Generous or Not?
At a news conference on December 27, 2004, UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland called for a major international response to the Asian tsunami disaster. In his comments, Egeland lamented that donor countries, despite their unprecedented wealth, generally provide so little in international aid. Calling rich governments “stingy,” Egeland expressed his astonishment over the fact that donors used to be more generous when they were less rich.(1)
Egeland’s remarks provoked a strong reaction, particularly from the US. Andrew Natsios, head of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), publicly refuted the view that the US was being tightfisted when it comes to assisting poor countries. “The notion that the United States is not generous is simply not true, factually. We’ve had one of the largest increases [in aid] of any country in the world,” Natsios said. President George W. Bush in turn dismissed Egeland’s comments by calling him “very misguided and ill-informed.”(2)
However, Egeland never singled out the United States. He was referring to donors – the rich countries – in general. As a whole, were his criticisms justified, or was he just ill-informed? Are rich countries, not only the US, but also the EU, Japan, Australia, and others, really that stingy?
On the surface, it appears as if Egeland was wrong. In recent years, aid amounts have been on a constant rise. In 2004, official development assistance to poor countries reached its highest level ever. The United States alone provided almost $19 billion in aid – more than ever before.(3)
But the recent increases do not tell the whole truth about rich countries’ generosity, or the lack of it. Measured as a proportion of gross national income (GNI), aid lags far behind the 0.7 percent target the United Nations set 35 years ago. Moreover, development assistance is often of dubious quality. In many cases, aid is primarily designed to serve the strategic and economic interests of the donor countries or to benefit powerful domestic interest groups. Aid systems based on the interests of donors instead of the needs of recipients’ make development assistance inefficient. Too little aid reaches countries that most desperately need it, and, all too often, aid is wasted on overpriced goods and services from donor countries.
This paper presents an overview on the volumes, targeting and geographical allocation of development assistance over the past five years. It analyzes various features in rich countries’ development assistance policies that make aid both insufficient and inefficient – despite the recent increases in nominal aid amounts that make rich nations seem generous.
The Elusive 0.7 Percent Target
Thirty-five years have passed since the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution in 1970, affirming that rich countries should progressively increase their official development assistance (ODA) spending. According to the resolution, donor nations were to “exert their best efforts” to reach the aid target of 0.7 percent of their gross national product(4) by the middle of the decade. By 1975, only two countries, the Netherlands and Sweden, had succeeded in living up to that promise.
Since then, rich nations have reaffirmed the 0.7 percent target on various occasions, most recently at the 2002 Financing for Development Conference in Monterrey, Mexico. But the results have been meager. After 35 years of promises, only five of the 22 Development Assistance Committee (DAC) member countries – Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden – have reached the goal.(5)
In retrospect, the five-year timetable set in 1970 looks overly optimistic, even naïve. But in 1970, the 0.7 target seemed far more realistic than it does today. Through most of the 1960s, aid volumes had been at a level of 0.4–0.5 percent of rich countries’ GNI, in some years even above that. Even after some decreases in development aid in the late 1960s, the level stood at 0.33 percent in 1970. There was still some reason for optimism.
But disappointingly, aid volumes remained virtually unchanged through the 1970s and 1980s, if measured as a proportion of the donor countries’ national incomes. While assistance measured in dollars increased, aid budgets only just kept up with general economic growth. Thus in 1990, rich countries contributed exactly the same proportion of their national income – 0.33 percent – to development assistance they did twenty ears earlier in 1970.
The real setback, however, came in the 1990s when aid volumes began falling – not only measured in proportion to GNI but also in dollar terms. Students of development policy have suggested that the end of Cold War played a crucial role in governments’ eagerness to cut aid budgets. During the Cold War, Western countries – particularly the US – had used development aid to support geopolitical goals, and the Soviet Union had similar systems in place to aid its own allies. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the underlying Cold War rationale for development assistance disappeared, and governments lost much of their interest in international aid. Many Western nations were also struggling with fiscal problems in the early 1990s, and development assistance was usually among the first targets when budget cuts were decided.(6)
Source: OECD.
