreign aid, and poverty alleviation has been a matter of ongoing debate.

Introduction: European Development Co-operation at the Beginning of a New Millennium 1. The Changing International and Conceptual Environments of Development Co-operation 2. Austrian Aid Policy 3. Belgian Aid Policies in the 1990s 4. British Aid Policy in the 'Short-Blair' Years 5. Danish Aid Policy in the Post-Cold War Period: Increasing Resources and Minor Adjustments 6. Finland: Aid and Identity 7. French Development Co-operation Policy 8. Germany's Development Co-operation Policy since the Early 1990s: Increased Conceptual Ambitions in Times of Severe Financial Constraint 9. The Foreign Aid Policy of Ireland 10. Trends in the Debate on Italian Aid 11. A New Member of the G-0.7: Luxemburg as the Smallest and Largest Donor 12. All in the Name of Quality: Dutch Development Co-operation in the 1990s 13. Norwegian Aid Policy: Continuity and Change in the 1990s and Beyond 14. Spanish Foreign Aid: Flaws of an Emerging Framework 15. Swedish Development Co-operation in Perspective 16. Swiss Development Co-operation: Major Changes since the Early 1990s and Future Challenges 17. The European Union's Development Policy: Shifting Priorities in a Rapidly Changing World. Glossary. Notes on Contributors. Index.

Recent studies and reports suggest that foreign aid/intervention has been somewhat futile in eradicating conflict. In this study, we develop a simultaneous donor/recipient model of foreign aid and terrorism. Thereafter, we extend our theoretical propositions through a machine learning algorithm of inductive causation. We find that terrorism increases foreign aid, however foreign assistance is futile in mitigating terrorism. Additionally, socio-economic factors influence foreign aid given by the donors. But foreign assistance is unsuccessful in enhancing the livelihoods of the underprivileged. We conclude that foreign aid policies need to be more efficient.

This article challenges the dominant narrative that overlooks the role of domestic factors in Taiwanese foreign aid in favour of politics cast at the cross-Strait and international levels. It examines the emergence and effects of partisan politics on Taipei's foreign aid policies, including aid budgets and the motivation for providing foreign aid. It argues that, rather than the cross-Strait conflict as such, it was contests and rivalries among Taiwan's political parties and government agencies – underpinned by ongoing projects of state building – that shaped the variable objectives, policies and processes of Taipei's foreign aid-giving.