Aid donations. Click image for full graphic Photograph: Guardian
As the numbers are published on progress towards the MDGs, many people are asking about the links between rich country aid programmes and improved outcomes for poor people. Watch as world leaders emerge from the big MDG summit in New York and glide seamlessly from a discussion of poverty to a confident declaration that improving statistics on child health/maternal health/income poverty/access to water are a sign that aid is working. Meanwhile the usual band of sceptics will latch onto any negative stat and parade it as proof that aid is useless and that, in general, all is doomed. In reality, though, we don't have strong enough evidence to make either of these claims.
There are two broad and annoyingly general statements that I do think we can make sensibly about aid and the MDGs. Firstly, there is a large group of countries for whom aid is almost entirely irrelevant. The strong progress against poverty in China and Brazil (and most of Latin America), and the fairly good progress in India, for example, have next to nothing to do with aid. We can say this with confidence because aid to these countries is miniscule as a percentage of their GDP, so while we could debate for ages what the factors of progress are (presumably a combination of rising wealth and sensible spending decisions at a national level) we know that aid is not one of them.
Notably, it is in these countries where progress measured in numbers of people is greatest, simply because these countries are very populous. So progress here means global progress – they are the motor of the MDGs, and aid doesn't matter (when aid is defined as a transfer of money – other forms of international support and cooperation may have been relevant).
But there is a second group of countries which are highly dependent on aid – smaller, poorer countries, mostly in Africa, some in Asia and a handful in Latin America. Our second and even more annoyingly general statement is that in these countries aid has certainly been very relevant... we just don't know in what way. Sorry.
How do we know that aid is very relevant? Simply because aid is such a large part of the budget and therefore also of the social/political/economic decision making processes. In countries like Burundi (where aid is about 50% of GNI), Guinea Bissau (35%), Mozambique (26%) and Sierra Leone (33%) it would be impossible for aid not to be enormously important.
Progress in these countries has not been as obvious as in the first group of countries, although examples of countries where no progress has been made are few and far between. But has aid been a positive factor, or a negative one? It is very difficult to make general statements about the relationship between aid and (lack of) progress. Where progress is strong, is it because of high levels of aid, or in spite of them? Where progress is weak, the same question applies. Even if there was a clear graph showing that more/less aid leads to more/less progress (which there doesn't seem to be) it wouldn't help much because it would tell us little about causality, the holy and elusive grail of statistical analysis.
To know if aid is working, we need to get to know the political aspects of the specific recipient country, and the particulars of the aid modalities. In some, conditions attached to aid by donors (which have undermined productive capacity leading to less food and fewer jobs) or long term aid dependence (that has so undermined political capacity and accountability that the state is now less able than previously to deliver public goods) mean that, overall, aid may have had a negative effect on poverty reduction, despite the positive stories of change we may read about in donor annual reports. But in others aid has been managed much better, with fewer negative consequences, allowing its positive impacts to dominate – real changes in the lives of poor people.
It all depends on the specifics. Apart from my two very broad-brush groups there are a lot of countries in between where I'm afraid we have to be even more circumspect. So apologies to all those who wanted a neat graph showing how aid helps/hinders poverty reduction. There isn't one.
