Multilateral Channels Research Articles

The economic impact of COVID-19 on Syrian Refugees in Jordan: A review of existing evidence and policies

The global COVID-19 crisis has precipitated an economic downturn in many countries, subsequently raising concerns about the potential challenges faced by marginalized populations, such as refugees, in accessing essential healthcare, hygiene facilities, and critical health information and safety guidelines within the context of Jordan. Consequently, it is of paramount importance to investigate and evaluate the specific economic hurdles related to COVID-19 that refugees are encountering. This inquiry will serve as a valuable foundation for shaping public health interventions aimed at containing the virus’s spread and guiding policymakers on strategies to enhance the well-being of refugees in Jordan. This paper offers a comprehensive examination of Syrian refugees in Jordan, including an analysis of the policies implemented by Jordan concerning Syrian refugees in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, the report assesses whether international assistance, both through bilateral and multilateral channels, can mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on Jordan’s capacity to continue hosting Syrian refugees. It also delves into the economic consequences of COVID-19, covering aspects such as poverty, education, the health sector budget, healthcare accessibility, essential needs, livelihoods, the labor market, and food security among Syrian refugees in Jordan.

‘In the interest of your bank and our country’: Two encounters between China and the International Chamber of Commerce

AbstractThis article examines China’s path to joining the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), a private international organization founded in Paris in 1920, of which China was a member from 1931–1949 and from 1994 onwards. The article charts the actors and debates behind two meaningful encounters. The first took place while the Nanjing government was raising funds for economic reconstruction, and the ICC aimed to mediate China’s fundraising efforts through private multilateral channels. The second was in the 1980s, when the People’s Republic was seeking to enter the world trade system. ICC members acted as educators and facilitators of world trade practicalities for the People’s Republic, which eventually rejoined the ICC in 1994. The article draws on Chinese, European, and American source material collected from governments, chambers of commerce, and private businessmen to make a twofold contribution. First, it adds nuance to the narrative of China’s economic internationalization by identifying an important non-governmental diplomatic channel. Second, it questions the ICC’s self-proclaimed identity as a non-political economic organization by showing how the political was indissociable from the economic when it came to China’s membership.

Poland in the EU Development Policy: Active Participant or Passive Donor?

Accession to the European Union (EU) significantly impacted the structure and volume of Poland’s Official Development Assistance (ODA). Since 2004, most of the Polish aid has been distributed through multilateral channels (annually 73% on average), with the dominant position among them of the EU (annually 90% of multilateral ODA and at the same time 66% of total ODA). The EU remains the main administrator of Polish aid resources. Therefore, the main aim of this article is to define the contribution (both in political and financial terms) that Poland makes to the European Union’s development policy. It is no less important to verify the state’s activity level in shaping this policy, which is related to promoting foreign policy interests (long-term and short-term) in the EU forum.

African agency, COVID-19 and debt renegotiations with China

ABSTRACT Africa is facing a new debt crisis, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. China, a major creditor nation, has demonstrated a willingness to negotiate debt relief measures with African states on both a bilateral and multilateral basis. An assessment of African agency in bilateral debt renegotiations remains a conundrum for China–Africa observers, however, due to the secretive nature of these talks. Given the power deficits that African states hold relative to China, this article, on the basis of the application of an analytical framework and a study of the Zambian case, argues that it would be more strategic for African officials to engage with the Chinese via multilateral channels when it comes to debt renegotiations. Additionally, in view of decreased Chinese lending and the concerns of Chinese creditors about their debt exposure in Africa, the article provides a brief look ahead at the future of Chinese lending to the continent.

