OECD Development Assistance Committee Research Articles

How does diversity affect the effectiveness of capacity building training? Evidence from the Republic of Korea

AbstractMotivationPrevious studies on the effectiveness of capacity building training, drawn from the experience of traditional donors, have been limited in their understanding the impact of the diversity of trainees and the diversity of training on the effectiveness of training. This is particularly problematic given the increasing prevalence of such training and the emergence of new donors with different approaches.PurposeThis article investigates the effectiveness of capacity‐building training across different participants and different training types, through the case of an emerging donor, the Republic of Korea (Korea). Korea is distinctive and under‐researched as a country relatively late to join the OECD's Development Assistance Committee (DAC), with several policies explicitly locating capacity‐building training as a diplomatic strategy. Korea has made repeated efforts to diversify participants and types of training to gain a comparative advantage in international development and co‐operation.Methods and ApproachThe study constructs a generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) to analyse the effectiveness of training across layers of individual diversity (gender, rank, level of national income and extent of democracy) and group diversity (types of trainings). It draws on survey responses from 789 government officials in low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMICs).FindingsTraining effectiveness differs for diverse participants and training types. Effectiveness tends to decrease as job rank and national income rise, while it increases with the level of democracy. Training that fosters diverse interactions and experiences, such as multi‐country training and invitational training, tends to be more effective than other types.Policy ImplicationsOur results suggest implementing more collaborative and customized training to suit the heterogeneous needs of diverse participants. The results emphasize the need to develop and operate various training types that promote diverse interactions and experiences among participants.

Understanding China's shifting priorities andpriority-setting processes indevelopment assistance forhealth.

Over the past two decades, China has become a distinctive and increasingly important donor of development assistance for health (DAH). However, little is known about what factors influence China's priority-setting for DAH. In this study, we provide an updated analysis of trends in the priorities of Chinese DAH and compare them to comparable trends among OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) donors using data from the AidData's Global Chinese Development Finance Dataset (2000-2017, version 2.0) and the Creditor Reporting System (CRS) database (2000-2017). We also analyse Chinese medical aid exports before and after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic using a Chinese Aid Exports Database. We further explore the potential factors influencing China's shifting priority-setting processes by reviewing Chinese official documents following Walt and Gilson's policy analysis framework (context-actors-process-content) and by testing our conjectures empirically. We find that China has become an important DAH donor to most regions if measured using project value, including but not limited to Africa. China has prioritized aid to African and Asian countries as well as to CRS subsectors that are not prioritized by DAC donors, such as medical services and basic health infrastructure. Chinese quarterly medical aid exports almost quintupled after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Noticeably, China has allocated more attention to Asia, eye diseases and infectious disease outbreaks over time. In contrast, the priority given to malaria has declined over the same period. Regarding factors affecting priority shifts, the outbreaks of SARS and Ebola, the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative and the COVID-19 pandemic appear to be important milestones in the timeline of Chinese DAH. Unlike stereotypes of China as a 'lone wolf' donor, our analysis suggests multilateral processes are influential in informing and setting Chinese DAH priorities.

Dynamics of EU Central and Eastern European donors’ development cooperation

The article deals with both qualitative and quantitative aspects of development assistance provided by the 11 Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries that are members of the European Union (EU). The aim is to answer the question of what are the major determinants of their involvement in development cooperation. It also aims to understand the controversy surrounding the development policies of these donors and to assess the impact of past determinants on the current situation. Our study employs a combination of data analysis (based on Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development – OECD – statistics) and a literature review. In order to allow the examination of trends, constant prices have been applied throughout the study. Our research operates both on absolute (volumes of development aid given to and offered by the countries in mind) and relative data (bilateral to total ODA ratio and regional distribution of bilateral aid). The analysis reveals that the CEE EU donors’ spending on development assistance grew 463% over the 2004–2021 period. In 2021, they accounted for 2.4% of global aid, which was not a significant share globally, though noteworthy at the level of EU development aid spending. We found a clear dominance of the multilateral channel in the distribution of CEE EU aid fluctuating between 65–90%, mainly through EU institutions. In terms of bilateral activities, CEE donors chose their poorer European neighbours as their main aid recipients, with the share ranging from 24% to 76%. There are two main types of factors that determine the aid activities of the actors analysed: interests, which set the course of bilateral flows, and institutional factors (i.e., EU development policy and countries' accession to the OECD Development Assistance Committee), which played an equally important role. The relative importance of the two determinants has varied with changing circumstances over time.

