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83-478: Aid is the voluntary transfer of resources from one country to another. Aid or AID may also refer to: Aid In international relations , aid (also known as international aid , overseas aid , foreign aid, economic aid or foreign assistance ) is – from the perspective of governments – a voluntary transfer of resources from one country to another. The type of aid given may be classified according to various factors, including its intended purpose,

166-458: A gift , a grant , a low or no interest loan, or a combination of these. The terms of foreign aid are oftentimes influenced by the motives of the giver: a sign of diplomatic approval, to reward a government for behaviour desired by the donor, to extend the donor's cultural influence, to enhance infrastructure needed by the donor for the extraction of resources from the recipient country, or to gain other kinds of commercial access. Aid given

249-483: A government for behavior desired by the donor , to extend the donor's cultural influence, to provide infrastructure needed by the donor for resource extraction from the recipient country, or to gain other kinds of commercial access. Countries may provide aid for further diplomatic reasons. Humanitarian and altruistic purposes are often reasons for foreign assistance. Aid may be given by individuals, private organizations, or governments. Standards delimiting exactly

332-564: A natural disaster or a man-made disaster . The provision of emergency humanitarian aid consists of the provision of vital services (such as food aid to prevent starvation ) by aid agencies, and the provision of funding or in-kind services (like logistics or transport), usually through aid agencies or the government of the affected country. Humanitarian aid is distinguished from humanitarian intervention , which involves armed forces protecting civilians from violent oppression or genocide by state-supported actors. The United Nations Office for

415-481: A bit naïve when we take these reverse flows into account. It becomes clear that aid does little but mask the maldistribution of resources around the world. It makes the takers seem like givers, granting them a kind of moral high ground while preventing those of us who care about global poverty from understanding how the system really works. Jeffery Sachs and his collaborators argue that in order for foreign aid to be successful, policy makers should "pay more attention to

498-470: A clean slate. It is a policy that flowed from our recent history and our national movement and its development and various ideals, we have proclaimed. (Nehru, 1961, p. 34). In fact, the foreign policy culture of India is an elite culture, meaning, in effect, that the writings and speeches of select leading figures of the Indian foreign policy elite provide an insight into the key ideas and norms constituting

581-600: A great power to seek control through bilateral ties could be costly; it may require bargaining and compromise with the other great power. Miles Kahler defines multilateralism as "international governance" or global governance of the "many," and its central principle was "opposition [to] bilateral discriminatory arrangements that were believed to enhance the leverage of the powerful over the weak and to increase international conflict."; Robert Keohane defined it as "the practice of coordinating national policies in groups of three or more states." John Ruggie further elaborated

664-507: A multilateral forum. Arguably, the Bush administration favoured bilateralism over multilateralism, or even unilateralism, for similar reasons. Rather than going it alone or going it with others, the administration opted for intensive one-on-one relationships with handpicked countries that maximized the U.S. capacity to achieve its objectives. Another challenge in global governance through multilateralism involves national sovereignty. Regardless of

747-431: A particular agreement. Victor Cha argued that: power asymmetries predict the type of structures, bilateral or multilateral, that offer the most control. If small powers try to control a larger one, then multilateralism is effective. But if great powers seek control over smaller ones, bilateral alliances are more effective. Thus, a country's decision to select bilateralism or multilateralism when enacting foreign policies

830-430: A positive correlation while others find either no correlation or a negative correlation. One consistent finding is that project aid tends to cluster in richer parts of countries, meaning most aid is not given to poor countries or poor recipients. Peter Singer argues that over the last three decades, "aid has added around one percentage point to the annual growth rate of the bottom billion." He argues that this has made

913-411: A result, the citizens do not have any obligation to demand the provision of goods and services geared towards development. Dambisa Moyo argues that aid does not lead to development, but rather creates problems including corruption, dependency, limitations on exports and Dutch disease , which negatively affect the economic growth and development of most African countries and other poor countries across

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996-641: A special role by the Geneva Conventions with respect to the visiting and monitoring of prisoners of war. Development aid is given by governments through individual countries' international aid agencies and through multilateral institutions such as the World Bank , and by individuals through development charities . For donor nations, development aid also has strategic value; improved living conditions can positively effects global security and economic growth. Official Development Assistance (ODA)

