Trends and Issues in Development Aid

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

Japan’s Foreign Aid: Old Continuities and New Directions, edited by David Arase. New York: Routledge, 2005, 336 pp., $132.00 (hardcover ISBN 0415359996) Japan’s Foreign Aid: Old Continuities and New Directions provides a detailed account and comprehensive analysis of Japan’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) through the comparative perspective of other donor countries (the UK, Sweden, Australia, the US, Canada, and Korea and the World Bank) as well as recipient countries (Pakistan, China, South and Southeast Asia, the Pacific region, and Thailand). Throughout, chapters within this book question whether Japan’s ODA can fit the ‘contemporary global trend toward poverty-oriented international development assistance’ with satisfactory quality and effectiveness. The book’s historical and political analyses of Japan’s ODA are useful for understanding what has formed Japan’s aid philosophy, actual policymaking, and implementation of ODA. The editor, David Arase, carefully deals with these issues in his introductory and concluding chapters by suggesting many signs of improvement in Japan’s ODA policy. This book, however, seems to have been concluded before the recent development of cooperation in the social sector and at grassroots levels and a series of radical changes that occurred in aid administration. Regrettably, its emphasis on structural inertia and inadequate resources perhaps obscure the broader discussion of whether the social sector and governance focus, which is the standardized norm of ODA for alleviating poverty, are truly sufficient for achieving development objectives.