China’s foreign aid as a proxy of ODA: preliminary estimate 2001-2022

ABSTRACT By establishing the China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA) in 2018, China has attempted to enhance foreign aid as a diplomatic means and has been more assertive in providing foreign aid through both bilateral and multilateral channels. However, China only publishes aggregated foreign aid statistics in white papers, and data beyond 2019 are not available. This paper aims to estimate China’s foreign aid from 2001 to 2022 as a proxy for Official Development Assistance (ODA) defined by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The results revealed that China’s foreign aid, on a grant-equivalent basis, decreased from US$6.4 billion in 2019 to US$5.0 billion in 2020. China has mobilized a large amount of funding for international cooperation on COVID-19. It is unclear how much of this was financed by regular foreign aid budgets. Thus, two cases were set in the current study. In the upper case, all donated vaccines, estimated at US$3.9 billion, came from other sources while in the lower case, it was assumed that the regular foreign aid budget covered all costs. China’s foreign aid in 2022 was estimated at US$7.9 billion in the upper case and US$5.0 billion in the lower case. Compared with major ODA donors, China ranked 6th in the upper case and 13th in the lower case. Currently, the CIDCA is attempting to mobilize new financial resources to expand its activities under the Global Development Initiative. It is important to continue to comprehensively examine how China proceeds in improving its development cooperation.

Impact of Bilateral and Multilateral Aid on Economic Growth in Low and Middle-Income Sub Sahara African Countries: Mediating Role of Institutional Quality

The purpose of the study was to compare the impact of bilateral and multilateral aid on economic growth in middle and low-income Sub Sahara Africa (SSA) countries, and determine whether the impact is contingent on institutional quality. The study relied on panel data from 28 SSA countries from 1999 – 2015. Countries were grouped into middle and low-income countries following the World Bank classification, and a dynamic model was specified and estimated for both categories of countries using the technique of system GMM. After accounting for the differences in levels of economic development, the results showed that only multilateral aid had a positive and significant effect on economic growth in both middle and low-income countries, and that the impact is contingent on existence of good quality institutions. The study therefore recommends that donors should focus more on advancing aid through multilateral channels, and that governments of SSA countries—both middle and low-income—should focus on strengthening the quality of their institutions if they are to maximize value from multilateral aid. 

Indonesian Foreign Policy on Covid-19 Vaccine Procurement

This study aimed to explain Indonesia's foreign policy on Covid-19 vaccine procurement. It applied foreign policy concepts and qualitative methods to direct, collect, and analyze data. The data were collected through focus group discussions and structured interviews. The results showed that Indonesia's foreign policy on Covid-19 management had a national interest in protecting the public from contracting the virus. The country had 10 vaccines, including Sinovac, AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Moderna, Sinopharm, Johnson and Johnson, Sputnik V, CanSino, Novavax, and Zifivax. The procurement of the Covid-19 vaccine is carried out through bilateral and multilateral channels. The vaccine procurement financing was through buying and grants. The granting countries included China, Japan, the Netherlands, the United States, and the United Arab Emirates; while Covax Facility provided the multilateral grant.

Norwegian Development Aid: A Paradigm Shift in the Making?

Norway has remained committed to allocating one percent of its Gross National Income in developing aid. Poverty reduction has also stayed as an overarching objective for the aid budget. The commitment to these traditional pillars in Norwegian aid is also accompanied by major changes: reduced focus on partner countries and bilateral aid and an expanding emphasis on supporting global action, the rise of a flourishing number of new thematic priorities and delivery through multilateral channels. This article maps the evolving continuities and changes in Norwegian development aid since the early 1990s. It relies on an analytical framework based on Peter Halls work on paradigm shifts and his distinction between first, second and third order changes. The explanation for the evolving profile of Norwegian aid is found in a combination of domestic driving forces. Based on Matthew Wood’s concepts of puzzling and powering dynamics behind paradigm shifts the article identifies the forces behind evolving aid policies. One is depolitisation behind Norwegian aid – a broad political and popular support and consensus but limited debate leaving much space for foreign policy and self-interest to shape implementation and selection of instruments. A second is linked to a change in the policy arena and the growing dominance of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This has led to a multifaceted and fragmented aid profile allowing various dimensions of development aid policies to be shaped by different interests and priorities. It has not yet reached a stage where we can identify a major break with the past and a radical policy transformation. The new focus on climate issues and migration may have the potential to change that and give self-interests a stronger influence over long-term development aid and its objectives. Changes in coalition politics may have the potential to change the majority behind the one percent target and the commitment to poverty reduction.

