Concessional Assistance Research Articles

Update on the Financing of the Fund's Concessional Assistance and Debt Relief to Low-Income Member Countries

This paper provides a semi-annual review of the status of financing for the Fund’s concessional lending and debt relief to low-income countries (LICs). Since the last review, the Executive Board has approved comprehensive reforms of the Fund’s concessional lending instruments and financing framework. This update is based on data available at end-August and also takes into account the implications of these reforms.

Update on the Financing of the Fund's Concessional Assistance and Debt Relief to Low-Income Member Countries

This paper provides a semi-annual review of the status of financing for PRGF-ESF lending, subsidization of emergency assistance, and HIPC and MDRI debt relief. The last review was completed by the Executive Board on September 24, 2008. The paper does not address the G-20’s recent call for additional concessional resources, which is discussed in a separate paper.

Update on the Financing of the Fund's Concessional Assistance and Debt Relief to Low-Income Member Countries

This paper provides a semi-annual review of the status of financing for PRGFESF lending, HIPC and MDRI debt relief, and an update on the mobilization of resources for the subsidization of emergency assistance to PRGF-eligible countries. The last review was completed by the Executive Board on September 26, 2007.

Update on the Financing of the IMF's Concessional Assistance and Debt Relief to Low-Income Member Countries

This paper provides a semi-annual review of the status of financing for Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility-Exogenous Shocks Facility (PRGF-ESF) lending, subsidization of emergency assistance to PRGF-eligible countries, and Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) and Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI) debt relief. The last review was completed by the IMF Executive Board on April 21, 2008.

Update on the Financing of the Fund's Concessional Assistance and Debt Relief to Low-Income Member Countries

This paper provides a semi-annual review of the status of financing for PRGF-ESF lending, HIPC and MDRI debt relief, and subsidization of emergency assistance to PRGF-eligible members. The last review was completed by the Executive Board on April 13, 2007.

Update on the Financing of the Fund's Concessional Assistance and Debt Relief to Low-Income Member Countries

This paper provides a semi-annual review of the status of financing for PRGF-ESF lending, HIPC and MDRI debt relief, and subsidization of emergency assistance to PRGF-eligible members. The last review was completed by the Executive Board on September 6, 2006.

Update on the Financing of the Fund's Concessional Assistance and Debt Relief to Low-Income Member Countries

This paper provides a semi-annual review of the status of financing for PRGFESF lending, HIPC-MDRI debt relief, and subsidization of emergency assistance to PRGF-eligible members. The last update was issued to the Executive Board in March 2006.

Review of Financing of the Fund's Concessional Assistance and Debt Relief to Low-Income Member Countries

Immediately following the effectiveness of the decisions on the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI) and the Exogenous Shocks Facility (ESF), debt relief totaling SDR 2.3 billion was delivered to 19 qualifying members, including 17 countries under the enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative and two non-HIPCs, on January 6, 2006, with financing from the HIPC Umbrella sub-accounts and the newly established MDRI Trusts.

Foreign aid and rent-seeking

Why has the macroeconomic impact of foreign aid seemingly been so poor? Is there a relationship between the widespread level of corruption and other types of rent-seeking activities and concessional assistance? To answer these questions we provide a simple game-theoretic rent-seeking model. The model has a number of implications. First, under certain circumstances, an increase in government revenue lowers the provision of public goods. Second, the mere expectation of aid may suffice to increase rent dissipation and reduce productive public spending. This result may be reversed, however, if the donor community can enter into a binding policy commitment. We also provide some preliminary empirical evidence in support of the hypothesis that foreign aid and windfalls are on average associated with higher corruption in countries more likely to suffer from competing social groups. We find no evidence that the donors systematically allocate aid to countries with less corruption.

AID IN THE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

This article examines the economic effects of aid and the relationships among private capital flows, official flows, and concessional assistance. It considers whether official and concessional flows improve the welfare of both recipient and grantor, and it outlines the economic rationale for concessional assistance. The impact of aid on a recipient's growth performance is analyzed, and some criticisms of aid are evaluated.

External assistance for food and agricultural development in the Third World

Trends in the flow of investment in and external development assistance to food and agriculture in developing countries are the subject of this paper. These are discussed in the context of targets regarding agricultural production increases set both by the FAO and by the World Food Conference (1974). The paper deals specifically with external assistance commitments offered by such donors as the DAC, IBRD, OPEC, Regional Development Banks, etc., with a special emphasis on ‘concessional assistance’.