Private Foreign Aid Research Articles

Ideology, financial circumstances, and attitudes toward public and private foreign aid

Does ideology influence voter preferences for foreign aid in the same way it does for domestic redistribution? Economically vulnerable left-leaning citizens, who are normatively strong proponents of government aid, may not be as committed to increasing actual spending. Such citizens may see themselves as competing with the foreign poor for domestic resources. Similarly, while affluent right-leaning citizens may oppose increasing foreign aid due to skepticism about government spending, this might not extend to private donations. Instead, they may view non-governmental organizations and charities as alternatives that leverage private expertise to assist poor countries. Using four years of public opinion data from 15 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development donor countries, I find support for the conditional effect of ideology and economic self-interest on both public and private aid attitudes. By focusing on three different measures—the morality of aid, public aid spending, and private donations—I further explore variations in aid attitudes.

What Motivates Private Foreign Aid? Evidence from Internet-Based Microlending

Although private foreign aid has expanded dramatically in recent years, we still lack detailed information on the allocation of those private aid flows. We use a novel approach to examine the funding decisions of individuals with respect to international development assistance. We analyze the speed at which requests from microentrepreneurs in developing countries are fulfilled through a US-based Internet organization that bundles individual contributions and transfers them as interest-free loans to developing countries. Survival analysis finds little evidence for the expectation that private donors behave as rational aid givers, nor do we see private funders mimicking the behaviors of official aid agencies. Rather, private microloans seem principally influenced by humanitarian crises, along with the presence of migrant and diaspora networks from recipient countries. We conclude that international private aid is shaped by social linkages between individual donors and recipients. It can therefore fund areas neglected by traditional foreign aid. As a result, private foreign aid serves, in at least some cases, as a complement to official development assistance.

The Politics of Private Foreign Aid: Humanitarian Principles, Economic Development Objectives, and Organizational Interests in NGO Private Aid Allocation

AbstractA large and increasing share of international humanitarian and development aid is raised from nongovernmental sources, allocated by transnational NGOs. We know little about this private foreign aid, not even how it is distributed across recipient countries, much less what explains the allocation. This article presents an original data set, based on detailed financial records from most of the major U.S.-based humanitarian and development NGOs, which allows us for the first time to map and analyze the allocation of U.S. private aid. We find no support for the common claim that aid NGOs systematically prioritize their organizational self-interest when they allocate private aid, and we find only limited support for the hypothesis that expected aid effectiveness drives aid allocation. By contrast, we find strong support for the argument that the deeply rooted humanitarian discourse within and among aid NGOs drives their aid allocation, consistent with a view of aid NGOs as principled actors and constructivist theories of international relations. Recipients' humanitarian need is substantively and statistically the most significant determinant of U.S. private aid allocation (beyond a regional effect in favor of Latin American countries). Materialist concerns do not crowd out ethical norms among these NGOs.

On the provision of official and private foreign aid

The provision of official relative to private foreign aid varies considerably between donor countries. We explain the variations in terms of country size, household composition, income distribution, and the government's ability to commit to aid, and derive inter alia the results: (1) official aid crowds out private aid, (2) total aid and official aid collected from each household are lower in more populous countries, (3) total aid is lower if (i) the distribution of income favors the more altruistic households, and (ii) the government can credibly commit to a certain level of aid. Evidences suggest that the theoretical results can explain stylized facts.

Transnational corporations: international citizens or new sovereigns?

The expanding public roles of transnational corporations in private foreign aid, in self‐regulation and private certification of business practices, not to mention helping shape public policy, can be viewed as evidence of corporate citizenship and social responsibility or as a threat to democratic decision making and national sovereignty. Dennis A Rondinelli suggests that new systems of countervailing power may be needed to encourage further corporate citizenship while preventing potential abuses of political and economic power.

Transnational Corporations: International Citizens or New Sovereigns?

The expanding public roles of transnational corporations in private foreign aid, in self-regulation and private certification of business practices, not to mention helping shape public policy, can be viewed as evidence of corporate citizenship and social responsibility or as a threat to democratic decision making and national sovereignty. Dennis A Rondinelli suggests that new systems of countervailing power may be needed to encourage further corporate citizenship while preventing potential abuses of political and economic power.