1079-404: A tool used to open new areas up to global capitalists, and being only secondarily, if at all, concerned with the wellbeing of the people in the recipient countries. The practice of extending aid to politically aligned parties in recipient nations continues today; Faye and Niehaus (2012) are able to establish a causal relationship between politics and aid in recipient nations. In their analysis of

1162-777: A tradition of public and private participation. After the Second World War the victors, drawing upon experience from the League's failure, created the United Nations in 1945. Since then, the "breadth and diversity" of multilateral arrangements have escalated. Unlike the League, the UN had the active participation of the United States and the Soviet Union , the world's then greatest contemporary powers. Along with

1245-651: Is unilateralism , in terms of political philosophy . Other authors have used the term "minilateralism" to refer to the fewest states required to get the biggest results through this institutional form. The foreign policy that India formulated after independence reflected its idiosyncratic culture and political traditions. Speaking in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Parliament of India, in March 1950, Nehru affirmed: “It should not be supposed that we are starting on

1328-489: Is 'a unique product of US global hegemony [. . . ] not necessarily a post-war American invention', but a reflection of post-war 'American hegemony '. Embedding the target state in a multilateral alliance reduces the costs borne by the power-seeking control, but it also offers the same binding benefits of the Lilliputian strategy. Furthermore, if a small power seeks control over another small power, multilateralism may be

1411-444: Is a commonly used measure of developmental aid. Technical assistance is a sub-type of development aid. It is aid involving highly educated or trained personnel, such as doctors, who are moved into a developing country to assist with a program of development. It can be both programme and project aid. Aid can also be classified according to the terms agreed upon by the donor and receiving countries. In this classification, aid can be

1494-566: Is a gray overcast: many of these numbers actually are falling short of the Millennium Development Goals. There are only a few goals that have already been met or projected to be met by the 2015 deadline. The economist William Easterly and others have argued that aid can often distort incentives in poor countries in various harmful ways. Aid can also involve inflows of money to poor countries that have some similarities to inflows of money from natural resources that provoke

1577-533: Is a large literature on the subject. Econometric studies in the late 20th century often found the average effectiveness of aid to be minimal or even negative. Such studies have appeared on the whole to yield more affirmative results in the early 21st century, but the picture is complex and far from clear in many respects. American political scientist and professor Nicolas van de Walle has also argued that despite more than two decades of donor-supported reform in Africa,

1660-425: Is aid given to support development in general which can be economic development or social development in developing countries . It is distinguished from humanitarian aid as being aimed at alleviating poverty in the long term, rather than alleviating suffering in the short term. Aid may serve one or more functions: it may be given as a signal of diplomatic approval, or to strengthen a military ally , to reward

1743-496: Is based on Chenery and Strout's Dual Gap Model (Isse 129). Chenerya and Strout (1966) claimed that foreign aid promotes development by adding to domestic savings as well as to foreign exchange availability, this helping to close either the savings-investment gap or the export-import gap. (Isse 129). Carol Lancaster defines foreign aid as "a voluntary transfer of public resources, from a government to another independent government, to an NGO, or to an international organization (such as

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1826-558: Is especially multifaceted in countries within Sub-Saharan Africa due to geographic barriers. Most macro foreign aid efforts fail to recognize these issues and, as Sachs argues, cause insufficient international aid and policy improvement. Sachs argues that unless foreign aid provides mechanisms that overcome geographic barriers, pandemics such as HIV and AIDS that cause traumatic casualties within regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa will continue to cause millions of fatalities. Aid

1909-603: Is generally intended for use by a specific end. From this perspective it may be called: Most official development assistance (ODA) comes from the 30 members of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC), or about $ 150 billion in 2018. For the same year, the OECD estimated that six to seven billion dollars of ODA-like aid was given by ten other states, including China and India. Official development assistance (in absolute terms) contributed by

