Regional Geography of Aid: Subnational Approach to Foreign Aid Allocations in Research and Education

Abstract

Foreign aid allocations have been of interest to researchers in developing economy, development studies, and development geography. Most of the available studies address development issues at countries level rather than at subnational levels within these countries. Researchers model and test the distribution of aid across recipient countries, considering recipient countries as homogenous units. This methodological approach masks an important regional heterogeneity within developing countries; therefore sub-national analyses may significantly contribute to more nuanced understanding of foreign aid. The gap in research arises from the related fact, that there has been a chronic lack of usable project-level data from developing countries. The situation has been changing only slowly over the last few years. This contribution attempts to emphasize the importance of the regional perspective in research of foreign aid allocations and to demonstrate the challenges associated with the geocoding of the Czech Republic's foreign aid projects on the example of students' seminar assignment on Czech foreign aid in Ethiopia.