Humanitarian Assistance in Japan's Foreign Policy: Basic Principles and Mechanisms for Providing Humanitarian Aid

Humanitarian assistance is one of the most important criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of foreign policy of a state. The provision of humanitarian aid is currently a key area of Japan's international activities and foreign policy. As one of the world's largest humanitarian aid donors and the oldest member of the OECD's Development Assistance Committee, Japan provides assistance in practically all areas of the world's conflicts and natural and anthropogenic hazards. Official Development Assistance (ODA) and humanitarian aid as its subspecies are considered as a practical tool for Japan's international humanitarian activities. Japan's experience in the field of humanitarian assistance is the object of research by both Japanese and foreign authors who evaluate Japanese humanitarian assistance in different ways. A distinctive feature of modern Japan's humanitarian assistance is an integrated approach to providing aid, with an emphasis on cooperation with international organizations and the attraction of available funds from various government departments and organizations. Japan plays a leading role in the field of humanitarian assistance in the international arena and takes an active part in shaping the international agenda in this area.

Exploring the Global Innovation Systems Perspective by Applying Openness Index to National Systems of Innovation

This paper raises the question of whether global innovation systems (GIS), the expanded networks of actors beyond national boundaries, could be a new sibling of innovation systems perspectives. We argue that in today’s globalized world, it is idoneous to analyze innovation activities in a global context rather than a national or regional one. To confirm this argument, first, previous research is reviewed to understand how the GIS perspective has emerged and what different aspects have enabled these discussions. Distinct gaps from a body of literature are identified, such as the lack of a united definition, leading causes, and empirical evidence of GIS. With this understanding of the GIS perspective’s background, this research aims to overcome the challenge of filling out these gaps using two-stage approaches. The first approach suggests three building blocks of the GIS perspective (global institutions, global actors and networks, and a global knowledge-base). Using the open innovation concept, the second approach measures the openness of national innovation systems (NIS) of the OECD DAC (Development Assistance Committee) member countries to represent the tangibility of the GIS perspective. The paper concludes that the GIS approach would provide us with a valuable viewpoint for analyzing current innovation activities in today’s globalized economy as the form of GIS perspective is observed when measured.

The impact of OECD's Development Assistance Committee (DAC) Aid Commitments for Education on Human Development in Asian Countries and its implications for textile industry

Education and health are considered a cornerstone for obtaining targeted development in any society. Moreover, both sectors promote prosperity greatly. In this changeable epoch, people are thought out as the real wealth of any nation and this wealth with good human capital serves the economy very efficiently and productively. This research study aims to analyse how Development Assistance Committee (DAC) aid commitment for education along with institutional quality is effective for the human development of selected Asian economies. A panel data set over 2011–2018 is used for this analysis in Asian countries. GMM results show a significant and positive relationship between aid commitment for education and the human development of these economies. A more interesting result is that financial development seems to boost up human deployment in the selected Asian economies. The development of the textile industry is significantly influenced by education, especially considering the effects of OECD's Development Assistance Committee (DAC) Aid Commitments for education on human development in Asian countries. There is a dire need to reconsider more allocation of resources and aid to education and health to utilize these inflows at the maximum level for targeted development.

DAC(Development Assistance Committee)와 한국의 지속가능발전 ODA 및 녹색 ODA 추이 비교*

This study uses the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) data from 1990-2019 to estimate the sustainable development ODA and Environment ODA for DAC member countries. It can be inferred form the sustainable development ODA that DAC member countries spend heavily on SDGs 16 and 9, while Korea spends mostly on SDG 9. This study further expanded on six different definitions of green ODA: sustainable development green ODA, environment marker green ODA, Rio market green ODA, Hicks green ODA, environment and energy green ODA, and green growth ODA. The derivation of the green ODA suggests that DAC member countries constitute 1.6%-15.5% share of the total ODA, the trend of which is increasing, while Korea has about 1.7%-14.7%. Our analysis found that more research regarding green ODA is strongly recommended.