The global response to the HIV pandemic since the 2000s has been an unprecedented success, with rapid scale-up of HIV prevention and antiretroviral treatment (ART) programs [1]. Although most low-and-middle-income countries are transitioning towards domestic public funding because of shrinking donor funding, Official Development Assistance (ODA) remains an essential component of HIV financing, especially in sub-Saharan Africa [2]. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic produced an economic crisis characterized as the worst since the Great Depression in the 1930s [3]. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that reduced economic output and trade because of COVID-19 -- and its impactful countermeasures, such as lockdowns and curfews -- will shrink the world gross domestic product (GDP) by 4.4% in 2020, and will only gradually recover over the next years [4]. These declines can have devastating effects on donor and domestic healthcare financing for the years to come, including for HIV. We estimated the potential impact of the global recession on HIV financing in the 10 countries with the largest ART programs in sub-Saharan Africa -- Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa -- over the next 5 years to illustrate potential gaps due to the economic crises, and propose urgent mitigation strategies to ensure continued service delivery. Together, these countries account for roughly 70% of HIV-infected people worldwide [5] and spend an estimated US$7.5 billion on HIV annually, of which almost two-thirds (i.e. about US$ 4.7 billion) comes from ODA [6]. We used IMF economic projections on GDP growth and published estimates of current domestic spending and ODA for HIV in each country [4,5]. We first calculated the share of GDP spend on HIV from domestic sources, and the proportional share of ODA from donor countries. We then developed four scenarios to reflect possible effects of GDP declines and political choices in HIV financing, and calculated the net difference to a no-COVID-19 counterfactual using IMF country-specific economic projections from before the pandemic (Fig. 1).Fig. 1: Estimated impact of the coronavirus disease 2019-related global recession on HIV financing in the 10 countries with the largest HIV programs in sub-Saharan Africa.Figure 1 shows the projected net difference in country-specific HIV/AIDS budget over the next 5 years for four scenarios, compared with a no-COVID-19 counterfactual, for Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Uganda (low-income), Kenya, Nigeria, Zambia, and Zimbabwe (lower-middle-income), and South Africa (upper-middle-income). Estimates were generated using data on projected country-specific GDP growth from the IMF [4], and latest data on country-specific domestic and donor funding for HIV/AIDS as provided by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) [5]. All estimates are reported in 2019 US$. If the share of GDP designated for HIV in both domestic and donor countries remains unchanged, we estimate a gap of about US$1.9 billion over 2020–2024, a decline of about 5% compared with funding over 2015–2019 (Fig. 1, scenario 1). If the share of GDP designated for HIV falls by an initial 10% in both domestic and external sources in 2020 and 5% in the subsequent years -- representing a shift of funding to other sectors, such as COVID-19-related healthcare, economic relief funds, or payment of government debts -- we estimate a cumulative gap of US$4.1 billion, amounting to a decline of about 11% in total funding for HIV (Fig. 1, scenario 2). Compensating for gaps in ODA would require substantial increases in domestic HIV funding: by roughly 10% (upper middle-income countries), 15% (lower middle-income countries) or 20% (lower income countries) (Fig. 1, scenario 3). Even in an extremely optimistic scenario, in which the absolute amount of donor funding remains unchanged, domestic HIV spending would need to increase by about 5% to maintain current funding levels (Fig. 1, scenario 4). Such increases appear unlikely, as most of these countries already struggled to expand domestic HIV funding in the pre-COVID-19 era [6]. Although it is challenging to speculate which of these scenarios will predominate, current events suggest that our most pessimistic scenario, including additional cuts in donor funding on top of the budget declines caused by GDP fluctuations (scenario 2), is at least partly unfolding. The UK government recently announced to consider temporarily cutting foreign aid spending from 0.7% to 0.5% of gross national income [7], a decline of over 25%, and other donor countries may follow suit. For nine out of the 10 countries studied, 77--94% of funding for care and treatment comes from ODA [6]; making these political decisions a direct threat to continuation of ART programs. The only exception is South Africa, where only 18% of the HIV budget stems from ODA and continuation largely depends on local political decisions. However, as South Africa has been severely affected by the pandemic, reprioritization of domestic resources may well be necessary to finance the COVID-19 response and economic recovery. If we assume scenario 2 to unfold, we can roughly calculate the detrimental effects on service provision for HIV-infected people. For the 10 countries in our analysis, about US$3 billion [6], enabled 13.6 million people to receive life-saving ART pre-COVID-19 [5]. If relative funding distributions between treatment and prevention are maintained, the most extreme funding shortfalls of $850 million for 2021 (11% compared with 2019) in scenario 2 could, therefore, mean that approximately 1.5 million people enrolled in HIV care could not be served any longer. Interruption of ART could have direct implications for the health of HIV-infected people: potentially resulting in increased incidence of AIDS-defining illnesses, treatment resistance, and AIDS-related mortality. Moreover, extended lockdowns could lead to decreased ART adherence because of poor access and drug stock-outs, and many key-population outreach programs have been reduced or halted. Several mathematical modelers forecast that, of all interventions currently in place for HIV prevention and control, interruption of ART delivery because of COVID-19 will have the biggest impact on relative changes in mortality, and, together with interrupted condom availability, the biggest impact on relative changes in incidence [8]. Whereas shifting funding within limited HIV budgets away from prevention programs to ensure treatment continuation during the crisis might seem to be an attractive short-term solution, this could have a detrimental impact on the HIV epidemic in the long-run. The complex nature of HIV financing makes creating accurate predictions challenging, and our estimates should thus be interpreted as cautionary rather than predictive. In our analyses, we explored the effects of the COVID-19-related recession on HIV financing by making a simplified assumption of a linear relationship between country-specific GDP and HIV financing. Although this seems reasonable, validating our assumption against past observations (e.g., trends in GDP versus trends in HIV financing) is complex, as detailed yearly country-level data is not always available. Next to the direct GDP-dependent effects of COVID-19 countermeasures, several political decisions and indirect economic disruptions might further adversely affect HIV financing. First, aid distribution for HIV might increasingly be prioritized for low-income countries alone. Although this might mean that the poorest countries in the world are slightly more protected, lower middle-income and upper middle-income countries would need an accelerated process towards country-ownership. Second, several non-governmental financing schemes will be disproportionally affected by the pandemic. For instance, the air tax levy used to finance Unitaid, accounting for approximately 6% of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria budget [9], will be severely affected by air travel restrictions. Third, financial gaps and shifts in sources indirectly supporting the HIV response, such as international research funding or the announcement by the USA to halt funding to the WHO [10], might adversely affect the HIV response and its financing for years to come. Fourth, domestic funding for HIV may be affected by the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic in the African nations and the political response. The proportion of the population infected with COVID-19, the strength and resilience of the local health system to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the political structure and leadership in a country are all factors that are likely to influence the level of funding appropriated to fight HIV. Regardless of how the financial and political complexities unfold and affect prevention and treatment programs in the individual countries, it is critical to implement mitigation strategies to compensate for the financial gaps. First, continuation of HIV service delivery could be ensured and efficiency improved through accelerated implementation of differentiated care -- by enabling less frequent ART pick-ups [11], shifting tasks to community health workers [12], integrating HIV/COVID-19 prevention [13], and focusing on prevention for key populations. Second, resources could be pooled at regional level (facilitated for instance through the Southern African Development Community) to better leverage emergency funding, sharing of human capital and knowledge, and expertise in health program management. Third, integration with other health services could improve efficiency, and simultaneously accelerate progress towards universal health coverage [14,15]. Integration will also force a conversation about reprioritization across all health areas, essential to overcome the broader health system challenges introduced through the COVID-19 pandemic. Most importantly, mitigation strategies should strengthen the HIV response by using existing resources more efficiently, rather than shifting funding from other resources to fill gaps, so that health service provision for other population needs is not endangered. The COVID-19 pandemic is putting acute pressure on HIV programs in high-burden countries. With potential declines in funding of as much as 5% or 11%, the scale-up of HIV prevention and treatment in sub-Saharan Africa could come to halt or even reverse. But, as with any major crisis, the pressure to innovate under challenging circumstances could ultimately result in an HIV response and general health system that is more integrated, efficient and sustainable, improving resilience to future crises, and bolstering efforts to end the HIV pandemic by 2030. Acknowledgements Conflicts of interest There are no conflicts of interest.