It took 9/11 for donors to gain back their appetite for development assistance. After the terrorist strikes, experts, journalists and political leaders started to view poor countries’ abysmal social and economic conditions as a catalyst for political and religious radicalization. Leaders in Europe and Asia began to urge rich countries to increase development assistance as a measure to combat terrorism.(7)
The US administration was particularly quick to reassess its development policies. By the end of 2001, it had pulled together a $1.06 billion aid package for Pakistan, Afghanistan and the neighboring former Soviet republics. In March 2002, President Bush announced the creation of the Millennium Challenge Account, a new fund that would provide an additional $5 billion annually for development. The following year, the White House introduced new aid initiatives to combat HIV/AIDS and famine in Africa.(8)
As a result, global development assistance reached a new record, $78.6 billion, in 2004 – an 18.6 percent increase from 2000. By far the largest increase took place in the US, as Washington raised its aid budget by a whopping 76.4 percent from $10.5 billion in 2000 to almost $18.6 billion in 2004. Other countries that boosted their aid included France, Ireland, Spain and the United Kingdom.
Despite the impressive figures, however, the increases have been far too small for rich countries to reach the 0.7 percent ODA/GNI goal. The 1990s decline in aid funding was so steep that the volumes – measured as proportion of the donor countries’ GNI – are now only approaching the level where they were ten years ago. After the recent increases, global development assistance accounted for just 0.25 percent of rich countries’ GNI in 2004. In 1990, the figure had been 0.33, and in 1960 as high as 0.54. This means that in relation to their wealth, rich countries give less than half the amount the aid they did in the early 1960s when they were far less affluent.
Moreover, part of the increase has not been real but caused by changes in currency exchange rates. Since the official OECD aid statistics are expressed in US dollars, the steep decline of the dollar in recent years has been reflected as additional increases in nominal aid from countries that use other currencies. While global development assistance in nominal terms grew 12.1 percent from 2003 to 2004, the real increase was much smaller, only 4.6 percent.(9)
New Aid Targets and the Millennium Development Goals
The 0.7 percent proportion of rich countries' gross national income is of course a very arbitrary target, as there is no real justification for choosing this particular percentage. The goal was simply adopted in the absence of better and more concrete ways of measuring aid.
As such, the target has drawn a lot of criticism. Some development experts have questioned the meaningfulness of measuring aid as a percentage of donor countries’ incomes. Targets for development assistance should be determined by conditions in the recipient countries, not by the size of donor nations’ economies that has no bearing on the actual need for aid.(10)
Despite its obvious shortcomings, the 0.7 percent target has established itself over the years. More recently, efforts towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have further stimulated discussion on reaching the old aid goal. The 2002 Monterrey Consensus Document recognized that a “substantial increase in ODA” is necessary for poor countries to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, and called on rich nations to “make concrete efforts towards the [aid] target of 0.7 per cent.” In 2005, the UN Millennium Development Project concluded that rich countries should increase their ODA to 0.7 percent of their national incomes by 2015 in order to provide adequate funding for the MDGs and other necessary development projects.(11)
As a result of public pressure, European Union countries have begun to define strategies to contribute to the MDG process and to reach the 0.7 percent goal. Five countries have set fixed timetables for reaching the 0.7 percent target: Belgium and Finland have set the end of the timeframe at 2010, France and Spain at 2012, and the UK at 2013. In May 2005, the European Union agreed on a new collective EU ODA target of 0.7 percent GNI by 2015 with an intermediate target of 0.56 percent by 2010.(12)
However, it is questionable if the European countries with fixed timetables will actually succeed in boosting development assistance to the promised level. The Finnish government has not significantly increased its aid budget since adopting the timetable in 2003, and Belgian development assistance has actually decreased since 2002. At this pace, the two countries will never be able to reach their own targets. Ireland, the fastest-growing economy in Western Europe, already recognized its defeat in November 2004 by officially abandoning its previous commitment to reach the 0.7 goal by 2007. This lack of progress does not indicate a very bright future for the EU’s collective ODA targets. The targets may well turn out to be just another set of empty promises, unless governments also act to reach the goals they have set for themselves.(13)
As of yet, other donor nations have not set any fixed timetables for reaching the 0.7 target. The world's largest aid donor, the United States, has in fact continuously opposed any international development assistance targets based on countries’ gross national incomes. The US has argued that the 0.7 percent goal “has no bearing on the quality of aid projects, their effectiveness, or their impact on economic development.” Instead of development assistance, the US has stressed the importance of private investment and trade.(14) The attitude is predictable, since even after massive increases in aid spending, the US ranks second to last among donors with its 0.16 percent ODA/GNI figure. Only Italy gives less aid in proportion to its GNI, 0.15 percent.