1992-411: Is given as either grants , where no repayment is required, or as concessional loans , where interest rates are lower than market rates. Loan repayments to multilateral institutions are pooled and redistributed as new loans. Additionally, debt relief, partial or total cancellation of loan repayments, is often added to total aid numbers even though it is not an actual transfer of funds. It is compiled by

2075-634: Is greatly affected by its size and power, as well as the size and power of the country over which it seeks to control. Take the example of Foreign Policy of the United States . Many references discuss how the United States interacts with other nations. In particular, the United States chose multilateralism in Europe and decided to form NATO , while it formed bilateral alliances, or the Hub and spokes architecture , in East Asia. Although there are many arguments about

2158-451: Is not always the case. It is often distinguished from development aid by being focused on relieving suffering caused by natural disaster or conflict, rather than removing the root causes of poverty or vulnerability. Development aid is aid given to support development in general which can be economic development or social development in developing countries . It is distinguished from humanitarian aid as being aimed at alleviating poverty in

2241-676: Is offset by other economic programs such as agricultural subsidies . Mark Malloch Brown , former head of the United Nations Development Program, estimated that farm subsidies cost poor countries about US$ 50 billion a year in lost agricultural exports: It is the extraordinary distortion of global trade, where the West spends $ 360 billion a year on protecting its agriculture with a network of subsidies and tariffs that costs developing countries about US$ 50 billion in potential lost agricultural exports. Fifty billion dollars

2324-447: Is seldom given from motives of pure altruism ; for instance it is often given as a means of supporting an ally in international politics . It may also be given with the intention of influencing the political process in the receiving nation. Whether one considers such aid helpful may depend on whether one agrees with the agenda being pursued by the donor nation in a particular case. During the conflict between communism and capitalism in

2407-441: Is that it enables countries to solve problems that transcend national boundaries, such as climate change, terrorism, and pandemics, through shared responsibility and burden-sharing. However, multilateralism is not without its challenges. The rise of populism, nationalism, and protectionism in some countries has raised concerns about the future of multilateralism and the effectiveness of international cooperation. Multilateralism, in

2490-493: Is the degree of success or failure of international aid ( development aid or humanitarian aid ). Concern with aid effectiveness might be at a high level of generality (whether aid on average fulfils the main functions that aid is supposed to have), or it might be more detailed (considering relative degrees of success between different types of aid in differing circumstances). Questions of aid effectiveness have been highly contested by academics, commentators and practitioners: there

2573-695: Is the equivalent of today's level of development assistance. Anthropologist and researcher Jason Hickel concludes from a 2016 report by the US-based Global Financial Integrity (GFI) and the Centre for Applied Research at the Norwegian School of Economics that the usual development narrative has it backwards. Aid is effectively flowing in reverse. Rich countries aren't developing poor countries; poor countries are developing rich ones... The aid narrative begins to seem

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2656-474: The Conference of Berlin in 1884 helped reduce power conflicts during this period, and the 19th century was one of Europe's most peaceful. Industrial and colonial competition, combined with shifts in the balance of power after the creation - by diplomacy and conquest - of Germany by Prussia meant cracks were appearing in this system by the turn of the 20th century. The concert system was utterly destroyed by

2739-498: The European Union and NAFTA , although these are not in themselves incompatible with larger accords. The original sponsor of post-war multilateralism in economic regimes, the United States, turned towards unilateral action and in trade and other negotiations as a result of dissatisfaction with the outcomes of multilateral fora. As the most powerful nation, the United States had the least to lose from abandoning multilateralism;

2822-706: The First World War . After that conflict, world leaders created the League of Nations (which became the precursor of the United Nations ) in an attempt to prevent a similar conflict. Although the League of Nations failed in its security mission, it initiated a variety of specialized organizations that continue to operate today. Moreover, although the US did not join, it did provide a degree of support from individual Americans and American philanthropies that started

2905-732: The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) The multilateral system has encountered mounting challenges since the end of the Cold War. The United States became increasingly dominant in terms of military and economic power , which has led countries such as Iran, China and India to question

2988-590: The United Nations (UN) and the World Trade Organization , are multilateral in nature. The main proponents of multilateralism have traditionally been the middle powers , such as Canada, Australia, Switzerland, the Benelux countries and the Nordic countries . Larger states often act unilaterally , while smaller ones may have little direct power in international affairs aside from participation in

