Korea’s official development aid to MENA region countries

The aim of this study is to increase the effectiveness of Korean aid provision for countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, which are important ODA recipient countries from a Korean perspective, but have not been studied extensively in Korea. Although there are twenty countries in the MENA region, in this study five countries, Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Iran and Iraq, which are considered important from a Korean perspective, are targeted. The analysis includes an examination of the regional characteristics and the long-term development plans of these five countries, and the size and contents of aid projects provided by Korea to these countries. It is expected that as a result of this analysis Korea will be able to carry out aid projects involving these countries more effectively in the future.

African Asylum Seekers in Europe: The Interplay between Foreign Aid and Governance in Origin Countries

This paper empirically investigates the effects of governance quality on the number of African asylum seekers in Europe over the period 1996–2018 and evaluates the extent to which official development aid acts as a catalyst. With this purpose in mind, different gravity model specifications and estimation approaches have been employed. The obtained results suggest that the asylum flows are strongly determined by governance quality in the country of origin and that this effect does depend on the amount of foreign aid received from developed countries. Moreover, it is also found that development aid is only effective in reducing asylum applications coming from countries with good governance. Moreover, we find no differences in the estimated elasticity of foreign aid on asylum claims for the beneficiaries of the European Union Emergency Trust Fund (EUTF) for Africa, the main aim of which has been to improve living conditions of potential migrants in their countries of origin.

AID FOR TRADE FLOWS AND POVERTY REDUCTION

The effectiveness of Aid for Trade (AfT) interventions, including with respect to recipient countries’ trade performance, has now been well explored in the literature. However, in spite of the voluminous literature on the poverty effect of the total official development aid, the effect of AfT flows on poverty has received little attention on the empirical front. This paper aims to contribute to the policy debate on this matter by investigating the effect of AfT flows on poverty in recipient countries. In particular, the analysis explores whether this effect translates through countries’ level of export product concentration, as the latter can influence income inequality, and hence the transformation of economic growth into poverty reduction in recipient countries. The empirical analysis, based on 100[Formula: see text]AfT recipient countries, has shown that AfT interventions are associated with poverty reduction in countries that diversify their export products, including toward manufacturing products. Additionally, AfT flows dampen the positive poverty effect of income inequality, and lead to greater poverty reduction in countries with a great extent of fiscal redistribution. Finally, the analysis has shown that AfT interventions mitigate the positive poverty effect of import product concentration. These results have important policy implications.

Official Development Aid: Plaster in A Wound? Evidence Using Data From Ethiopia

The flow of aid to developing countries has increased massively and they receive billions of dollars per year in the form of aid from bilateral and multilateral donors. However, the economic growth achieved by many developing countries, in general, has not been satisfactory. Poverty is still there and resulted in a custom of aid dependence and foster the opportunity for the corrupted political leader. The conclusion on aid effectiveness is doubtful among economists, found to be inconclusive.This paper intends to see how the Ethiopian economy is reacting to the flow of foreign aid coming from the rest of the world viz-a-viz the current most prestigious and influential arguments against and pro-effectiveness of aid. A time series on important parameters extending from 1981 to the most current 2017 is used and an econometrics technique ECM is employed to examine the short-run dynamics and long-run relationship among the variables.The result of the short-run dynamics showed that aid has a negative and statistically significant impact on economic growth. However, the impacts turn to be positive in the long run. economic growth measured by the real GDP adjusts to its long-run equilibrium with an average speed of about 25.7 percent annually and it will roughly take it about 4 years to restore to equilibrium, ceteris paribus.

Official Development Aid: Plaster in A Wound? Evidence Using Data From Ethiopia

The flow of aid to developing countries has increased massively and they receive billions of dollars per year in the form of aid from bilateral and multilateral donors. However, the economic growth achieved by many developing countries in general has not been satisfactory. Poverty is still there and resulted in a custom of aid dependence and foster the opportunity for the corrupted political leader. The conclusion on aid effectiveness is doubtful among economists, found to be inconclusive.This paper intends to see how ethiopian economy is reacting to the flow of foreign aid coming from rest of the world viz-a-viz the current most prestigous and influential arguments against and pro-effectiveness of aid. A time series on important parameters extending from 1981 to the most current 2017 is used and an econometrics techniques ECM is employed to examine the short run dynamics and long run relationship among the variables.The result of the short run dynamics showed that aid has a negative and statistically significant impact on economic growth. However, the impacts turns to be positive in the long run. economic growth measured by the real GDP adjusts to its long run equilibrium with an average speed of about 25.7 percent annually and it will roughly take it about 4 years to restore back to equilibrium, ceteris paribus.