Also Japan has been among the least generous development aid donors for the past several decades. In recent years, it has further cut its aid budget. Between 2000 and 2004, the amount of Japanese development assistance plummeted 29 percent, and it stands currently at just 0.19 percent of the country’s national income. Canada and Australia, on their part, have been somewhat more charitable with development assistance, but even they have decreased aid funding from the mid-1990s. The ODA/GNI figure for Australia stands currently at 0.25 percent and for Canada at 0.26 percent – both far behind the 0.7 target.
Aid in the Service of Strategic Interests
Sadly, failing to reach or set aid targets is not the only problem. Although the Cold War is long over, the geopolitical mindset governing the distribution of aid has not changed very much. Old recipient countries may have been replaced by new ones, but the underlying rationale of using aid to promote donor countries’ strategic interests is still very much alive. Instead of allocating their aid based on where it is most needed, rich countries often favor recipients that are of direct political or economic interest to them. As a result, the most impoverished people of the planet actually receive less aid than people living in middle-income countries.
Many European donors favor countries in former Yugoslavia, Europe’s own restless backyard. In 2002–2003, ex-Yugoslav states ranked as number one recipient of aid from Austria, Germany, Greece, Switzerland, Norway and the European Union. Over 79 percent of all Greek development assistance went to other European nations. The corresponding figures for Austrian and German development aid were 34.2 and 13.1 percent respectively. Much of this aid is motivated by domestic political concerns, above all fears of uncontrolled immigration from crisis-stricken countries nearby.
Other European nations have allocated less aid to former Yugoslavia, but many favor their old colonies where European companies often have a strong presence. In 2002–2003, Côte d’Ivoire and Cameroon ranked among top recipients of French development assistance; Timor-Leste, Cape Verde, Mozambique and Angola were biggest recipients of aid from Portugal; and Belgium sent most aid to the Democratic Republic of Congo.(15)
Ex-Yugoslav republics and former European colonies are no doubt in need of aid from rich countries. However, allocating aid on the basis of geographical proximity or former colonial ties rather than of actual needs of the poor countries may result in diminished aid for those who most desperately need it. Much of the aid is thus serving the interests of the donors instead of those of the recipients – the people aid is supposed to help.
The United States has a long history of using development assistance to serve its foreign policy goals. In 1982–1983 and 1992–1993, Israel and Egypt, both key US allies, ranked as biggest recipients of US foreign aid. Together these two countries accounted for more than half of total US development assistance. With its GNI of $19,440 per capita in 2002, Israel outranks such countries as Slovenia, Portugal and the Czech Republic in wealth, and is classified as a high-income economy by the World Bank. At the same time, however, Israel received more development assistance per capita from DAC countries – $115 – than some of the world’s poorest nations like Burkina Faso ($40 per capita), Guyana ($85) and Mozambique ($111).(16)
Since 9/11, the idea of using development assistance as a foreign policy tool has only gained more ground. In February 2002, US Senate resolved that “United States foreign assistance programs should play an increased role in the global fight against terrorism to complement the national security objectives of the United States.”(17) Similarly, a USAID commission report from January 2004 called for greater “selectivity” in US foreign aid based on “relevance to US national security” and “greater aid effectiveness.”(18)
In practice, this policy paradigm has meant channeling massive aid flows to countries that are key US allies in the global “war on terror.” Before 9/11, the United States had allocated just $10.5 million in aid for Pakistan for the fiscal year 2002. After the 9/11 terrorist strikes, the amount jumped to $673 million – a 64-fold increase. This boost made Pakistan the world’s largest recipient of development assistance in 2002. Afghanistan in turn saw its aid from the US grow almost 100-fold from $2.9 million to $278 million, and aid to Uzbekistan and Tajikistan was also multiplied.(19)
Much of the recent increase in US development assistance has gone to funding state-building and reconstruction projects in regions that have been directly involved in US-led military operations. In addition to Afghanistan, Iraq with its enormous reconstruction needs has emerged as a new destination for US development aid. In 2004, the country received $2.9 billion in development assistance from the United States, while Afghanistan received $875 million.(20)
Thanks to the boost in US aid funding, it appears that the “war on terror” has not diverted US aid flows from poorest countries. However, the much-advertised increases have not helped them, either. Despite the Bush administration's rhetoric on helping the world's poor, practically all of the new money appropriated for US development assistance has gone to countries that are of strategic interest for the US in the “war on terror.”(21)
As for other donors to Iraq and Afghanistan, the picture is even uglier. Since many of them have not increased their overall development assistance the way the US has done, money going to these two countries has been taken – at least in part – from existing aid programs.(22)
While there certainly is an urgent need in Iraq and Afghanistan to restore the infrastructure destroyed by years of wars, political mismanagement and economic sanctions, there are other regions in the world where the humanitarian situation is even more pressing. Efforts to find money for the reconstruction projects in Iraq and Afghanistan will inevitably curtail development assistance and humanitarian aid in other parts of the world.
