IDST 1001H Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: United Nations General Assembly, Humanitarian Aid, Economic Reconstruction
14 Jun 2018
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Department
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International Development Assistance: Help or Hinderance?
Exam
• 20 true or false questions (1% each)
• 20 multiple choice questions (1% each)
• Do 5 out of 10 short answers (5% each)
• Do 1 out of 5 long answers (35%)
Aid has different forms, different motivations, different intended beneficiaries, different delivery
agencies, varied scales, varied time horizons, and varied impacts
Charitable impulse
• Motivations for charitable impulse are complex and many
• We see charitable impulse in activities of NGO’s, civil society organizations, and faith-
based organizations
• These are private aid
International Development Assistance (differences from charitable impulse):
• Singular aim or framework at its inception
• Framework to meet challenges of collective security and economic reconstruction
after war
• Enormity of resources and organizations
• Aid is political
• Promotion of economic growth
• Promotion of foreign policy goals
• Promotion of specific industry or companies
• Rich countries give aid
Aid: transfer of resources on concessional terms (terms that are more generous, or softer than
loans obtainable in the world’s financial markets)
• Includes:
• Grants
• Concessional loans: money lent at less than prevailing world market rates of
interest
• Official Development Finance: money that goes from developed country
governments and multilateral agencies that go to developing world
including loans at market interest rates (not aid)
• Official Development Assistance: flow to developing country which
consists of combination of grants and concessional loans, and grant
comprises ¼ of the money at a minimum
• Official Aid: combination of concessional loans or grants, grants must be
at least ¼ of flow, but goes to more advanced middle-income countries
• For aid to qualify as development assistance, it must be undertaken by official
organizations, must have grant element, and must promote economic
development and improvements in human welfare
• Does not necessarily go to the poorest
• Development Assistance Committee (DAC): coordinating body of representatives of rich
countries that belong to Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD)
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• Sets definition of what counts as official aid or ODA
• If a country takes refugees into its borders, this can count as aid
What is not ODA?
• Foreign direct investment
• Trade
• Portfolio investment
• Commercial loan
• Market interest rate loan
• Debt-relief
Where does aid come from?
• 0.32% of GDP given on average from members of OECD as aid
• Large disparities in what countries give
• Humanitarian assistance does not count as aid, but has gone up
• Especially to WFP, UNHCR, and UNICEF
• In 1972 UN General Assembly set target for countries to spend 0.7% of GDP on aid
• As a whole members of OECD do not meet aid targets
• Canada gives less than average aid
• Aid between years fluctuates both up and down, although with an upward trend
• Aid to Africa is falling
• Aid is often given from countries for their own self-interest
• Which is why aid often does not go to poorest countries
The architecture of aid:
• Multilateral agencies
• Bilateral agencies (country to country)
• Non-governmental organizations (NGO’s)
Administration of aid:
• Project aid: money for a specific project
• Programme aid: set of interconnect projects
• Technical assistance: grants used to buy knowledge a country does not have
• Humanitarian aid: combats complex emergencies out of famines or natural disasters
• Military aid: some forms of peacekeeping operations
Aid can be delivered to development sectors or in terms of development approaches to policy
(ex. PRSP’s)
6 Key Characteristics of Contemporary Aid:
• Bulk of world’s development aid (in terms of money and ideas and people who do it) flow
through small number of multilateral organizations (in particular, World Bank and UN)
• When bilaterals are involved, they often reflect bilateral political priorities
• Very extensive interconnections within aid industry between multilateral organizations
and bilateral agencies
• Often people working in one of them are paid by another
• A lot of bilateral money is channeled into multilateral
• Collaboration
• Historically, but also contemporarily, aid is based on some form of conditionality
• According to DAC, good aid should:
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find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Exam: 20 true or false questions (1% each, 20 multiple choice questions (1% each, do 5 out of 10 short answers (5% each, do 1 out of 5 long answers (35%) Aid has different forms, different motivations, different intended beneficiaries, different delivery agencies, varied scales, varied time horizons, and varied impacts. Charitable impulse: motivations for charitable impulse are complex and many, we see charitable impulse in activities of ngo"s, civil society organizations, and faith- based organizations, these are private aid. Aid: transfer of resources on concessional terms (terms that are more generous, or softer than loans obtainable in the world"s financial markets) If a country takes refugees into its borders, this can count as aid. What is not oda: foreign direct investment, trade, portfolio investment, commercial loan, market interest rate loan, debt-relief. The architecture of aid: multilateral agencies, bilateral agencies (country to country, non-governmental organizations (ngo"s)