This chapter identifies the overall trends in Japan’s official development assistance (ODA) policies for the health sector in developing countries from 1990 to 2020 and its future post-COVID-19 prospects. Since the end of the Cold War, watershed events have repeatedly changed the landscape of international cooperation in the health sector. Like other international aid donors, Japan has devised priorities and strategies for ODA based on a set of international and domestic factors in a constantly changing world. Numerous studies on Japan’s ODA have examined international and domestic factors that impact the formulation of the country’s aid policy. This chapter aims to add to those studies by combining recent debates on international cooperation and foreign aid, the right to health, and world health system reforms to explore and analyze Japan’s ODA for health in developing countries. The guiding research questions were as follows: What were the major trends in Japan’s ODA policies in the health sector from 1990 to 2020? Which international health debates and international cooperation factors exerted influence on those trends? What are the prospects of Japan’s ODA given the COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts? The research relied on primary sources, specifically Japan’s ODA official documents and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) ODA quantitative databases, as well as secondary sources, such as academic literature on international cooperation and foreign aid for health. Our preliminary findings revealed that Japan’s ODA in the health sector from 1990 to 2020 centered on two main axes: infectious diseases and maternal and child health, both of which are oriented toward strengthening the healthcare system. Given this goal, it seems relevant to consider that Japan’s health system is based on the assumption of the need to provide universal health coverage, a concept currently supported by the World Health Organization (WHO), in contrast to the universal health system, and that the implications of this choice on Japan’s ODA and developing countries’ health policies are yet to be fully understood. The COVID-19 pandemic has put substantial pressure on health systems globally and international cooperation for health; thus, it has the potential to affect and even change Japan’s ODA for the health sector in developing countries.

