Foreign aid transparency amid politicization

Does foreign aid affect innovation and institutional quality in middle-income countries?

Book Review| January 01 2021 Review: Promoting Democracy: The Force of Political Settlements in Uncertain Times, by Manal A. Jamal Promoting Democracy: The Force of Political Settlements in Uncertain Times, by Manal A. Jamal. New York: New York University Press, 2019. 320 pages. Black and white illustrations. $35.00 (paper). ISBN: 978-1-479-87845-1. John Thomas, III John Thomas, III University of Chicago Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar National Review of Black Politics (2021) 2 (1): 75–77. https://doi.org/10.1525/nrbp.2021.2.1.75 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation John Thomas; Review: Promoting Democracy: The Force of Political Settlements in Uncertain Times, by Manal A. Jamal. National Review of Black Politics 1 January 2021; 2 (1): 75–77. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/nrbp.2021.2.1.75 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter All ContentNational Review of Black Politics Search In Promoting Democracy: The Force of Political Settlements in Uncertain Times, Manal Jamal delves into the world of foreign aid, NGOs (nongovernmental organizations), and civil society in postconflict situations to uncover why aid for democracy promotion works in some contexts but not in others. Departing from the quantitative studies that have informed discussions around foreign aid effectiveness, the author uses a structured, focused comparison of postconflict settlements in Palestine and El Salvador to uncover insights that can only be found through qualitative case studies. The Oslo Accords, signed in 1993 and 1995 between the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and the government of Israel with the aim of ending the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the existence of a Palestinian state and specifically the First Intifada (1987–93), are characterized as a noninclusive settlement. The Chapultepec Peace Accords, signed in 1992 between the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) and the government... You do not currently have access to this content.

Media assistance has arisen as a significant tool of media development and democracy initiatives, particularly in the last 20 years. While the research in foreign aid and democracy aid is rich, studies on media assistance are quite limited in number due to its novelty. Moreover, existing research on media assistance usually focuses on the role and/or impact of media assistance on recipient nations' media capacity or media independence. Differing from this existing research, this study focuses on the donors of media assistance and asks how generous foreign aid donors are in media development and what type of donors provide media assistance. Using data from the OECD, Freedom House, Reporters Without Borders, and Comparative Political dataset, this study finds that democratic countries, countries with higher independence in their media, and governments with center ideology are more likely to provide a higher amount of media assistance compared to others.

Background Agricultural development has the potential to strengthen food security, reduce poverty, and accelerate economic growth, especially in the early stages of development. Considering the important roles that agriculture can play in economic development, foreign aid donors have supported agriculture across developing countries. Method This study examined agricultural aid practices by bilateral donors in two African countries, Ghana and Ethiopia using official aid data. The two economies rely on agriculture, continue to receive agricultural aid, and have widely different governance qualities, with Ghana being considered better governed than Ethiopia. Results The study found that donors to Ghana prioritized agriculture over other aid sectors, whereas donors to Ethiopia did not prioritize agriculture, partly because of urgent humanitarian needs that included direct food assistance. Overall, donors to Ghana appeared to give the country more flexibility with agricultural aid by allocating more budget support, using the state channel, and partnering more with developing country-based non-governmental organizations. Donors to Ethiopia, by contrast, appeared to exert stricter control over agricultural aid by providing minimal budget support, making limited use of the state channel, and engaging negligibly with nongovernmental organizations based in developing countries. The largest donor, the US, shaped the overall profile of agricultural aid to Ghana and Ethiopia. While supporting two identical agricultural sub-sectors in both African countries, the US involved different aid agencies, reflecting greater confidence in Ghana. Conclusion Effective institutions in recipient governments may encourage donors to loosen their control over foreign aid, granting greater flexibility to recipient countries.

How can foreign aid be more effective? The development community has found one such answer in a movement to identify best aid practices, and to monitor, evaluate, and rank the performance of different aid donors along these measures. Although foreign aid donors have committed to implementing these best aid practices, the research on donor performance and rankings show that donors are still not reaching their stated goals. This chapter summarizes the findings in the literature on donor performance and examines the research surrounding the factors that influence donors’ decisions to engage in best aid practices. Questions of donor motivation and the political economy of donor strategies and performance have come under scrutiny for influencing ineffective aid strategies.

This paper evaluates the impact of foreign aid on poverty and human well-being in Papua New Guinea during the 1990s. The methodology of the paper involves comparing the mix of donors’ aid policies aimed at the promotion of economic growth, direct targeting of the poor and the provision of safety nets with the poverty and well-being situation in Papua New Guinea. Growth in Papua New Guinea has not been pro-poor and the high level of inequality reduces the impact of growth on poverty. The sectoral allocation of foreign aid to Papua New Guinea has been broadly consistent with a strategy to effectively reduce poverty and increase human well-being. However, the paper concludes by suggesting ways in which foreign aid donors can more effectively achieve these goals.

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). …

Resumo Vozes da opinião pública e alguma literatura científica afirmam que as organizações da sociedade civil moçambicana não têm autonomia, dado que dependem da ajuda externa para a sua sobrevivência. Com base na investigação que realizamos entre os anos 2010-2018, primeiro no âmbito dos meus estudos doutorais e, posteriormente, no plano da linha de pesquisa que estabeleci no Departamento de Sociologia da Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, não concordamos com esta afirmação categórica e, neste artigo, argumentamos que, não obstante o fator dependência da ajuda externa, entre outros constrangimentos inerentes ao contexto de pobreza que o país atravessa, algumas organizações da sociedade civil, como é o caso do Fórum Mulher, revelam um sentido de autonomia. Esta lhes permite se afirmarem como sujeitos e fazerem intervenções bem-sucedidas na arena pública nacional, contribuindo assim para a aprovação de leis e políticas públicas que buscam acautelar a igualdade de género e os direitos da mulher.