The main reason for prioritizing Iraq and Afghanistan is political. The two countries receive huge amounts of aid because US policymakers see them as politically and economically crucial to Washington’s global agenda. In the meantime, sub-Saharan countries with massive development problems receive only secondary attention, because the US and other donors have a lot less at stake in the region.
Aid That Helps the Rich
Rich countries do not use development assistance only to advance their political and strategic interests. They also seek to maximize the benefits of foreign aid to their own economies and in particular to powerful domestic lobby groups.
Many rich nations tie their development assistance to purchases of goods and services from the donor country. Poor countries get aid, but only under the condition that they spend it in a way that benefits businesses in the donor nation. In effect, tied aid constitutes a form of government subsidy because taxpayer money is used to buy goods and services from domestic companies and aid recipients only get the product.
Tied aid is a particularly inefficient form of development assistance because it does not help poor countries develop their economies. Instead of creating new businesses and jobs in recipient countries, most of the benefits remain in the donor nations. Tied aid is also inefficient because often goods and services would be available at a lower price from local producers or world markets. The South Africa-based NGO ActionAid estimates that $5 billion in aid goes wasted each year because tied aid inflates procurement costs. Furthermore, tying can slow aid down, as a lot of time goes wasted in complicated procurement procedures even in severe emergency situations.(23)
* Commitments excluding techical co-operation and administrative costs.
(a) Gross disbursements.
Source: Statistical Annex of the 2004 Development Co-operation Report, OECD.
At a news conference on December 27, 2004, UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland called for a major international response to the Asian tsunami disaster. In his comments, Egeland lamented that donor countries, despite their unprecedented wealth, generally provide so little in international aid. Calling rich governments “stingy,” Egeland expressed his astonishment over the fact that donors used to be more generous when they were less rich.(1)
Egeland’s remarks provoked a strong reaction, particularly from the US. Andrew Natsios, head of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), publicly refuted the view that the US was being tightfisted when it comes to assisting poor countries. “The notion that the United States is not generous is simply not true, factually. We’ve had one of the largest increases [in aid] of any country in the world,” Natsios said. President George W. Bush in turn dismissed Egeland’s comments by calling him “very misguided and ill-informed.”(2)
However, Egeland never singled out the United States. He was referring to donors – the rich countries – in general. As a whole, were his criticisms justified, or was he just ill-informed? Are rich countries, not only the US, but also the EU, Japan, Australia, and others, really that stingy?
On the surface, it appears as if Egeland was wrong. In recent years, aid amounts have been on a constant rise. In 2004, official development assistance to poor countries reached its highest level ever. The United States alone provided almost $19 billion in aid – more than ever before.(3)
But the recent increases do not tell the whole truth about rich countries’ generosity, or the lack of it. Measured as a proportion of gross national income (GNI), aid lags far behind the 0.7 percent target the United Nations set 35 years ago. Moreover, development assistance is often of dubious quality. In many cases, aid is primarily designed to serve the strategic and economic interests of the donor countries or to benefit powerful domestic interest groups. Aid systems based on the interests of donors instead of the needs of recipients’ make development assistance inefficient. Too little aid reaches countries that most desperately need it, and, all too often, aid is wasted on overpriced goods and services from donor countries.
This paper presents an overview on the volumes, targeting and geographical allocation of development assistance over the past five years. It analyzes various features in rich countries’ development assistance policies that make aid both insufficient and inefficient – despite the recent increases in nominal aid amounts that make rich nations seem generous.