3071-407: The resource curse . This is partially because aid given in the form of foreign currency causes exchange rate to become less competitive and this impedes the growth of manufacturing sector which is more conducive in the cheap labour conditions. Aid also can take the pressure off and delay the painful changes required in the economy to shift from agriculture to manufacturing. Some believe that aid

3154-764: The Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is mandated to coordinate the international humanitarian response to a natural disaster or complex emergency acting on the basis of the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 46/182. The Geneva Conventions give a mandate to the International Committee of the Red Cross and other impartial humanitarian organizations to provide assistance and protection of civilians during times of war. The ICRC, has been given

3237-584: The Development Assistance Committee. The United Nations , the World Bank , and many scholars use the DAC's ODA figure as their main aid figure because it is easily available and reasonably consistently calculated over time and between countries. The DAC classifies aid in three categories: Aid is often pledged at one point in time, but disbursements (financial transfers) might not arrive until later. In 2009, South Korea became

3320-536: The Soviet Union had signed in 1972. These challenges presented by the U.S. could be explained by a strong belief in bilateral alliances as instruments of control. Liberal institutionalists would argue, though, that great powers might still opt for a multilateral alliance. But great powers can amplify their capabilities to control small powers and maximize their leverage by forging a series of bilateral arrangements with allies, rather than see that leverage diluted in

3403-639: The UN's relevance. Concurrently, a perception developed among internationalists such as former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan , that the United States is more inclined to act unilaterally in situations with international implications. This trend began when the U.S. Senate, in October 1999, refused to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty , which President Bill Clinton had signed in September 1996. Under President George W. Bush

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3486-465: The US), Alesina and Dollar (2000) discovered that each has its own distortions to the aid it gives out. Japan appears to prioritize giving aid nations that exercise similar voting preferences in the United Nations, France mostly sends aid to its former colonies, and the U.S. disproportionately provides aid to Israel and Egypt. These allocations are often powerful tools for maintaining the strategic interests of

3569-417: The United Nations (by consolidating their UN vote in a voting bloc with other nations, for example.) Multilateralism may involve several nations acting together, as in the UN, or may involve regional or military alliances, pacts, or groupings, such as NATO . These multilateral institutions are not imposed on states but are created and accepted by them to increase their ability to seek their own interests through

3652-533: The United Nations made the new system more powerful than the old League system. Moreover, United Nations peacekeepers stationed around the world became a visible symbol of multilateralism. Later, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was formed as a defensive alliance that used the multilateral form to promote collective security in the postwar era. Multilateral institutions of varying scope and subject matter range from

3735-916: The United States rejected such multilateral agreements as the Kyoto Protocol , the International Criminal Court , the Ottawa Treaty banning anti-personnel land mines and a draft protocol to ensure compliance by States with the Biological Weapons Convention . Also under the George W. Bush administration , the United States withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty , which the Richard Nixon administration and

3818-526: The World Bank or UNICEF , pool aid from one or more sources and disperse it among many recipients. Aid may be also classified based on urgency into emergency aid and development aid. Emergency aid is rapid assistance given to a people in immediate distress by individuals, organizations, or governments to relieve suffering, during and after man-made emergencies (like wars ) and natural disasters . The term often carries an international connotation, but this

3901-633: The World Bank or the UN Development Program ) with at least a 25 percent grant element, one goal of which is to better the human condition in the country receiving the aid." The type of aid given may be classified according to various factors, including its level of urgency and intended purpose, or the terms or conditions (if any) under which it is given. Aid from various sources can reach recipients through bilateral or multilateral delivery systems. Bilateral refers to government to government transfers. Multilateral institutions , such as

3984-625: The World Bank, but only that part where risks are higher" and more stringent oversight thus deemed necessary. ) The study authors found "that donor efforts to control corruption in aid spending through national procurement systems, by tightening oversight and increasing market openness , were effective in reducing corruption risks." The study also found that countries with high party system institutionalization (PSI) and countries with greater state capacity had lower prevalence of single bidding, lending support for "theories of corruption control based on reducing opportunities and increasing constraints on