Foreign aid toward the millennium, The foreign aid business: economic assistance and development cooperation, Foreign aid towards the year 2000: experiences and challenges and Compassion and calculation: the business of private foreign aid

Foreign aid toward the millennium, The foreign aid business: economic assistance and development cooperation, Foreign aid towards the year 2000: experiences and challenges and Compassion and calculation: the business of private foreign aid

Book Review: David Sogge (ed.), with Kees Biekart and John Saxby, Compassion and Calculation : The Business of Private Foreign Aid (London Pluto Press with the Transnational institute, 1996, 217 pp., no price given)

Book Review: David Sogge (ed.), with Kees Biekart and John Saxby, Compassion and Calculation : The Business of Private Foreign Aid (London Pluto Press with the Transnational institute, 1996, 217 pp., no price given)

More than altruism: the politics of private foreign aid

More than altruism: the politics of private foreign aid

More than altruism: the politics of private foreign aid

As government officials and political activists are becoming increasingly aware, international nonprofit agencies have an important political dimension: although not self-serving, these private voluntary organizations (PVOs) and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) seek social changes of which many of their financial contributors are unaware. As PVOs and NGOs receive increasing subsidies from their home governments in the United States, Canada, and Europe, they are moving away from short-term relief commitments in developing countries and toward longer-term goals in health, education, training, and small-scale production. Showing that European and Canadian NGOs focus more on political change as part of new development efforts than do their U.S. counterparts, Brian Smith presents the first major comparative study of the political aspect of PVOs and NGOs. Smith emphasizes the paradoxes in the private-aid system, both in the societies that send aid and in those that receive it. Pointing out that international nonprofit agencies are in some instances openly critical of nation-state interests, he asks how these agencies can function in a foreign-aid network intended as a support for those same interests. He concludes that compromises throughout the private-aid networkand some secrecymake it possible for institutions with different agendas to work together. In the future, however, serious conflicts may develop with donors and nation states.

Private Foreign Aid: U.S. Philanthropy for Relief and Development. By Landrum R. Bolling and Craig Smith. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1982. Pp. xv + 330. $25.00.)

Private Foreign Aid: U.S. Philanthropy for Relief and Development. By Landrum R. Bolling and Craig Smith. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1982. Pp. xv + 330. $25.00.)

Book Reviews

Book Review in this ArticleRalph M. Kramer, Voluntary Agencies in the Welfare State.Boris S. Pushkarev with Jeffrey M. Zupan and Robert S. Cumella, Urban Rail in America: An Exploration of Criteria for Fixed‐Guideway Transit.Jon Van Til, Living with Energy Shortfall: A Future for American Towns and Cities.Robert Orr Whyte and Pauline Whyte, The Women of Rural Asia.William P. Browne and Don F. Hadwiger, eds., Rural Policy Problems: Changing Dimensions.Alan Lewis, The Psychology of Taxation.A. G. Aganbegyan, ed., Regional Studies for Planning and Projecting: The Siberian Experience.Yusuf J. Ahmad and Frank G. Müller, eds., Integrated Physical, Socio‐economic, and Environmental PlanningBela Balassa, Development Strategies in Semi‐industrial Economies.Steven C. Ballard et al., Water and Western Energy: Impacts, Issues, and ChoicesDennis Bloodworth, The Messiah and the Mandarins: Mao Tsetung and the Ironies of Power.Landrum R. Bolling with Craig Smith, Private Foreign Aid: U.S. Philanthropy for Relief and Development.Coralie Bryant and Louise G. White, Managing Development in the Third World.V. Bulmer‐Thomas, Input‐Output Analysis in Developing Countries: Sources, Methods, and Applications.Robert W. Burchell and David Listokin, eds., Energy and Land Use.Canada, Department of Regional Economic Expansion, A Guide to Regional Multiplier EstimationMichael J. Carter and William H. Leahy, eds., New Directions in Labor Economics and Industrial Relations.E. William Colglazier, Jr., ed., The Politics of Nuclear Waste.Martin Counihan, A Dictionary of Energy.