The Elusive 0.7 Percent Target
Thirty-five years have passed since the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution in 1970, affirming that rich countries should progressively increase their official development assistance (ODA) spending. According to the resolution, donor nations were to “exert their best efforts” to reach the aid target of 0.7 percent of their gross national product(4) by the middle of the decade. By 1975, only two countries, the Netherlands and Sweden, had succeeded in living up to that promise.
Since then, rich nations have reaffirmed the 0.7 percent target on various occasions, most recently at the 2002 Financing for Development Conference in Monterrey, Mexico. But the results have been meager. After 35 years of promises, only five of the 22 Development Assistance Committee (DAC) member countries – Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden – have reached the goal.(5)
In retrospect, the five-year timetable set in 1970 looks overly optimistic, even naïve. But in 1970, the 0.7 target seemed far more realistic than it does today. Through most of the 1960s, aid volumes had been at a level of 0.4–0.5 percent of rich countries’ GNI, in some years even above that. Even after some decreases in development aid in the late 1960s, the level stood at 0.33 percent in 1970. There was still some reason for optimism.
But disappointingly, aid volumes remained virtually unchanged through the 1970s and 1980s, if measured as a proportion of the donor countries’ national incomes. While assistance measured in dollars increased, aid budgets only just kept up with general economic growth. Thus in 1990, rich countries contributed exactly the same proportion of their national income – 0.33 percent – to development assistance they did twenty ears earlier in 1970.
The real setback, however, came in the 1990s when aid volumes began falling – not only measured in proportion to GNI but also in dollar terms. Students of development policy have suggested that the end of Cold War played a crucial role in governments’ eagerness to cut aid budgets. During the Cold War, Western countries – particularly the US – had used development aid to support geopolitical goals, and the Soviet Union had similar systems in place to aid its own allies. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the underlying Cold War rationale for development assistance disappeared, and governments lost much of their interest in international aid. Many Western nations were also struggling with fiscal problems in the early 1990s, and development assistance was usually among the first targets when budget cuts were decided.(6)
Source: OECD.
It took 9/11 for donors to gain back their appetite for development assistance. After the terrorist strikes, experts, journalists and political leaders started to view poor countries’ abysmal social and economic conditions as a catalyst for political and religious radicalization. Leaders in Europe and Asia began to urge rich countries to increase development assistance as a measure to combat terrorism.(7)
The US administration was particularly quick to reassess its development policies. By the end of 2001, it had pulled together a $1.06 billion aid package for Pakistan, Afghanistan and the neighboring former Soviet republics. In March 2002, President Bush announced the creation of the Millennium Challenge Account, a new fund that would provide an additional $5 billion annually for development. The following year, the White House introduced new aid initiatives to combat HIV/AIDS and famine in Africa.(8)
As a result, global development assistance reached a new record, $78.6 billion, in 2004 – an 18.6 percent increase from 2000. By far the largest increase took place in the US, as Washington raised its aid budget by a whopping 76.4 percent from $10.5 billion in 2000 to almost $18.6 billion in 2004. Other countries that boosted their aid included France, Ireland, Spain and the United Kingdom.
Despite the impressive figures, however, the increases have been far too small for rich countries to reach the 0.7 percent ODA/GNI goal. The 1990s decline in aid funding was so steep that the volumes – measured as proportion of the donor countries’ GNI – are now only approaching the level where they were ten years ago. After the recent increases, global development assistance accounted for just 0.25 percent of rich countries’ GNI in 2004. In 1990, the figure had been 0.33, and in 1960 as high as 0.54. This means that in relation to their wealth, rich countries give less than half the amount the aid they did in the early 1960s when they were far less affluent.
Moreover, part of the increase has not been real but caused by changes in currency exchange rates. Since the official OECD aid statistics are expressed in US dollars, the steep decline of the dollar in recent years has been reflected as additional increases in nominal aid from countries that use other currencies. While global development assistance in nominal terms grew 12.1 percent from 2003 to 2004, the real increase was much smaller, only 4.6 percent.(9)
New Aid Targets and the Millennium Development Goals
The 0.7 percent proportion of rich countries' gross national income is of course a very arbitrary target, as there is no real justification for choosing this particular percentage. The goal was simply adopted in the absence of better and more concrete ways of measuring aid.