4067-670: The apparent increase in corruption did not appear to be driven by increased economic activity, but rather could be linked to a negative Chinese impact on norms (e.g., the legitimization of corruption). The study noted that: "Chinese aid stands out from World Bank aid in this respect. In particular, whereas the results indicate that Chinese aid projects fuel local corruption but have no observable impact on short term local economic activity, they suggest that World Bank aid projects stimulate local economic activity without any consistent evidence of it fuelling local corruption." Foreign aid kills local industries in developing countries. Foreign aid in

4150-580: The competitive 2006 Palestinian elections, they note that USAID provided funding for development programs in Palestine to support the Palestinian Authority, the US backed entity running for reelection. Faye and Niehaus discovered that the greater the degree of alignment the recipient party has with the donor entity, the more aid it receives on average during an election year. In an analysis of the three biggest donor nations (Japan, France, and

4233-493: The concept in his influential writings on multilateralism. Based on principles of "indivisibility" and "diffuse reciprocity he defined it as "an institutional form which coordinates relations among three or more states based on 'generalized' principles of conduct ... which specify appropriate conduct for a class of actions, without regard to particularistic interests of the parties or the strategic exigencies that may exist in any occurrence." He further clarified that multilateralism

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4316-572: The continent continues to be plagued by economic crises due to the combination of state generated factors and to the counter productivity of international development aid to Africa. Van de Walle posits that international aid has sustained economic stagnation in Africa by: In order for aid to be productive and for economic policy reform to be successfully implemented in Africa, the relationship between donors and governments must change. Van de Walle argues that aid must be made more conditional and selective to incentivize states to take on reform and to generate

4399-436: The coordination of their policies. Moreover, they serve as frameworks that constrain opportunistic behaviour and encourage coordination by facilitating the exchange of information about the actual behaviour of states regarding the standards to which they have consented. The term "regional multilateralism" has been proposed by Harris Mylonas and Emirhan Yorulmazlar, suggesting that "contemporary problems can be better solved at

4482-495: The core functions of government, such as operations and maintenance, or the delivery of basic public services, without foreign aid funding and expertise". Aid has made many African countries and other poor regions incapable of achieving economic growth and development without foreign assistance. Most African economies have become dependent on aid and this is because foreign aid has become a significant norm of systems of international relations between high and low income countries across

4565-404: The developed world, in a foreign aid, increases the price of locally produced goods and products. Due to their high prices, export of local goods reduces. As a result, local industries and producers are forced to go out of business. Statistical studies have produced widely differing assessments of the correlation between aid and economic growth: there is little consensus with some studies finding

4648-486: The developmental barriers associated with geography specifically, poor health, low agricultural productivity, and high transportation costs". The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are two organizations that Sachs argues are currently instrumental in advising and directing foreign aid; however, he argues that these two organizations focus too much on "institutional reforms". Foreign aid

4731-600: The difference between "stagnation and severe cumulative decline." Aid can make progress towards reducing poverty worldwide, or at least help prevent cumulative decline. Despite the intense criticism on aid, there are some promising numbers. In 1990, approximately 43 percent of the world's population was living on less than $ 1.25 a day and has dropped to about 16 percent in 2008. Maternal deaths have dropped from 543,000 in 1990 to 287,000 in 2010. Under-five mortality rates have also dropped, from 12 million in 1990 to 6.9 million in 2011. Although these numbers alone sound promising, there

4814-495: The donor country in the recipient country. Some analysts, such as researchers at the Overseas Development Institute , argue that current support for developing countries suffers from a policy incoherence. While some policies are designed to support developing countries, other domestic policies undermine its impact, examples include: Multilateralism One of the key advantages of multilateralism

4897-472: The erosion of nation-states' legal and operational sovereignty in international relations, "nation-states remain the ultimate locus of authoritative decision making regarding most facets of public and private life". Hoffman asserted that nation-states are "unlikely to embrace abstract obligations that clash with concrete calculations of national interest." Global multilateralism is challenged, particularly with respect to trade, by regional arrangements such as