The issue of poor economic performance and growth of sub-Saharan African economies have become so worrisome and this has called for a wide range of research and experts argued in favor of official development assistance as an important catalyst for growth in salvaging the sub-Saharan African economies. Available statistics showed that there has been surge in official development assistance flow into Africa. Specifically, the statistics show that Sub-Saharan Africa has received more official development assistance than any other region reaching 10 times and 15 times of inflow to transition and developed economies respectively over the years. Despite this flow of ODA, sub-Saharan African economies have always witnessed dwindling economic performance. Experts opined that poor economic policies, diversion of official development assistance to unproductive consumption and volatility of aid have been responsible for the ineffectiveness of aid to salvage recipient countries. This study therefore sets out to examine the effectiveness of official development assistance on per capita GDP growth for the different regions in Sub-Sahara Africa. The study first undertakes to establish the existence of official development assistance volatility in the selected countries and examines its effect on per capita growth and as well accounting for policy environment as a channel to the link. The study covers the period 1970–2013 and Thirty-three Sub-Saharan African countries were selected based on data availability. The study employs the panel data co-integration and panel data error correction modelling approach to analyze the relationship between official development assistance and per capita Growth in these regions. The Autoregressive Conditional Heteroschedasticity (ARCH) and the General Autoregressive Conditional Heteroschedasticity (GARCH) models were also used to establish volatility with regards to official development assistance in the countries before the main analysis.ODA was found to have a positive and insignificant effect on West Africa, East Africa and non-oil exporting countries but the effect was positive and significant for Southern Africa, Central Africa and Oil Exporting countries. For West Africa, the effect became significant on growth only when Macroeconomic policy environment variables are captured. The study therefore recommends that government of Sub-Sahara countries embrace foreign international assistance while putting a befitting economically viable macroeconomic environment. And donor agencies should be more concerned in promoting good governance and policy framework in these countries than so much disbursement of ODA as such can undermine productive investment. This however will make the best of the ODA received.