Political economy of vaccine diplomacy: explaining varying strategies of China, India, and Russia’s COVID-19 vaccine diplomacy

The COVID-19 pandemic and global responses to this crisis reveal the changing landscape of global health governance. As countries around the world struggle to secure COVID-19 vaccines for their citizens, some non-Western powers have actively distributed vaccines internationally – an act broadly recognized as vaccine diplomacy. While existing literature suggests that geopolitical concerns affect the selection of recipient countries, it has yet to explain other aspects of vaccine diplomacy. Why are some countries focused on vaccine sales while others are more open to donation? Why do some prefer bilateral to multilateral channels in distributing vaccines? Through comparative analysis of China, India, and Russia, this article shows that political economic factors, in addition to geopolitics, shape the ways non-Western powers conduct vaccine diplomacy. We argue that these countries adjust their strategies in line with their relative advantages in development, manufacturing, and delivery of vaccines. Each country has unique strengths and weakness, which gives rise to the varied patterns in vaccine diplomacy. Our findings suggest that their strategies of vaccine diplomacy are enabled as well as constrained by their economic realities, and the rise of these countries in this field does not necessarily mean an outright challenge to the existing international system.

Multi-bilateral aid for disease control

A growing portion of aid directed through multilateral channels is earmarked for specific recipients and purposes, giving donors greater control, also known as multi-bilateral aid. This project examines competing explanations of donors’ use of this multi-bilateral aid for different problems within the same sector, specifically development aid for disease control. Using explanations from the literature on multilateralism and principal-agent dynamics, I compare donors’ use of multi-bilateral and bilateral delivery of disease-specific foreign aid. The results suggest that while donors deliver a greater portion of aid through multi-bilateral channels for larger, more complex problems, they are reluctant to delegate issues that most affect their populations.

The New Asian Development Finance

The recent challenges posed for multilateralism and the emergence of a sustainable development regime have pushed countries to engage in more flexible, issue-based development finance initiatives and institutions. These changes have profoundly impacted how China conceives and delivers its development finance. How is China’s development finance being shaped by other countries’ experiences? How has China been shaping development finance globally? This article argues that China’s development finance has been increasingly market-oriented, concerned about financial and environmental sustainability, and delivered through hybrid bilateral–multilateral channels, particularly since the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative. Shaped by the changes that China experienced at both international and domestic levels, these new features signal the rise of a ‘new Asian development finance’ that is refocusing the global debate on the importance of combining aid, trade, and investment under financially and environmentally sustainable frameworks, and channelling development finance through multilateral channels to catalyse structural transformation.

Financing Climate Change Adaptation: International Initiatives

Climate change adaptation is one of the main strategies to address global climate change. The least developed countries and the small island states that lack financial resources to adapt to climate change are the most vulnerable nations to climate change. Although it would be more economical to adapt to climate change compared to the anticipated damage of not doing so, the demand for capital is estimated to range to hundreds of billions. The crucial question is how to manage investments to adapt to climate change globally. This study provides an overview of existing international provisions on climate finance for adaptation. It includes provisions through international financial institutions, United Nations agencies, bilateral and multilateral channels, and the private sector. It also explores how private sector finance can be further attracted to invest in climate change adaptation.

No Longer the Elephant Outside the Room: Why the Ukraine Crisis Reflects a Deeper Shift Towards German Leadership of European Foreign Policy

Germany’s position as Europe’s predominant economic power has long been recognised. In recent years it has also emerged as a leading European foreign policy actor, although its willingness and capacity to play an explicit leadership role are debated. In particular, the ‘geo-economic’ analyses of Kundnani (The Paradox of German Power, 2014) and Szabo (Germany, Russia and the Rise of Geo-Economics, 2015) argue that German foreign policy is increasingly focused on narrow calculations of national interest resulting in a decline in the instinctive multilateralism that has characterised its international engagement since 1949. This article uses the German response to the current Ukraine crisis to contest these arguments. Examining both German engagement with the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy, a crucial component of its foreign policy-making, and its response to the Ukraine crisis, the article contends that far from becoming more unilateral, a more vigorous German multilateralism is emerging. This seeks to fully utilise all available multilateral channels and in turn reflects how far the centre of gravity in European foreign policy-making has shifted towards Berlin.