4980-462: The first major recipient of ODA from the OECD to turn into a major donor. The country now provides over $ 1 billion in aid annually. Most monetary flows between nations are not counted as aid. These include market-based flows such as foreign direct investments and portfolio investments , remittances from migrant workers to their families in their home countries, and military aid . In 2009, aid in

5063-431: The following test: a) it is administered with the promotion of the economic development and welfare of developing countries as its main objective, and b) it is concessional in character and contains a grant element of at least 25% (calculated at a rate of discount of 10%)." Foreign aid has increased since the 1950s and 1960s (Isse 129). The notion that foreign aid increases economic performance and generates economic growth

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5146-434: The form of food aid that is given to poor countries or underdeveloped countries is responsible for the death of local farm industries in poor countries. Local farmers end up going out of business because they cannot compete with the abundance of cheap imported aid food, that is brought into poor countries as a response to humanitarian crisis and natural disasters. Large inflows of money that come into developing countries, from

5229-510: The form of membership in international institutions, serves to bind powerful nations, discourage unilateralism , and gives small powers a voice and influence that they could not otherwise exercise. For a small power to influence a great power, the Lilliputian strategy of small countries banding together to collectively bind a larger one can be effective. Similarly, multilateralism may allow one great power to influence another great power. For

5312-490: The form of remittances by migrant workers in the United States to their international families was twice as large as that country's humanitarian aid. The World Bank reported that, worldwide, foreign workers sent $ 328 billion from richer to poorer countries in 2008, over twice as much as official aid flows from OECD members. The United States does not count military aid in its foreign aid figures. Aid effectiveness

5395-552: The foundation of India's foreign policy . One modern instance of multilateralism occurred in the nineteenth century in Europe after the end of the Napoleonic Wars , where the great powers met to redraw the map of Europe at the Congress of Vienna (November 1814 to June 1815). The Concert of Europe , as it became known, was a group of great and lesser powers that would meet to resolve issues peacefully. Conferences such as

5478-411: The globe. Foreign aid makes African countries dependent on aid because it is regarded by policy makers as regular income, thus they do not have any incentive to make policies and decisions that will enable their countries to independently finance their economic growth and development. Additionally, aid does not incentivize the government to tax citizens, due to the constant inflow of foreign aid, and as

5561-772: The globe. Moyo devotes a section of her book, Dead Aid to rethinking the aid dependency model. She cautions that although "weaning governments off aid won't be easy", it is necessary. Primary among her prescriptions is a "capital solution" where African countries must enter the bond market to raise their capital for development, the interconnectedness that globalization has provided, will turn other "pools of money toward African markets in form of mutual funds, hedge funds, pension schemes" etc. A 2020 article published in Studies in Comparative International Development analyzed contract-level data over

5644-492: The interest of the donor than the recipient, or even a form of neocolonialism . Some specific motives a donor may have for giving aid were listed in 1985 as follows: defence support, market expansion, foreign investment, missionary enterprise, cultural extension. In recent decades, aid by organizations such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank has been criticized as being primarily

5727-487: The length of the fighting. Finally, Crost, Felter and Johnston (2014) have showed that a development program in the Philippines have had the unintended effect of increasing conflict because of a strategic retaliation from the rebel group, on where they tried to prevent that the development program increases support to the government. Aid dependency is defined as the "situation in which a country cannot perform many of

5810-412: The long term, rather than alleviating suffering in the short term. Official aid may be classified by types according to its intended purpose. Military aid is material or logistical assistance given to strengthen the military capabilities of an ally country. Humanitarian aid is material or logistical assistance provided for humanitarian purposes, typically in response to humanitarian crises such as

5893-654: The longstanding UN target for an ODA/GNI ratio of 0.7% in 2013: European Union countries that are members of the Development Assistance Committee gave 0.42% of GNI (excluding the $ 15.93 billion given by EU Institutions). Official development assistance (ODA) is a term coined by the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to measure aid. ODA refers to aid from national governments for promoting economic development and welfare in low and middle income countries. ODA can be bilateral or multilateral. This aid

