Brave New World: A Literature Review of Emerging Donors and the Changing Nature of Foreign Assistance

Abstract

In this paper we look at the scale and scope of emerging donors many of which are developing economies themselves. On the basis of a survey of the literature we find that estimates of annual aid flows from new donors (so-called non-DAC donors) vary greatly and are somewhere between $11 billion and $41.7 billion or 8 and 31 percent of global gross ODA. We find that new donors are not a monolithic group but instead represent three distinct models of aid delivery which we describe as the DAC Model the Arab Model and the Southern Model. While we see the need to increase transparency and accountability of aid flows across these delivery models we do not see a convergence to the DAC model. Rather emerging donors may follow different paths in accordance with their own traditions and standards. We argue that encouraging aid transparency especially reporting data on project-level assistance must be the core focus of the aid community. To engage the non-DAC donors the forum for international aid coordination might need to be moved away from the OECD-DAC platform; DAC could instead serve as one donor caucus within a larger international system of aid reporting.