In this article, we explore how logics and systems of coloniality are reproduced through the bureaucracy of international aid. Drawing on qualitative research with civil society and international aid workers in Myanmar, we examine tensions between international agencies' 'do no harm' and 'localisation' commitments and their compliance requirements. We demonstrate that international compliance frameworks are experienced as top-down and overly rigid by civil society actors leading aid programmes, and that they can have unintended negative consequences, causing harm to Myanmar aid workers and communities. These frameworks also reinforce logics and systems of coloniality, by valuing the technocratic knowledge and approaches of international agencies over the 'ways of being' of civil society actors, and by crystallising artificial and hierarchical distinctions between the 'local' and 'international'. Compliance systems in turn highlight the inadequacies of current 'localisation' endeavours, which fail to recognise and redress deep-seated inequalities and injustices in the international humanitarian industry.

Budget transparency—the open disclosure of government financial information—is increasingly recognized as essential to democratic governance and legitimacy. Empirical research indicates that jurisdictions with well‐implemented transparency measures often experience notable improvements in public trust. For example, studies have shown that regions with robust fiscal disclosure can see trust levels improve by 10% to 20% over multi-year periods. Cross-national surveys further suggest that nations scoring highly on open budget initiatives tend to exhibit elevated levels of citizen engagement and satisfaction with government performance. Theoretically, greater transparency helps reduce information asymmetry between public officials and citizens, thereby enhancing accountability as posited by both the principal-agent framework and broader accountability theories. However, the positive impact of budget transparency on public trust is contingent on contextual factors such as institutional capacity, media freedom, and citizen fiscal literacy. This article synthesizes theoretical frameworks, empirical findings, and policy analyses to explore how enhanced budget transparency can foster public trust, and it provides evidence-based recommendations for strengthening democratic accountability in diverse governance settings.

This chapter explores how non-state actors (NSAs) seek to influence government policy in relation to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and preferential trade agreements (PTAs) as alternative venues for international trade cooperation. Little research has been done on NSA–government interaction on trade policy development in Jordan, and almost no analysis exists that captures and contrasts this interaction in relation to multilateral as opposed to bilateral or plurilateral negotiations. This chapter, based on interviews with representatives of government and NSAs, focuses on recent developments in Jordan’s trade policy-making. It has found that NSA activity in Jordan is relatively weakly developed compared with the other cases in this study, but that it is growing, in large part as a result of the influence of international actors, including US foreign aid donors and some other international business and civil society organizations (CSOs).

Defined as the differential degree to which rich and poor countries benefit from new information and communications technologies such as the Internet, the global digital divide is widely measured by international institutions in terms of the number of persons with individual access to those technologies. Yet, while this measure makes sense in the rich countries, where individual ownership is widespread among the population, it makes very little sense in poor countries. For, in the latter, what we find is that although individual access is indeed very limited, a remarkable number of local innovations ensure that the benefits of the Internet are made available to at least 10 million people throughout the Third World. Many such persons are illiterate, unskilled and resident in the rural areas of developing countries. These findings directly contradict the commonly held notion that there are few, if any, local innovations in the applications of the Internet outside the rich countries and those parts of poorer countries with close connections to the former (most typically through multinational corporations).From a policy point of view, we suggest that foreign aid donors and national governments pay less attention to providing individual access facilities such as so-called telecentres and focus instead on ways to foster indigenous rural innovation systems devoted to finding relevant and cost-effective applications of the Internet.

Studies show that climate risks are deterring multinational companies (MNCs) from making foreign investments in developing countries. This is worrisome, as foreign direct investment (FDI) is one of the key ingredients for generating economic growth and development in low- and middle-income nations. Investment avoidance is largely driven by concerns that adaptation costs will be left to MNCs. Therefore, they may not withhold investments when host states absorb those costs for them. Yet many developing countries lack the resources to do so. The international community is attempting to bridge this gap through the provision of climate aid. Aid inflows may signal to MNCs that a potential host state has the resources to address key climate risks, leading them to follow through on investments. This paper tests this argument by investigating whether climate aid reduces MNCs’ anxieties about investing in climate-vulnerable countries. Empirical results suggest that climate risks deter MNCs from investing in countries that receive low levels of climate aid. However, this effect vanishes as climate aid inflows rise. These findings indicate that foreign aid donors can play a productive role in ensuring ongoing inflows of FDI to developing countries, even in the presence of climate risks.

Taxation has been seen as the domain of charisma-free accountants, lawyers and number crunchers – an unlikely place to encounter big societal questions about democracy, equity or good governance. Yet it is exactly these issues that pervade conversations about taxation among policymakers, tax collectors, civil society activists, journalists and foreign aid donors in Africa today. Tax has become viewed as central to African development. Written by leading international experts, Taxing Africa offers a cutting-edge analysis on all aspects of the continent’s tax regime, displaying the crucial role such arrangements have on attempts to create social justice and push economic advancement. From tax evasion by multinational corporations and African elites to how ordinary people navigate complex webs of ‘informal’ local taxation, the book examines the potential for reform, and how space might be created for enabling locally-led strategies.

Foreign Aid Donors and the Burden of Aid