Revolutionary Cuba and the GATT/WTO System

Cuba was a charter signatory of the GATT, transitioning to WTO membership in 1995. After its 1959 revolution, it sought to achieve economic independence from the US, and traded mainly outside GATT rules, in barter arrangements with the Soviet Union and later with Venezuela. This article investigates why Cuba chose to remain in the GATT and WTO as a centrally planned economy. GATT and WTO documents reveal that Cuba sought to gain influence among developing countries as a critic of existing trade rules and negotiations, while attempting to retain or seek new rules-based multilateral channels of market access. Yet Cuba has not been able to avoid dependence on major trading partners and a limited range of exports, as the collapse of the Soviet system, and the political deterioration in Venezuela led to major declines in Cuban exports and economic crisis. However, Cuba has begun to diversify its exports and expand its trade partnerships, and its trade interests now align more closely with WTO rules and negotiating agendas. Cuba will, however, need to implement domestic reforms and increased openness to global markets in order to realize the economic benefits of WTO membership.

Why have China and Russia become Uzbekistan’s biggest energy partners? Exploring the role of exogenous and endogenous factors

In the 1990s, there was an expectation that Uzbekistan, along with other countries in Central Asia, would gradually move towards the West by distancing itself from the sphere of Russian influence. However, in spite of the West’s significant investment in the region’s economies and attempts to enter the local markets through both bilateral and multilateral channels, this shift never materialised. In fact, since the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Uzbekistan’s trade cooperation with Russia has remained robust, and only in 2014 did China overtook Russia as Uzbekistan’s biggest trading partner. This article aims to understand why Russia and China have become Uzbekistan’s biggest economic partners, especially in the energy sector. To understand this, I believe that it is important to analyse the nature of both domestic and international factors and their interaction. First of all, there are international factors: globalisation, the rise of China and an increase in global demand for natural resources; the role of the China-initiated the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the Silk Road Economic Belt; and Russia’s attempt to reclaim its “great power” status since 2000 and Putin’s attempt to build and expand the Eurasian Economic Union. Second, there are domestic factors: understanding Russia’s and China’s foreign trade policy linked not only with economic growth but also with the structure of foreign economic policy decision-making, or “power vertical,” among other domestic elements. This article will draw on Critical International Political Economy (CIPE) to argue that this tradition is well equipped and offers an important framework to understand foreign economic policy of powers such as Russia and China. The CIPE does not simply combine the domestic and international factors but also insists on their indivisibility and engages with cultural, ideological and social elements in their historical contingency.

China's Response to the 2014 Ebola Outbreak in West Africa.

Beginning in March 2014, West Africa has endured the largest outbreak of Ebola viral disease (EVD) in history. The crisis highlighted the role of China in addressing public health emergencies of international concern (PHEIC). Through bilateral and multilateral channels, China kicked off its largest ever humanitarian mission in addressing a PHEIC. The unprecedented generosity served the domestic needs to prevent EVD from spreading into China, but it was also consistent with China's foreign policy objective to pursue soft power in Africa. While its total funding to EVD control in West Africa was no match of top donors like the United States, it becomes much more impressive when adjusted for gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. As Beijing becomes more sensitive to disease outbreaks overseas and as the scope of its humanitarian engagement grows and diversifies, the space for China's cooperation with international actors over global health governance is expected to further expand.

Noncompliance as Lawmaking

Michael Reisman once wrote that “international lawyers frequently respond to the appearance of a discrepancy between existing and emerging legal arrangements by heatedly rejecting the new with a fury of virtuous unanimity against the evil whose name is Change.” This quote is never more true than when international lawyers consider the role of lawbreaking in lawmaking. While civil disobedience has a safe — and in some countries revered — legacy as a means of prodding governments to make laws more consonant with modern notions of justice, commenters are not similarly sanguine in discussing noncompliance as a lawmaking device in international law. Lawbreaking is often viewed as antithetical to the values underlying the law of nations and a challenge to the enterprise of international law. Yet, as this Chapter explains, in certain circumstances it makes perfect sense to talk about noncompliance as lawmaking. Indeed, far from representing a challenge to international law, recognizing the juris-generative role of noncompliance reveals that some violations demonstrate a state’s commitment to international law’s collective endeavor. States sometimes violate the law in order to improve it, just as those who engage in civil disobedience do so in order to change it for the better. Descriptively, I argue that for noncompliance to be an effective lawmaking technique, it must 1) be public; 2) carry with it a credible threat to continue the violation indefinitely; 3) the normative content of the violation must be acceptable to other states as an alternative rule; and 4) the violator’s relative costs of lawmaking through noncompliance are less than they would be through conventional multilateral lawmaking channels. Normatively, allowing noncompliance to play a lawmaking role may be essential to the long-term viability of the international legal enterprise. While states cannot really exit their relationships with each other, international law lacks the constraints of the domestic system that prevent states from effectively exiting their legal obligations by persistently violating the law. Given this limitation, turning some violations into constructive acts of lawmaking may enhance the viability of the international legal system, rather than undermine it.

