Donor interactions in the allocation of adaptation aid: A network analysis

Abstract

This article examines how adaptation aid is allocated across countries, and specifically focus on the role of donor—donor interactions in allocation decisions. We test two contrasting hypotheses: the presence of other adaptation donors in a recipient country may increase or reduce the likelihood of donor i to provide adaptation aid to that recipient. In the former case, donors support adaptation in the same recipient countries; in the latter, they provide their adaptation aid to different recipient countries. We model adaptation aid allocations as a network, and apply an innovative method, bipartite temporal exponential random graph models, to bilateral adaptation aid flows between 2010 and 2016. Our empirical analysis finds strong evidence for donor interactions. The results suggest a positive effect of other donors: donors tend to support adaptation in similar sets of recipient countries. These results provide further evidence that adaptation aid largely follow the structures and processes of traditional development aid, which poses questions for the additionality of finance for adaptation to climate change.