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INTERNATIONAL
DEVELOPMENT
ASSISTANCE
policy drivers
and performance
SERIES
OLAV STOKKE
EADI Global Development Series
Series Editors
Maja Bučar
University of Ljubljana
Ljubljana, Slovenia
Andrew Mold
United Nations Economic Commission for Africa
Kigali, Rwanda
Isa Baud
University of Amsterdam
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
The EADI Global Development series seeks to broaden our understanding
of the processes that advance or impede human development, whether
from a political, economic, sociological or anthropological perspective.
Development Studies (also known as ‘International Development Studies’)
is a multi- and inter-disciplinary field of study. Its aims are to understand
the interplay between social, economic, political, technological, ecological,
cultural and gendered aspects of societal change at the local, national,
regional and global levels. Its interest is in a strong link between theory,
policy and practice.
The series invites book manuscripts across all disciplines which address
these questions. EADI as an association of over 150 development research
institutes and regular conferences reaches the most important institutes
and researchers in this field.
International
Development
Assistance
Policy Drivers and Performance
Olav Stokke
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Oslo, Norway
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2019
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Preface and Acknowledgements
This volume addresses a fundamental and complex issue within aid and
development policy, hard to come to grips with: what are the main drivers
of the policy? The drivers may vary from one political system to another
and within most political systems—and within these systems over time.
And what can these drivers tell about the future of official development
assistance (ODA) in the years ahead?
It is an easier task to describe and analyse the actual policy, its objec-
tives, orientation and forms, what it has achieved and not achieved over
time—the craftsmanship of development assistance—although that, too,
may be demanding enough. In this study, the stated and implemented
development policy of selected members of the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD) constitutes building blocks in
approaching the more complex questions involving the drivers.
In my research, I have for years worked on selected aspects of develop-
ment policy, involving country studies as well as more specific aspects of
the policy, relating—for example—to food aid, aid conditionality, the
coherence problematic, and evaluation policy and methods. In some
works, I have even dived into the subject matter of this volume.
It would hardly have been possible for me to write this volume without
the many years of research cooperation within the European Association
of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), where I had
the privilege of serving as convenor of the working group on aid policy
and performance (1979–2004). I am deeply indebted to many colleagues
and friends within this setting who have generously shared their insights
into and experiences with development and development cooperation in
v
vi PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
1 Introduction 3
1 What the Study is About—The Main Questions Posed 4
2 Analytical Frameworks 9
3 Methods and Main Sources 15
4 Organization 16
References 21
vii
viii CONTENTS
Glossary385
Appendices391
Index409
List of Tables
xiii
PART I
Introduction
development strategies and targets set for the volume of aid and what
should be achieved.3
In 1960, an important development took place at a regional level. The
Western countries—organized within the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD)—established a Development
Assistance Committee (DAC) that operationalized the UN volume target.
It established a framework for what should be included in the concept and
counted as development assistance, as well as a system for regular report-
ing on and evaluating of the actual follow-up by its member countries on
commitments and norms. It even pushed its member governments to pro-
vide higher volumes on better conditions for the recipients of the
assistance.4
The processes in the late 1990s and the first years of the new century
that produced and formalized the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs) once more brought the international target for official develop-
ment assistance (ODA) to the fore. Along with improved market access
and debt sustainability, meeting the target was identified as a decisive pre-
condition for developing a global partnership for development. To meet
the challenges set out in Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for
Sustainable Development, “the target of 0.7% of ODA/GNI to developing
countries and 0.15 to 0.2% of ODA/GNI to least developed countries”
was again put forward, this time as an instrument to meet the 17 sustain-
able development goals (SDGs) and the 169 targets set for more specified
sub-goals.
that the US came to be among the countries with the weakest ODA per-
formance in relative terms? The answers to this question are of equally
fundamental importance, identifying constraints.
The selection of these five countries for scrutiny may also be interesting
because of their unequal starting positions. In the 1950s and early 1960s,
the US was a leading provider of development assistance both in absolute
and in relative terms, prompting the other DAC countries to increase their
aid contributions. The countries that later became frontrunners were, in
contrast, slow starters. In particular, Denmark and Norway were initially
right at the back, both in absolute and in relative terms. What explains the
subsequent reversal of positions?
In answering these questions, the net will be cast wide. The attention
of this comparative study will be directed towards the international align-
ments of the countries concerned—beyond their UN membership. It will
also focus on their relative economic ability to respond to the commit-
ment as measured by their GNP per capita and their balance-of-payments
situation over the years. The predominant worldviews, societal values,
norms and traditions within the individual DAC countries may also be
relevant, as may the political basis of the governments in the countries
concerned, along a right-left axis. This study will look into predominant
characteristics of this kind in the countries selected.