As such, the target has drawn a lot of criticism. Some development experts have questioned the meaningfulness of measuring aid as a percentage of donor countries’ incomes. Targets for development assistance should be determined by conditions in the recipient countries, not by the size of donor nations’ economies that has no bearing on the actual need for aid.(10)
Despite its obvious shortcomings, the 0.7 percent target has established itself over the years. More recently, efforts towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have further stimulated discussion on reaching the old aid goal. The 2002 Monterrey Consensus Document recognized that a “substantial increase in ODA” is necessary for poor countries to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, and called on rich nations to “make concrete efforts towards the [aid] target of 0.7 per cent.” In 2005, the UN Millennium Development Project concluded that rich countries should increase their ODA to 0.7 percent of their national incomes by 2015 in order to provide adequate funding for the MDGs and other necessary development projects.(11)
As a result of public pressure, European Union countries have begun to define strategies to contribute to the MDG process and to reach the 0.7 percent goal. Five countries have set fixed timetables for reaching the 0.7 percent target: Belgium and Finland have set the end of the timeframe at 2010, France and Spain at 2012, and the UK at 2013. In May 2005, the European Union agreed on a new collective EU ODA target of 0.7 percent GNI by 2015 with an intermediate target of 0.56 percent by 2010.(12)
However, it is questionable if the European countries with fixed timetables will actually succeed in boosting development assistance to the promised level. The Finnish government has not significantly increased its aid budget since adopting the timetable in 2003, and Belgian development assistance has actually decreased since 2002. At this pace, the two countries will never be able to reach their own targets. Ireland, the fastest-growing economy in Western Europe, already recognized its defeat in November 2004 by officially abandoning its previous commitment to reach the 0.7 goal by 2007. This lack of progress does not indicate a very bright future for the EU’s collective ODA targets. The targets may well turn out to be just another set of empty promises, unless governments also act to reach the goals they have set for themselves.(13)
As of yet, other donor nations have not set any fixed timetables for reaching the 0.7 target. The world's largest aid donor, the United States, has in fact continuously opposed any international development assistance targets based on countries’ gross national incomes. The US has argued that the 0.7 percent goal “has no bearing on the quality of aid projects, their effectiveness, or their impact on economic development.” Instead of development assistance, the US has stressed the importance of private investment and trade.(14) The attitude is predictable, since even after massive increases in aid spending, the US ranks second to last among donors with its 0.16 percent ODA/GNI figure. Only Italy gives less aid in proportion to its GNI, 0.15 percent.
Also Japan has been among the least generous development aid donors for the past several decades. In recent years, it has further cut its aid budget. Between 2000 and 2004, the amount of Japanese development assistance plummeted 29 percent, and it stands currently at just 0.19 percent of the country’s national income. Canada and Australia, on their part, have been somewhat more charitable with development assistance, but even they have decreased aid funding from the mid-1990s. The ODA/GNI figure for Australia stands currently at 0.25 percent and for Canada at 0.26 percent – both far behind the 0.7 target.
Aid in the Service of Strategic Interests
Sadly, failing to reach or set aid targets is not the only problem. Although the Cold War is long over, the geopolitical mindset governing the distribution of aid has not changed very much. Old recipient countries may have been replaced by new ones, but the underlying rationale of using aid to promote donor countries’ strategic interests is still very much alive. Instead of allocating their aid based on where it is most needed, rich countries often favor recipients that are of direct political or economic interest to them. As a result, the most impoverished people of the planet actually receive less aid than people living in middle-income countries.
Many European donors favor countries in former Yugoslavia, Europe’s own restless backyard. In 2002–2003, ex-Yugoslav states ranked as number one recipient of aid from Austria, Germany, Greece, Switzerland, Norway and the European Union. Over 79 percent of all Greek development assistance went to other European nations. The corresponding figures for Austrian and German development aid were 34.2 and 13.1 percent respectively. Much of this aid is motivated by domestic political concerns, above all fears of uncontrolled immigration from crisis-stricken countries nearby.
Other European nations have allocated less aid to former Yugoslavia, but many favor their old colonies where European companies often have a strong presence. In 2002–2003, Côte d’Ivoire and Cameroon ranked among top recipients of French development assistance; Timor-Leste, Cape Verde, Mozambique and Angola were biggest recipients of aid from Portugal; and Belgium sent most aid to the Democratic Republic of Congo.(15)
Ex-Yugoslav republics and former European colonies are no doubt in need of aid from rich countries. However, allocating aid on the basis of geographical proximity or former colonial ties rather than of actual needs of the poor countries may result in diminished aid for those who most desperately need it. Much of the aid is thus serving the interests of the donors instead of those of the recipients – the people aid is supposed to help.