Relative Effectiveness of Bilateral and Multilateral Aid on Development Outcomes

AbstractAid donors are interested in understanding whether allocating aid via bilateral or multilateral channels might be more effective for achieving development goals. We review 45 papers that empirically test the associations between bilateral and multilateral aid flows and various development outcomes including gross domestic product growth, governance indicators, human development indicators and levels of non‐aid investment flows. Findings suggest that differences between countries and regions, time periods, aid objectives, and individual donor organizations all may influence the effectiveness of aid delivered bilaterally and multilaterally. We find, however, no consistent evidence that either bilateral or multilateral aid is more effective overall.

Deeply channelled Precambrian rivers: Remote sensing and outcrop evidence from the 1.2 Ga Stoer Group of NW Scotland

The current paradigm on Precambrian fluvial sedimentology assumes that pre-vegetation environments did not allow for the establishment of deep, stable channels. However, few studies have documented a continuum of fluvial-depositional architectures along km-scale transects where clusters of channel bodies can be observed in their entirety. The Stoer Group consists of a 1.2Ga rift-basin fill, its type area occurring at Stoer Peninsula, NW Scotland. Ground observations on classic coastal sections are integrated with remote sensing on a restored transect 7km wide, representing 400m of stratigraphy. The transect spans a set of palaeovalleys carved on high-relief gneissic basement. Remote sensing and ground-based sedimentology unveil a set of depositional domains, including: (i) perennial channels filled with downstream-lateral accretionary bars; (ii) poorly drained muddy floodbasins; (iii) well-drained sandy floodbasins containing splays and distributary channels, at times meandering; (iv) gravelly piedmonts composed of talus cones and fluvial-fan deposits; and (v) aeolian fields comprising dunes, ponded interdunes, and sandsheets. These depositional domains reveal an original geomorphic complexity higher than previously recognized for Precambrian terrestrial environments.The occurrence of clustered channel bodies alongside or within both muddy and sandy depositional domains indicates that stable fluvial channels developed independently from the cohesive nature of the substrate. Their development was possibly aided by drainage focusing along valley thalwegs. Three types of fluvial channels have been identified: laterally extensive, multistorey channels akin to mobile, weakly sinuous rivers; vertically stacked, multistorey channels reminiscent of confined, weakly sinuous rivers; and laterally extensive, multilateral channels, indicative of highly mobile, moderately sinuous rivers. Eighty-four preserved channel fills display width-to-thickness ratios fully overlapping with those of post-vegetation and modern braided rivers, disproving the commonly held notion that pre-vegetation rivers could only generate sheet-like sandbodies. This study provides new insights on Precambrian fluvial styles, and underscores the potential of remote-sensing methods to analyze very large exposures of fluvial rocks.

Hierarchy in practice: Multilateral diplomacy and the governance of international security

AbstractIn today’s world, a significant portion of international security politics is conducted through multilateral channels, often from the halls of international organisations such as the United Nations or NATO. This article theorises and empirically documents the production, reproduction, and contestation of local diplomatic hierarchies that practitioners often call ‘international pecking orders’. According to conventional wisdom in IR, the sources of international hierarchies are primarily structural, stemming from the interstate distribution of (material) capabilities. Yet the growing prevalence of multilateral diplomacy in the governance of international security generates distinctive forms of social stratification organised around a struggle for diplomatic competence. As they pursue their instructions and manage security politics, state representatives posted to international organisations make use of the opportunities and constraints of a given situation and compete for rank through the display of practical know-how. The article illustrates this process by looking at how a key set of multilateral practices lend themselves to pecking order dynamics, fromesprit de corpsto reporting through brokering. By taking the multilateralisation of security politics seriously, the article shows that international hierarchy, far from an unobservable reality, is actually part of parcel of each and every practice that makes the world go round.