Official Development Aid: Plaster in A Wound? Evidence Using Data From Ethiopia

The flow of aid to developing countries has increased massively and they receive billions of dollars per year in the form of aid from bilateral and multilateral donors. However, the economic growth achieved by many developing countries in general has not been satisfactory. Poverty is still there and resulted in a custom of aid dependence and foster the opportunity for the corrupted political leader. The conclusion on aid effectiveness is doubtful among economists, found to be inconclusive. This paper intends to see how ethiopian economy is reacting to the flow of foreign aid coming from rest of the world viz-a-viz the current most prestigous and influential arguments against and pro-effectiveness of aid. A time series on important parameters extending from 1981 to the most current 2017 is used and an econometrics techniques ECM is employed to examine the short run dynamics and long run relationship among the variables. The result of the short run dynamics showed that aid has a negative and statistically significant impact on economic growth. However, the impacts turns to be positive in the long run. economic growth measured by the real GDP adjusts to its long run equilibrium with an average speed of about 25.7 percent annually and it will roughly take it about 4 years to restore back to equilibrium, ceteris paribus.

Do Financial Flows Make a Difference in Fragile States?

A rising number of people is living in fragile countries whose weak institutions fail to deliver on decent work and poverty reduction. The chapter discusses to what extent external financial flows, such as remittances, foreign direct investment or official development aid, can substitute for weak institutions. Fragility matters: fragile countries receive different amounts of financial flows than their non-fragile peers, and these flows affect them differently. Fragility lowers the effect of financial flows on growth, living standards and inequality. Foreign direct investment (FDI) has a moderate impact on poverty alleviation, albeit concentrated on employment gains in mining and natural resources. Remittances provide some weak relief for the poor, with less pernicious effects on growth and labour supply than in non-fragile countries. ODA does not improve social outcomes but rather exacerbates fragility. Policymakers should focus on improving upon the positive contribution of FDI and remittances on jobs and growth, avoiding the remittances trap.

The Rise of Self-Interests: How Shifting Political Goals Changed the Effectiveness of Dutch Official Development Aid to Bangladesh From 2005 Until 2016

Aid effectiveness has been situated in the central debate of development studies and, particularly, among foreign aid policy making community. As the Netherlands was one of the unique countries which focused extensively on the needs of its recipient, it is important to investigate the Netherlands’ recent practice of its development aid, particularly to Bangladesh and the associated goal ambiguity. This article attempts to answer the question, “to what extent does goal ambiguity in Dutch development aid affect the effectiveness of Dutch development aid given to Bangladesh?” This analysis is based on independent assessments of Dutch official development aid (ODA) to Bangladesh and Dutch coalition agreements in 2005-2010 and 2011-2016. This study finds that, in the second period, goal ambiguity has increased, while the aid effectiveness has decreased. This change is unlikely to be attributed to the conditions for aid effectiveness since these remained largely stable or even in slightly in favour of the second period. While the comparison of different sectors between timeframes lacks full robustness, there is direct evidence that goal ambiguity has played a role in lower effectiveness in the water related aid in the second period. Therefore, this study suggests that aid effectiveness in Bangladesh has decreased in the period 2011 to 2016 due to an increase in goal ambiguity caused by increasing self-interests in Dutch ODA policy.

Carving Out an Empire? How China Strategically Uses Aid to Facilitate Chinese Business Expansion in Africa **

China’s rising investment and aid flows into Africa have raised concerns over its increasing influence, triggering worries about a new scramble for Africa. This paper sorts out the motivations behind the various forms of Chinese aid, arguing that China uses different types of aid strategically to divert the recipient countries’ economic and institutional orientation towards its own interests. Exploiting the AidData set, we show that China’s official development aid (ODA) is positively related to an export bias in favour of China, suggesting that it serves to secure privileged access for Chinese firms to African resources. ODA tends to flow to less democratic regimes, because less accountable governments have more power to offer long-run privileges to their financial supporters. In contrast, we show that other official flows (OOF) are used to increase China’s import share and is positively related to institutional quality, since this has a positive influence on market growth. This suggests that OOF is mainly used to facilitate Chinese access to promising African consumer markets. We conclude that while China employs different aid flows for different economic purposes, it uses all aid flows strategically to advance its interests and create an economic sphere of influence in Africa.