The United States has a long history of using development assistance to serve its foreign policy goals. In 1982–1983 and 1992–1993, Israel and Egypt, both key US allies, ranked as biggest recipients of US foreign aid. Together these two countries accounted for more than half of total US development assistance. With its GNI of $19,440 per capita in 2002, Israel outranks such countries as Slovenia, Portugal and the Czech Republic in wealth, and is classified as a high-income economy by the World Bank. At the same time, however, Israel received more development assistance per capita from DAC countries – $115 – than some of the world’s poorest nations like Burkina Faso ($40 per capita), Guyana ($85) and Mozambique ($111).(16)
Since 9/11, the idea of using development assistance as a foreign policy tool has only gained more ground. In February 2002, US Senate resolved that “United States foreign assistance programs should play an increased role in the global fight against terrorism to complement the national security objectives of the United States.”(17) Similarly, a USAID commission report from January 2004 called for greater “selectivity” in US foreign aid based on “relevance to US national security” and “greater aid effectiveness.”(18)
In practice, this policy paradigm has meant channeling massive aid flows to countries that are key US allies in the global “war on terror.” Before 9/11, the United States had allocated just $10.5 million in aid for Pakistan for the fiscal year 2002. After the 9/11 terrorist strikes, the amount jumped to $673 million – a 64-fold increase. This boost made Pakistan the world’s largest recipient of development assistance in 2002. Afghanistan in turn saw its aid from the US grow almost 100-fold from $2.9 million to $278 million, and aid to Uzbekistan and Tajikistan was also multiplied.(19)
Much of the recent increase in US development assistance has gone to funding state-building and reconstruction projects in regions that have been directly involved in US-led military operations. In addition to Afghanistan, Iraq with its enormous reconstruction needs has emerged as a new destination for US development aid. In 2004, the country received $2.9 billion in development assistance from the United States, while Afghanistan received $875 million.(20)
Thanks to the boost in US aid funding, it appears that the “war on terror” has not diverted US aid flows from poorest countries. However, the much-advertised increases have not helped them, either. Despite the Bush administration's rhetoric on helping the world's poor, practically all of the new money appropriated for US development assistance has gone to countries that are of strategic interest for the US in the “war on terror.”(21)
As for other donors to Iraq and Afghanistan, the picture is even uglier. Since many of them have not increased their overall development assistance the way the US has done, money going to these two countries has been taken – at least in part – from existing aid programs.(22)
While there certainly is an urgent need in Iraq and Afghanistan to restore the infrastructure destroyed by years of wars, political mismanagement and economic sanctions, there are other regions in the world where the humanitarian situation is even more pressing. Efforts to find money for the reconstruction projects in Iraq and Afghanistan will inevitably curtail development assistance and humanitarian aid in other parts of the world.
The main reason for prioritizing Iraq and Afghanistan is political. The two countries receive huge amounts of aid because US policymakers see them as politically and economically crucial to Washington’s global agenda. In the meantime, sub-Saharan countries with massive development problems receive only secondary attention, because the US and other donors have a lot less at stake in the region.
Aid That Helps the Rich
Rich countries do not use development assistance only to advance their political and strategic interests. They also seek to maximize the benefits of foreign aid to their own economies and in particular to powerful domestic lobby groups.
Many rich nations tie their development assistance to purchases of goods and services from the donor country. Poor countries get aid, but only under the condition that they spend it in a way that benefits businesses in the donor nation. In effect, tied aid constitutes a form of government subsidy because taxpayer money is used to buy goods and services from domestic companies and aid recipients only get the product.
Tied aid is a particularly inefficient form of development assistance because it does not help poor countries develop their economies. Instead of creating new businesses and jobs in recipient countries, most of the benefits remain in the donor nations. Tied aid is also inefficient because often goods and services would be available at a lower price from local producers or world markets. The South Africa-based NGO ActionAid estimates that $5 billion in aid goes wasted each year because tied aid inflates procurement costs. Furthermore, tying can slow aid down, as a lot of time goes wasted in complicated procurement procedures even in severe emergency situations.(23)
* Commitments excluding techical co-operation and administrative costs.
(a) Gross disbursements.
Source: Statistical Annex of the 2004 Development Co-operation Report, OECD.