Introduction Japan was the largest Official Development Assistance (ODA) donor in the world throughout the 1990s. From the beginning of Japan’s engagement in 1954,2 foreign policy makers, especially those affiliated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), constantly endeavoured to underline the importance of Japan’s ODA as an indispensable humanitarian instrument for alleviating global poverty and human suffering. Japan’s efforts, mostly in the form of loans, clearly had a positive impact on the economies of developing countries, especially those in Asia. However, it is undeniable that Japan used its ODA in the pursuit of its own interests. As a country that had abandoned any aspiration to become a military power, Japan had to rely on ODA as a primary tool of its foreign policy. In the post-1945 era, ODA was used to rebuild relations with neighbouring countries in Asia that distrusted Japan on account of its previous imperialist conduct. Used as a form of reparation,3 it paved the way to resources and markets in Southeast Asia. According to David Arase, ODA played a central role in advancing Japan’s economic power. It helped establish a wide production and trade network in Asia, relativizing the country’s comparative disadvantages, most notably its lack of natural resources and high labour costs (Arase 1995, pp. 142-146). Japan’s ODA mirrored the basic policy of unarmed neutrality set by Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida, which later became known as the Yoshida Doctrine. Following this doctrine, Japan focused mainly on promoting its economic growth, while leaving military defence to the United States. To use the analogy of a former deputy minister at the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI),4 Naohiro Amaya (1979-1981), Japan was to exercise its power as a merchant nation, leaving power politics to samurai nations such as the USA or the Soviet Union (Amaya 1980). Although the country had the economic potential to become a samurai nation, it refrained from participating in “power games”, thus earning the reputation of being a pacifist country or civilian power (Maull 1990). Against this backdrop, Japan used its ODA largely to enhance its national economic growth by supporting the economic advancement of neighbouring countries through the development of economic infrastructure such as roads,bridges, dams, railways, port facilities and power plants. This was necessary to gain access to the valuable natural resources Japan was lacking. Eventually, these projects promoted the free movement of goods and capital, allowing Japan to implement an economic strategy – best described as the Flying-Geese Model – that was strongly influenced by the Japanese economist Kaname Akamatsu, according to which the promotion of economic development in Asia would eventually lead to positive economic synergies (Akamatsu 1962). Because Japan was mainly pursuing economic interests, it was reluctant to attach political conditions linked to human rights or good governance to its ODA. This stood in sharp contrast to other donors, such as the USA.5 Just like the country’s foreign policy in general, Japan’s ODA was characterized by its passive and low-profile stance.6 This explains why Japan’s position as a globally leading ODA donor was barely noticed internationally. The lack of field expertise as well as the long-lived request-based system demonstrated Japan’s reluctance to become involved in the internal affairs of other countries.7 In fact, until the 1990s Japan did not use its ODA as an instrument of political sanction, either positive or negative (Nikitina and Furuoka 2008). This neutral political stance was a way for Japan to maintain its autonomy and independence to the greatest extent possible in order to benefit from economic relations with countries beyond the ideological fringes of the international stage.8 A general ODA strategy was not formulated until 1992, when Japan published its first ODA Charter – four decades after the country became active as a donor. This long-delayed announcement of an official ODA policy indicates that there was domestic resistance to the creation of general rules that may have limited the use of ODA as an economic tool (Arase 1995, p. 166). On 13 December 2013, Japan signed an ODA loan agreement amounting to 18.7 billion yen with the Republic of the Philippines to provide ten new patrol vessels. On 1 August the following year, Japan signed a non-project grant agreement with Vietnam for the provision of six refurbished vessels worth 500 million yen (MOFA 2015c). The provision of these boats was part of Prime Minister Shinzō Abe’s new political doctrine, announced in Jakarta in January 2013.9 One of its key principles is to protect the “open, free, and peaceful” seas from the “rule of might”. To a large extent this doctrine was addressing China’s growing assertiveness in the region. Consequently, for the sake of “free and peaceful” seas, trilateral cooperation among the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries, the USA and Japan needed to be strengthened (Kantei 2013b). This utilization of ODA for security purposes is not a completely new feature. In a wider sense ODA has long been an indispensable tool in ensuring national security, especially after the oil crisis in the 1970s, when Japan included its ODA in the “comprehensive security” strategy outlined by a task force appointed by Prime Minister Masayoshi Ohira (1978-1980). This group came to understand that the destabilization of certain areas in the world could affect Japan’s complex resource and trading network. As a result, Japan diversified its aid to include strategically important countries, such as China, Egypt, Jamaica, Kenya,Somalia, South Korea, Sudan, Tanzania and Zimbabwe (Akaha 1991, pp. 332-333). However, the case of capacity building measures that included the provision of patrol boats stood in clear contrast with previous ODA efforts that were strictly limited to non-military areas. The provision of patrol vessels to the Philippines and Vietnam has a military dimension, even if the official statements declare differently. They are defined as “military vessels” under the Export Control Trade Ordinance definition of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) (METI 2005). The government argues that coastguards are part of law enforcement agencies under civilian jurisdiction, making the support a non-military contribution. At least in the case of Vietnam this argument is debatable, however, since the coastguard in Vietnam comes under the control of the country’s Ministry of National Defence (Global Security 2015). In whatever way the use of ODA to provide patrol boats may be defined from a legalistic standpoint, it is obvious that it represents a new balancing strategy against China, which is becoming increasingly assertive in its territorial claims in the region. By means of patrol boat provision and coastguard training, Japan is supporting the US pivot towards the Asia-Pacific region. The relevance of Japan’s ODA in the new regional security strategy was emphasized in the Japanese-US 2 + 2 Joint Statement of October 2013, which set out the future plans of both countries:The Ministers welcomed the strategic use of Official Development Assistance by Japan, such as providing coastal patrol vessels and training for maritime safety to regional partners, and recognized the importance of such endeavors in promoting regional peace and stability.