The policies and performance of the countries within the Nordic
region—Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden—call for special atten-
tion. During the formative years of their aid policies, these countries had
established a formal and informal regional cooperation in general, includ-
ing on aid policy. However, their security alignments differed: Denmark
and Norway (along with the Netherlands) were members of the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), while Sweden took a neutral/non-
aligned stand and Finland was linked to a “friendship treaty” with the
USSR. Their relations to the evolving European economic and political
integration varied as well. Denmark joined the European Economic
Community (EEC) in 1972 (the Netherlands was a founding member),
while the three other Nordic countries remained—for different reasons—
outside the EEC during the formative years of their aid policies. In the
1990s, however, Finland and Sweden joined the European Union (EU),
while Norway remained outside this inner circle.
This “special attention” calls for studies of selected aspects of the aid poli-
cies of the four frontrunners that have committed themselves to meeting the
international target set for ODA and from time to time have met even
INTRODUCTION 7
(10) To what extent did the various domestic and international envi-
ronments impact (or not impact) on the decision to set the
national targets and the deadline for attaining them?
(11) To what extent did changes in government and/or in the domes-
tic or international economic and political environments impact
on the sustainability of the policies focused on—the justifications
8 O. STOKKE
political relations with countries of the South. During the early years,
neither the US call for burden sharing in the containment of communism
in parts of the South nor the timid start of UN development assistance—
EPTA—attracted more than lukewarm attention, as demonstrated by
their modest aid performances in the 1950s and early 1960s.
The change came with the declaration of the first UN development
decade in 1961 and the later merger of the first two aid programmes into
the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The newcomers
did not, basically, see the provision of development assistance as an instru-
ment to sustain their national security and economic interests. They did,
however, see it as a way of strengthening the UN as such and its ability to
promote international peace and security, law and order.
This was a time when many new nations in the South emerged as inde-
pendent states. The UN had played a crucial role in the decolonization
process—and the new states joined the UN and used it as a main arena in
their foreign policy. The several small- and medium-sized Western coun-
tries that substantially increased their provision of development assistance
during the 1960s and 1970s considered this assistance primarily as just
that—a means of helping the countries in the South to develop, in the first
place economically, and then in becoming able to improve the social con-
ditions of their people.
Subsequently, the first UN development decade was declared. A strat-
egy adopted for its follow-up, including a volume target for development
assistance—meeting this target, and the more elaborate target for the fol-
lowing decade—emerged as an international obligation for members of
the United Nations. Several of the “newcomers” as aid providers had
national traditions linked to the welfare state and to international humani-
tarian relief. For these newcomers, meeting international obligations—
combined with an ideology of solidarity—appeared to be the main drivers,
rather than immediate vested national economic interests.6
Paradigms of the realist tradition failed to capture such basically altruis-
tic features of the development assistance. Recognition of this led to an
alternative paradigm for studying the foreign policy of this group of coun-
tries, and their aid policies in particular—namely humane international-
ism. The core of humane internationalism is an acceptance of the principle
that citizens of industrial nations have moral obligations towards peoples
beyond their borders and that this, in turn, has a bearing on the duties of
governments. An ethical thrust is combined with, and considered to be
INTRODUCTION 13
and parliaments) for the provision of ODA and their follow-up. As noted,
an equally important source that is exploited—beyond the official dis-
course of governments and parliaments, including political parties—is the
academic discourse on these issues in the countries concerned. Naturally,
when it comes to the implementation of the stated policy, statistical evi-
dence is drawn upon as well. The five country studies of the four European
frontrunners and of the US constitute a basis for drawing conclusions on
a comparative basis—with an eye also on the policies and performance of
other DAC members.
4 Organization
Part Two provides the overall setting. Chapter 2 is the point of departure
for this study, outlining the evolving international aid targets. I trace the
roots of the volume target back to the early 1950s, as well as the process
leading to the UN’s first symbolic decision on the 1% target. This process
is described and analysed. The targets set for the subsequent UN develop-
ment decades are outlined and discussed, as are the processes leading to
the MDGs and the ODA volume target that was eventually set for the
attainment of these goals.
Chapter 3 provides a bird’s-eye perspective on the follow-up of these
volume targets by the members of DAC, decade by decade, with a focus
on trends.
However, ODA transfers, recorded by the DAC as development assis-
tance, have not been channelled only to poor countries of the “South”.
And countries of the South have not always been poor countries in relative
terms—their GNP/GNI per capita has varied quite extensively. Nor has
ODA always been channelled to improve the condition of poor people.
Over the years, it has served so many other purposes, varying from one
aid-providing country to another and—for the individual donor coun-
try—also over time. The “generosity” of the ODA provided to recipients
varies, too—at times quite extensively. Assistance has been provided in the
form of credits and/or grants, influencing the actual value to recipients. A
variety of conditions have been attached—from commercial conditions
such as procurement tying, to political conditions of different types, as
reflected in the first- and second-generation aid conditionality of the
1980s and 1990s, respectively, and beyond.
INTRODUCTION 17
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