Лаос в потоках международной помощи развитию

Since the establishment of the Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) in 1975, the development of the country has been uneven both due to domestic policy deficiencies as well as changing international environment. The aim of the article is to provide an overview of the domestic situation in the Lao PDR in connection with the position of the country at the world arena from the 1970s up to date. The study is based on the country-specific research issued abroad in the 1990s-2000s as well as individual papers provided by Russian authors in the 2000s. The sources used for the study include the World Bank and the UN agencies data as well as information from specialized bodies dealing with development including the USAID and the EEAS. The peculiarities of the political system attributed to the Lao PRD include one-party rule, state dominance on most spheres of life and high level of corruption. The economy of the country used to suffer from the land-locked character but nowadays the country strives to gain advantage from being a transit territory in the Mekong River region. Due to sharp turns in the state economic policy from nationalization and collectivization to market orientation, the economy has been rather weak. The efforts to make tourism one of the drivers of economic development along with mining, hydropower production and agriculture, were devalued by the pandemic. The opportunities for receiving education in the country are especially limited for the poor, representatives of ethnic minorities, and women. Due to the continuing growth of the population, it may become even more difficult to provide education in the country largely. The healthcare system is also understaffed and underfunded. Malnutrition is wide-spread among the poor population. However, the healthcare system has improved a lot during the last 30 years. Many social problems of the country are not duly solved partially due to large state deficit that is somehow balanced by foreign aid. Laos was acknowledged a least developed country (LDC) in 1971. Thus, Laos relied a lot on foreign aid. The volumes of official development aid provided to the Lao PDR by the OECD Development Assistance Committee in 1971-2020 changed a lot due to the changes in the main donors of development aid from France and the US at the beginning of the 1970s, then the Soviet Union and Socialist bloc countries in 1975-1990, then again Western states, Japan, UN agencies gaining the main donor position for the Lao PDR. Countering poverty and other social problems were declared the priorities for both Lao authorities and international aid donors, certain success was achieved: the average poverty rate has decreased, the GDP per capita has been growing, the public debt remained large, though. Since the country is expected to be deprived of the LDC status in 2026 due to achieving relatively good results, it is time for the Lao PDR to reformulate its domestic and foreign policy approaches.

Гуманитарная политика Турции: изменение концептов, масштабов и целей

This article aims to delineate the place of humanitarian aspect of the foreign policy of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP). It traces the main objectives and actors of Turkish humanitarian policy, as well as ways of conceptualizing it. The OECD Development Assistance Committee classified a group of countries as “new donors” in the 2000s. However, the growing activity of these donors as subjects of humanitarian diplomacy still demands thorough research. Turkey’s experience seems particularly interesting as an example of a country that remains a recipient of humanitarian aid itself, yet has over the years emerged as a major donor of international humanitarian aid. The Covid‑19 global pandemic and Turkey’s response to this challenge both provides new answers and raises new questions about the nature of Turkish humanitarian policy and the motives, tools, and driving forces behind it. Since the AKP came to power, humanitarianism has become one of the foundations of Ankara’s foreign policy. The changes in Turkish humanitarian policy since the end of the Cold War have been the result of a profound and multifaceted transformation not only of Turkish society but also of the Turkish state. The official narrative describes Turkey’s humanitarian policy in recent decades as a success story, but despite a number of achievements, this policy faces a number of internal and external challenges and constraints. The shift towards authoritarianism in recent decades, the accumulated economic problems, and the increasing polarization of Turkish society are factors that have an increasingly negative impact on the attractiveness, sustainability, and ultimately the effectiveness of Turkish humanitarian policy.

Assessing International Development Cooperation: Becoming Intentional about Unintended Effects

International headlines often make mention of side effects of international cooperation, ranging from aid-fuelled corruption to the negative side effects of volunteer tourism. The OECD Development Assistance Committee, an international forum of many of the largest providers of aid, prescribes that evaluators should consider if an intervention has unintended effects. Yet the little that is known suggests that few evaluations of international cooperation projects systematically assess their unintended effects. To address this gap in assessing unintended effects, this study develops an operational typology of 10 types of unintended effects of international cooperation that have emerged in the literature and applies this to all 644 evaluations of the Netherlands’ development cooperation between 2000 and 2020 using structured text mining with manual verification. The results show that approximately 1 in 6 evaluations carefully considered unintended effects and identified 177 different ones. With the exception of 5, these could be classified in 9 of the 10 typologies, indicating that this typology can guide international development cooperation to systematically consider and assess its unintended effects. International development planners, researchers and evaluators are recommended to henceforth make use of and improve this operational typology.

Korea as an OECD Dac Member: 10-Year Achievements and Way Forward

A decade has passed since Korea joined the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) as its 24th member in 2010. The total volume of Korea’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) is approximately 2.2 billion USD, and has doubled over the past decade. Together with the quantitative achievements, Korea also has made endeavors to improve the quality of ODA implementation by establishing a proper legal foundation, policies, and strategies at the country level. In this regards, it is necessary for Korea to identify the challenges to overcome, and to establish mid-term or long-term strategy for better development cooperation to become a responsible middle-power donor country. Thus, the study aims to suggest long-term policy directions for international development cooperation through an assessment of Korea’s ODA performance over the past 10 years. To review in detail Korea’s achievements in the field of ODA since joining the OECD DAC, the study briefly analyzes the quantitative achievements to date and conducts a comprehensive study on implementation of major strategies and policies.