Foreign aid preferences and perceptions in donor countries

There is growing awareness that the necessary solutions for improving nutrition outcomes are multisectorial. As such, investments are increasingly directed toward "nutrition-sensitive" approaches that not only address an underlying or basic determinant of nutrition but also seek to achieve an explicit nutrition goal or outcome. Understanding how and where official development assistance (ODA) for nutrition is invested remains an important but complex challenge, as development projects components vary in their application to nutrition outcomes. Currently, no systematic method exists for tracking nutrition-sensitive ODA. To develop a methodology for classifying and tracking nutrition-sensitive ODA and to produce estimates of the amount of nutrition-sensitive aid received by countries with a high burden of undernutrition. We analyzed all financial flows reported to the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development's Development Assistance Committee Creditor Reporting Service in 2010 to estimate these investments. We assessed the relationships between national stunting prevalence, stunting burden, under-5 mortality, and the amount of nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive ODA. We estimate that, in 2010, a total of $379·4 million (M) US dollars (USD) was committed to nutrition-specific projects and programs of which 25 designated beneficiaries (countries and regions) accounted for nearly 85% ($320 M). A total of $1.79 billion (B) was committed to nutrition-sensitive spending, of which the top 25 countries/regions accounted for $1.4 B (82%). Nine categories of development activities accounted for 75% of nutrition-sensitive spending, led by Reproductive Health Care (30·4%), Food Aid/Food Security Programs (14·1%), Emergency Food Aid (13·2%), and Basic Health Care (5·0%). Multivariate linear regression models indicate that the amount of nutrition-sensitive (P = .001) and total nutrition ODA was significantly predicted by stunting prevalence (P = .001). The size of the total population of stunted children significantly predicted the amount of nutrition-specific ODA (P < .001). The recipient profile of nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive ODA is related but distinct. Nutrition indicators are associated with the level of nutrition-related ODA commitments to recipient countries. A reliable estimate of nutrition spending is critical for effective planning by both donors and recipients and key for success, as the global development community recommits to a new round of goals to address the interrelated causes of undernutrition in low-income countries.

In this chapter, the authors examine the impact of foreign aid on eight development targets capturing poverty, education, extreme hunger, gender equality, child mortality, maternal mortality, prevalence of HIV and access to portable water. Findings show that an increase in net Official Development Assistance (ODA) is associated with a decline in the prevalence of HIV and child mortality. The authors further examine the role of sectoral aid in the development process and show that targeted aid is likely to be more beneficial for development.

This chapter highlights the increasing utilization of private aid in economic development. While there is a broad appeal for using private development assistance over official development assistance, limitations to effectiveness do remain. Those who view private aid as a cure-all for development and humanitarian projects may assume too much. Private aid faces many of the same or similar issues as official aid. An understanding of these particular challenges is important for those who desire to improve the condition of those abroad, and a cautious approach is advised.

This article studies whether the pursuit of foreign aid for counterterrorism purposes militarizes or mitigates terrorism. It focuses on the USAID and official development assistance (ODA) flows to Pakistan, which recently has experienced an increase due to the presence of deadliest terrorist organizations. By using the time series data from 1985 to 2016, the paper investigated the foreign aid and terrorism nexus for pre‐9/11 and post‐9/11 periods. The empirical estimations of autoregressive distributed lag bound testing approach reported that an increase in military expenditures fuels terrorism in post‐9/11 period and the ODA helps to control terrorism from the country. On the contrary, USAID reported insignificant response toward terrorist attacks in pre‐ and post‐9/11 periods, suggesting that the foreign aid from the United States has no significant impact on counterterrorism policies for Pakistan. The outcomes of the current study can be utilized in policymaking of counterterrorism and to explore the nexus between foreign aid, terrorism, and military expenditures. The paper concludes that the concerns about the use of foreign aid as counterterrorism tool are warranted, but that actual manifestations are nuanced.

