Qatar’s Development Cooperation and Least Developed Countries (LDCs)

Abstract

How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected the foreign aid behavior of new donors on humanitarian cooperation? The non–OECD-DAC donors, such as Qatar, try to adapt to the new environment of development and humanitarian aid under COVID-19 pandemic. Qatar has successfully used public diplomacy to deal with regional geopolitical challenges. In this sense, the current situation presents an opportunity to Qatar for opening up to new geographies. This research analyzes Qatar’s foreign aid, utilizing a novel dataset on Qatar’s foreign aid interactions before and during the pandemic. These interactions show Qatar’s main recipients of foreign aid, with which country, income group and geography it interacts more. This dataset is essential to demonstrate Qatar’s priorities in humanitarian diplomacy as well. The pandemic makes this dataset even more interesting because it is worthwhile to investigate how a global health shock might affect the aid behavior of a new donor. Our analysis shows that Qatar has increased its foreign aid interactions compared to the pre-pandemic period. Qatar’s foreign aid regime is evolving according to income group and geographical differentiation, new communications with different recipients, revealing the country’s aspirations to be a global donor. However, Qatar’s foreign aid also has many limitations that negatively affect its global status. These factors are related to Qatar’s insistence on providing aid to specific regions and countries. Although Qatar has increased its humanitarian aid interaction with underdeveloped countries and disadvantaged geographies, the country privileges certain countries and geographies. The income group diversification in Qatar’s foreign aid policy does not manifest a strong positive inclination toward LDCs.