Keeping a Low Profile : What Determines the Allocation of Aid by Non-Governmental Organizations ?

lundi 6 avril 2009, par CSO-Effectiveness

The authors of this paper on NGO aid allocations assert that their study is "the first comprehensive cross-country analysis of the driving forces of NGO aid, based on unpublished data that we collected for a representative group of some 60 of the largest NGOs from various OECD countries".

The authors found that :

• First of all, NGO aid is concentrated in the neediest countries. The evidence suggests that NGOs focus on the poor, in particular in the second stage of the allocation process, i.e., when deciding which amount of aid to grant to eligible countries. Second, commercial interests such as the promotion of exports, often supposed to shape the allocation of official aid, have not systematically affected the allocation of NGO aid.

• NGOs complement official aid through engaging in so-called difficult institutional environments where state aid agencies find it difficult to reach needy citizens. Rather, NGOs tend to replicate the location choices of official “backdonors” from whom NGOs get part of their funding. This casts doubt on the notion of autonomous NGO behavior.

• NGOs follow other NGOs so that aid gets clustered, further adding to the divide between so-called ’donor darlings’ and ’donor orphans’.

• NGOs prefer recipient countries with common traits related to religion or colonial history.

1 Message

• Keeping a Low Profile : What Determines the Allocation of Aid by Non-Governmental Organizations ?

  11 mai 2009 15:23, par Paul Okumu

  I agree with this study in many ways, though two past global studies by Action Aid ( see Real Aid 2005) indicate that Aid to developing countries is closely tied to Trade, especially those by Official bilateral agencies. Our Organization ( SISA Centre for Corporate Partnership-sisa.kabissa.org) have just completed two studies in Kenya and Uganda on " NGO Sustainability" and agree with you that these challenges make recipient NGOs especially vulnerable, bringing our loyalty and focus into question. Thank you for these kinds of studies. Sustainability, output and impact is largely driven by the challenges you have outlined and we hope that as Civil society becomes more creative on how it achieves its development agenda, more focused on its internal strengths and and more inward looking for new ideas for resource generation, Aid allocation will increase in quality and decrease in quantity.