Although South Korea is one of the newest members to join the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development's Development Assistance Committee in 2010, it has a long history of official development assistance (ODA), first as a recipient of aid (1945–1995) and later as an emerging donor (with the establishment of aid‐implementing agencies for concessional loans in 1987, and for grant aid in 1991, respectively). And, global public health has been one of the three largest outreach areas of South Korea's foreign aid programmes. This article examines the global public health outreach activities of South Korea's leading aid‐implementing agencies, namely Korea International Cooperation Agency, Korea Foundation for International Healthcare and Economic Development and Cooperation Fund, using data for the latest period, 2008–2012. South Korea's innovative global public health ODA through the Global Poverty Eradication Contribution is also examined. The analysis of global public health outreach activities has shown that South Korea has concentrated its foreign aid to Asia and Africa, and that a large share of its aid has been focused on health care services; water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH); maternal and child health (MCH); and infectious diseases. A significant regional difference was found: South Korea's aid focused on health care services and MCH in Asia, while it focused on WASH and infectious diseases in Africa. Findings have also shown that South Korea's priority countries for development cooperation have received more aid compared with non‐priority countries. In conclusion, we have found that South Korea's global health outreach activities were in line with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), but that they lack a clear focus and do not have globally recognised initiatives or projects compared with large and traditional donors such as the United States and Japan. Further research is needed to examine the impact of the rapidly rising aid activities of South Korea, especially in global public health.

This study critically explores the Tapestry of Global Assistance and Its Resonance within Nigeria's Fiscal Framework from 1981 to 2021, the study objectively explored the degree to which various forms of foreign aid—such as official development assistance, foreign grants, and technical aid—impact public expenditure growth within a shifting economic paradigm. Employing statistical measures such as the Coefficient of Determination (R²), F-statistics, and the Durbin-Watson statistic. Incorporating variables such as foreign technical cooperation (FTECH), foreign grants (FGRANT), official development assistance (FODA), multilateral foreign aids (MFAID), and exchange rates (EXR), the study employs time-series data from the World Bank Development Indicators and a modified regression approach. The analysis seeks to delineate the complex dynamics between external financial inputs and internal fiscal outcomes over the period from 1981 to 2021. The findings reveal a nuanced landscape where foreign aid, though impactful, does not singularly dictate fiscal changes, suggesting a need for broader, more inclusive economic strategies that leverage both external and internal resources. Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) tests confirm the stationarity of these variables, validating their reliability in modeling economic impacts. The ARDL bound test results indicate no long-term sustainable relationship between foreign aid components and public expenditure growth, pointing to a more nuanced interaction between foreign aid inflows and Nigeria’s fiscal strategies, whether expansive or restrictive.

The definition of Official Development Assistance (ODA), stewarded by the Development Assistance Committee (DAC), just experienced its largest crisis since the early 1970s. Historically, ODA assessed the subsidy element of aid loans using a discount rate of 10 per cent. Low borrowing interest rates for donor governments enabled them to lend at rates low enough to qualify as ODA, yet high enough to turn a profit. This ignited controversy. In 2014, ODA’s treatment of loans was officially overhauled—for the better, in the sense of aligning the ODA ‘reward’ for a loan to its value. A third way would be better still. The DAC and researchers could improve matters by taking discount rates from the Export Credit Arrangement than from the IMF; and to forgo discounting for default risk, except for innovative loans whose terms bind the lender to share country risk. This article computes and shares several ODA variants.

International climate negotiations have specified that projects under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) should not lead to a ‘diversion’ of official development assistance (ODA). It is however unchallenged that ODA can be used in capacity building for the CDM. Diversion can be interpreted in purpose, sectoral, and regional terms. There are possibilities to use ODA benchmarks to define diversion such as the UN 0.7 per cent target but they are unlikely to be politically acceptable. On the project level, three main options exist but none of them is perfect. The Development Assistance Committee of OECD endorses deduction of the value of emissions credits (CERs) from ODA. This however leads to a long-term pressure on the ODA level. Differentiating an ODA-financed baseline project and a ‘piggyback’ CDM option is likely to be arbitrary in many circumstances. Even if CERs do not accrue for the ODA share of the investment, still private CDM projects are crowded out due to the subsidizing of CDM projects.