Does energy aid reduce CO2 emission intensities in developing countries?

ABSTRACT Whether energy aid contributes to the reduction of CO2 emissions in developing countries is an unresolved question. We investigate whether the OECD Development Assistance Committee members’ energy aid can help reduce CO2 emission intensities in 64 recipient countries over the period 1995–2014. We find that once lagged energy aid – when measured in terms of once lagged GDP, in absolute terms, or in terms of once lagged total sectoral aid – is effective in reducing the recipients’ subsequent CO2 emission intensities. Importantly, we find highly varied effects of energy aid on the recipients’ CO2 emission intensities – fossil fuel-rich (poor) countries stand to benefit least (most) from receiving energy aid. Our findings point towards the merit of energy aid as a policy tool in achieving the CO2 emission reduction goals and the necessity for bilateral aid donors to take into account the recipients’ fossil fuel abundance when making provisions for energy aid.

OECD 개발원조위원회(DAC) 가입 10주년 성과와 과제 (Korea as an OECD DAC Member: 10-Year Achievements and Way Forward)

OECD 개발원조위원회(DAC) 가입 10주년 성과와 과제 (Korea as an OECD DAC Member: 10-Year Achievements and Way Forward)

POLICY AND PRACTICE IN ODA DISBURSEMENTS: AN ANALYSIS OF CHANGES IN SOUTH KOREA'S OFFICIAL DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE

AbstractSouth Korea is the only nation to become an important donor nation after being a recipient of Official Development Assistance (ODA) for several decades. In 2010, it became a member of the OECD's Development Assistance Committee, and while it has continued to use its experience as a former ODA recipient to inform its distribution practices, it also has evolved its ODA policies in response to changes in international norms and the imperatives associated with being a DAC-member nation. We know that, while policies may change, actual ODA disbursements—which nations are selected as recipients and receive ODA in what amounts—may lag or even remain unchanged. In this paper, we use the case of South Korea to determine how actual ODA disbursements change in response to policy changes. To accomplish this, we use a selection model to conduct a statistical analysis of South Korea's ODA disbursements using dyadic data from 1987 to 2016. Our results indicate that, while there has been continuity in terms of which nations receive South Korean ODA, there were also notable changes in its disbursements. Specifically, the ODA policy changes the South Korean government enacted did result in an altered profile of nations that were targeted by South Korea as ODA recipients.

International Assistance and Security Sector Reform in Latin America: A Profile of Donors, Recipients and Programs

This article seeks to understand the demands of the security sector in Latin America, in the context of reforms promoted by international aid agencies in the region. The hypothesis of this study is that international aid programs focused on Security Sector Reform (SSR) in Latin America have been generic, and have overlooked recipient countries’ own reform agendas. Latin American perspectives on SSR have been inferred from Organization of American States (OAS) documents. Information on international assistance for SSR programs was gathered from the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) database for the years 2004-2014. The analysis shows that assistance programs are not generic and that the profile of projects, resources allocated and countries targeted differ greatly according to the donor. The study also reveals differences in programs funded by bilateral and multilateral aid agencies in the region, which fits with the findings of previous studies, showing that, in general, programs funded by multilateral agencies are more attentive to local needs than those promoted by bilateral agencies. By contrast, programs funded by bilateral aid are less demand-driven and more guided by donor interests.

Development minister characteristics and aid giving

Over 300 government members have had the main responsibility for international development cooperation in 23 member countries of the OECD's Development Assistance Committee since the organization started reporting detailed Official Development Assistance (ODA) data in 1967. Understanding their role in foreign aid giving is crucial since their decisions can influence aid effectiveness and thus economic development on the ground. Our study examines whether development ministers’ personal characteristics are associated with aid budgets and aid quality. To this end, we create a novel database on development ministers’ gender, political ideology, prior professional experience in development cooperation, education, and time in office over the 1967–2012 period. Results from fixed-effects panel regressions show that some of the personal characteristics of development ministers matter. Most notably, we find that more experienced ministers with respect to their time in the development office obtain larger aid budgets. Moreover, our results suggest that female ministers as well as officeholders with prior professional experience in development cooperation and a longer time in office provide higher-quality ODA.