5976-420: The main mechanism driving this result is predation of the aid by the rebel groups. In fact, they note that aid can have the unintentional consequence of actually improving rebel groups' ability to continue conflict, as vehicles and communications equipment usually accompany the aid that is stolen. These tools improve the ability of rebel groups to organize and give them assets to trade for arms, possibly increasing

6059-553: The much needed accountability and capacity in African governments. The effect of aid on conflict intensity and onset have been proved to have different impacts in different countries and situations. For instance, for the case of Colombia Dube and Naidu (2015) showed that Aid from the US seems to have been diverted to paramilitary groups, increasing political violence. Moreover, Nunn and Qian (2014) have found that an increase in U.S. food aid increases conflict intensity; they claim that

6142-434: The only choice, because small powers rarely have the resources to exert control on their own. As such, power disparities are accommodated to the weaker states by having more predictable bigger states and means to achieve control through collective action. Powerful states also buy into multilateral agreements by writing the rules and having privileges such as veto power and special status. International organizations , such as

6225-465: The period 1998 through 2008 in more than a hundred recipient countries. As a risk indicator for corruption, the study used the prevalence of single bids submitted in "high-risk" competitive tenders for procurement contracts funded by World Bank development aid. ("High-risk" tenders are those with a higher degree of World Bank oversight and control; as a result, the study authors noted that "our findings are not representative of all aid spending financed by

6308-612: The political institutions of the UN, the post-war years also saw the development of organizations such as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) (now the World Trade Organization ), the World Bank , and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) (the so-called ' Bretton Woods ' institutions), and other technical institutions that were part of the UN system—including the World Health Organization . Formation of these and other subsequent bodies under

6391-479: The power of public administrators." A 2018 study published in the Journal of Public Economics investigated with Chinese aid projects in Africa increased local-level corruption. Matching Afrobarometer data (on perceptions of corruption) to georeferenced data on Chinese development finance project sites, the study found that active Chinese project sites had more widespread local corruption. The study found that

6474-449: The regional rather than the bilateral or global levels" and that bringing together the concept of regional integration with that of multilateralism is necessary in today's world. Regionalism dates from the time of the earliest development of political communities, where economic and political relations naturally had a strong regionalist focus due to restrictions on technology, trade, and communications. The converse of multilateralism

6557-428: The terms or conditions (if any) under which it is given, its source, and its level of urgency. For example, aid may be classified based on urgency into emergency aid and development aid . Emergency aid is rapid assistance given to a people in immediate distress by individuals, organizations, or governments to relieve suffering, during and after man-made emergencies (like wars ) and natural disasters . Development aid

6640-413: The top 10 DAC countries is as follows. European Union countries together gave $ 75,838,040,000 and EU Institutions gave a further $ 19.4 billion. The European Union accumulated a higher portion of GDP as a form of foreign aid than any other economic union. Official development assistance as a percentage of gross national income contributed by the top 10 DAC countries is as follows. Five countries met

6723-533: The twentieth century, the champions of those ideologies – the Soviet Union and the United States – each used aid to influence the internal politics of other nations, and to support their weaker allies. Perhaps the most notable example was the Marshall Plan by which the United States , largely successfully, sought to pull European nations toward capitalism and away from communism. Aid to underdeveloped countries has sometimes been criticized as being more in

6806-674: The types of transfers considered "aid" vary from country to country. For example, the United States government discontinued the reporting of military aid as part of its foreign aid figures in 1958. The most widely used measure of aid is " Official Development Assistance " (ODA). The Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development defines its aid measure, Official Development Assistance (ODA), as follows: "ODA consists of flows to developing countries and multilateral institutions provided by official agencies, including state and local governments, or by their executive agencies, each transaction of which meets

6889-716: The weakest nations have the most to lose, but the cost for all would be high. Aside from changes in the US, populism in Europe has proven to be problematic to multilateralism in recent years. Results from direct elections to the European Parliament give evidence to this claim, as Eurosceptic parties have made advances. When enacting foreign policies, governments face a choice between unilateralism, bilateralism and multilateralism. Bilateralism means coordination with another single country. Multilateralism has attempted to find common ground based on generalized principles of conduct, in addition to details associated with

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