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Data summary
The big aid donors
2007 figures. Click heading to sort
Country or Area
Aid as % of gross national income
Aid, $m
SOURCE: ALL DATA FROM THE UN
Original data:
• Aid as % of GNI
• Total aid donated
Australia
0.32
2668.52
Austria
0.50
1808.46
Belgium
0.43
1952.83
Canada
0.29
4079.69
Denmark
0.81
2562.23
Finland
0.39
981.34
France
0.38
9883.59
Germany
0.37
12290.7
Greece
0.16
500.82
Ireland
0.55
1192.15
Italy
0.19
3970.62
Japan
0.17
7678.95
Luxembourg
0.91
375.53
Netherlands
0.81
6224.26
New Zealand
0.27
319.8
Norway
0.95
3728.02
Portugal
0.22
470.54
Spain
0.37
5139.8
Sweden
0.93
4338.94
Switzerland
0.37
1689.16
United Kingdom
0.36
9848.54
United States
0.16
21786.9
Aid received by country
2007 figures. Click heading to sort
Country or Area
Aid received per head, 2005, $
Aid received as % of gross national income, 2007
Aid received in 2007, $m
SOURCE: ALL DATA FROM THE UN
Original data:
• Aid as % of GNI
• Total aid received
Afghanistan
108.83
34
3951
Albania
98.18
3
305
Algeria
10.99
0
390
Angola
27.41
1
241
Anguilla
327.19
Antigua & Barbuda
85.74
0
4
Argentina
2.53
0
82
Armenia
63.74
4
352
Azerbaijan
23.19
1
225
Bangladesh
8.41
2
1502
Barbados
- 7.33
14
Belarus
4.38
0
83
Belize
46.74
2
23
Benin
41.09
9
470
Bhutan
140.91
8
89
Bolivia
62.98
4
476
Bosnia & Herzegovina
133.85
3
443
Botswana
38.61
1
104
Brazil
1.02
0
297
Burkina Faso
47.21
14
930
Burundi
46.42
50
466
Cambodia
37.26
8
672
Cameroon
23.2
9
1933
Cape Verde
316.89
12
163
Central African Republic
22.72
10
176
Chad
37.43
6
352
Chile
9.24
0
120
China
1.32
0
1439
Colombia
11.34
0
731
Comoros
31.62
10
44
Congo
401.33
2
127
Congo, Dem Rep of
31.1
Cook Islands
554.2
9
Costa Rica
6.67
0
53
Cote d'Ivoire
6.38
Croatia
26.82
0
164
Cuba
7.78
92
Djibouti
95.52
12
112
Dominica
221.45
6
19
Dominican Republic
8.08
0
128
Ecuador
16.06
1
215
Egypt
12.31
1
1083
El Salvador
29.5
0
88
Equatorial Guinea
80.46
0
31
Eritrea
79.13
13
155
Ethiopia
24.15
12
2422
Fiji
76.83
2
57
Gabon
41.69
1
48
Gambia
35.9
Georgia
67.34
4
382
Ghana
49.08
8
1151
Grenada
424.95
5
23
Guatemala
19.81
1
450
Guinea
20.21
5
224
Guinea-Bissau
49.49
35
123
Guyana
184.83
12
124
Haiti
55.38
11
701
Honduras
99.37
4
464
India
1.52
0
1298
Indonesia
10.96
0
796
Iran
1.43
Iraq
767.25
9115
Jamaica
13.25
0
26
Jordan
105.73
3
504
Kazakhstan
11.48
0
202
Kenya
21.19
4
1275
Kiribati
302.16
21
27
Korea, North
3.43
Kyrgyzstan
40.28
8
274
Lao People's Democratic Republic
50.37
Lebanon
61.04
4
939
Lesotho
34.74
7
130
Liberia
68.59
120
696
Libya
3.46
Macedonia, FYR
109.72
Madagascar
49.84
12
892
Malawi
43.32
21
735
Malaysia
1.07
0
200
Maldives
210.33
4
37
Mali
59.54
15
1017
Marshall Islands
996.12
26
52
Mauritania
64.17
13
364
Mauritius
25.73
1
75
Mexico
1.8
0
121
Micronesia
966.31
Moldova
47.34
Mongolia
72.02
6
228
Montserrat
4939.59
Morocco
19.61
2
1090
Mozambique
62.54
26
1777
Myanmar
2.85
190
Namibia
60.17
3
205
Nauru
889.13
26
Nepal
15.72
6
598
Nicaragua
135.31
15
834
Niger
38.83
13
542
Nigeria
45.54
1
2042
Niue
12922.79
15
Oman
2.05
- 31
Pakistan
9.69
2
2212
Palau
1164.11
13
22
Palestinian Territory, occupied
288.49
Panama
5.85
- 1
- 135
Papua New Guinea
43.9
6
317
Paraguay
8.23
1
108
Peru
14.41
0
263
Philippines
6.55
0
634
Rwanda
62.37
22
713
Saint Helena
3523.99
Saint Kitts & Nevis
69.19
1
3
Saint Lucia
67.97
3
24
Saint Vincent & the Grenadines
40.46
Samoa
238.41
8
37
Sao Tome & Principe
208.69
25
36
Saudi Arabia
0.67
0
- 131
Senegal
58.52
8
843
Serbia & Montenegro
104.01
Seychelles
219.1
0
3
Sierra Leone
61.45
33
535
Solomon Islands
419.5
67
248
Somalia
28.82
384
South Africa
14.59
0
794
Sri Lanka
59.7
2
589
Sudan
48.43
5
2104
Suriname
97.02
7
151
Swaziland
40.88
2
63
Syria
4.26
Tajikistan
35.98
6
221
Tanzania
38.8
Thailand
- 2.85
0
- 312
Timor-Leste
172.8
Togo
13.88
5
121
Tokelau
11406.14
Tonga
319.04
13
30
Trinidad & Tobago
- 1.62
0
18
Tunisia
37.05
1
310
Turkey
6.33
0
797
Turkmenistan
3.54
0
28
Turks & Caicos Islands
212.6
Tuvalu
856.24
12
Uganda
41.32
16
1728
Ukraine
7.86
0
405
Uruguay
4.21
0
34
Uzbekistan
5.85
1
166
Vanuatu
183.08
13
57
Venezuela
1.79
0
71
Vietnam
22.18
Wallis & Futuna
4776.84
Yemen
14.28
1
225
Zambia
82.28
10
1045
Zimbabwe
28.02
465