Competitive prospects of graduate program on the integration of ICT superiority, higher education, and international aid

Korea overcame the Asian financial crisis (1997–1998) with its governmental policies of informatization and the promotion of the information and communications technology (ICT) industry. It is a nation that has switched its international position from a recipient of international aid to a member of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC). However, the level of official development assistance (ODA) by Korea is lower than the average of OECD DAC members. As a situational alternative, this study introduced a global information and telecommunication technology program (ITTP) that seems to integrate education on Korea’s superiority in ICT infrastructure and the industry with specialized ODA. In particular, this study analyzed the competitive environment of the ITTP by examining its structural strengths and weaknesses through an analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT). And then, this research illustrated the relationship diagram of major stakeholders and their impact using Porter’s five forces approach. Our analysis suggests that the ITTP needs to specialize in an “ICT for development” (ICT4D) program in the competitive environment of Asian-Pacific universities by combining education with techno-economic infrastructure projects in developing countries.

Assessing development assistance for child survival between 2000 and 2014: A multi-sectoral perspective.

BackgroundThe majority of Countdown countries did not reach the fourth Millennium Development Goal (MDG 4) on reducing child mortality, despite the fact that donor funding to the health sector has drastically increased. When tracking aid invested in child survival, previous studies have exclusively focused on aid targeting reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health (RMNCH). We take a multi-sectoral approach and extend the estimation to the four sectors that determine child survival: health (RMNCH and non-RMNCH), education, water and sanitation, and food and humanitarian assistance (Food/HA).Methods and findingsUsing donor reported data, obtained mainly from the OECD Creditor Reporting System and Development Assistance Committee, we tracked the level and trends of aid (in grants or loans) disbursed to each of the four sectors at the global, regional, and country levels. We performed detailed analyses on missing data and conducted imputation with various methods. To identify aid projects for RMNCH, we developed an identification strategy that combined keyword searches and manual coding. To quantify aid for RMNCH in projects with multiple purposes, we adopted an integrated approach and produced the lower and upper bounds of estimates for RMNCH, so as to avoid making assumptions or using weak evidence for allocation. We checked the sensitivity of trends to the estimation methods and compared our estimates to that produced by other studies. Our study yielded time-series and recipient-specific annual estimates of aid disbursed to each sector, as well as their lower- and upper-bounds in 134 countries between 2000 and 2014, with a specific focus on Countdown countries. We found that the upper-bound estimates of total aid disbursed to the four sectors in 134 countries rose from US$ 22.62 billion in 2000 to US$ 59.29 billion in 2014, with the increase occurring in all income groups and regions with sub-Saharan Africa receiving the largest sum. Aid to RMNCH has experienced the fastest growth (12.4%), followed by aid to Food/HA (9.4%), education (5.1%), and water and sanitation (5.0%). With the exception of RMNCH, the average per capita aid disbursed to each sector in the 74 Countdown countries was smaller than in non-Countdown countries. While countries with a large number of child deaths tend to receive the largest amount of disbursements, non-Countdown countries with small populations usually received the highest level of per capita aid for child survival among all 134 countries. Compared to other Countdown countries, those that met MDG 4 with a high reliance on health aid received much higher per capita aid across all sectors. These findings are robust to estimation methods.ConclusionsThe study suggests that to improve child survival, better targeted investments should be made in the four sectors, and aid to non-health sectors could be a possible contributor to child mortality reduction. We recommend that future studies on tracking aid for child survival go beyond the health sector and include other sectors that directly affect child survival. Investigation should also be made about the link between aid to each of the four sectors and child mortality reduction.

New Common Evaluation Framework for IMF Capacity Development

new common evaluation framework for the Fund’s capacity development (CD) activities. The new common evaluation framework is intended to streamline current practices and increase comparability and use of results by adopting for all CD evaluations a common four-step process that includes use of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) evaluation criteria. Around this common approach, there is flexibility to adapt evaluations to reflect the wide range of CD activities. Key elements of the framework are grouped around the objectives of: producing shorter, more focused, and more comparable evaluations; improving the information supporting evaluations;spending the same level of resources on evaluations while allocating these scarce resources more efficiently; and using the information from evaluations to alter practices or shift the targeting of CD resources.

Brazil's Development Cooperation: Following in China's and India's Footsteps?

The increasing importance of donor countries operating outside of the OECD's Development Assistance Committee (DAC) challenges the existing international aid architecture. In particular, non-DAC donors are suspected to provide aid solely based on self-interest without caring about recipients' need and merit. In this paper, we empirically investigate the aid allocation of one major non-DAC donor, Brazil. We find that Brazil's development cooperation is still predominantly shaped by historic and cultural ties to the Lusophone world and Latin America, while broader political and economic motives play a negligible role. To some extent, Brazil also takes recipients' need and governance into account. This broadly corroborates previous results for China and India, strengthening the conclusion that non-DAC donors are not as different from DAC donors regarding their aid motives as one might suspect. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.