Aid Recipients Research Articles

International inequality and demand for redistribution in the Global South

AbstractDespite considerable progress, inequality between countries remains at staggering levels. However, we know surprisingly little about demand for international redistribution in the Global South. This is unfortunate as it hinders our understanding of the pressures governments experience to cooperate internationally. Therefore, this paper studies perceptions of international inequality and attitudes toward international aid, an important instrument for redistribution, in Kenya, a major recipient of aid. It features an SMS-based survey experiment, in which respondents are treated with information about international income differences. It is found that most respondents underestimate these differences and that providing accurate information lowers inequality acceptance. However, this does not translate into demand for aid. The findings question often-made assumptions about the popularity of aid and call for further investigation of other internationally redistributive policies.

Responsible exit of humanitarian aid agencies at the end of programmes: a scoping review protocol

IntroductionIn humanitarian settings, aid agencies are constantly challenged by difficult decisions such as when and how to terminate aid without harming the aid recipients, local institutions, staff members and the...

Illegal use of humanitarian aid, charitable donations or free aid for the purpose of obtaining profit (Article 201-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine): problems of systematic interpretation and practical application and their solution

The article discusses the main problematic issues related to Article 201-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, which entered into force on April 3, 2022 and provides for criminal liability for the sale of humanitarian aid items or the use of charitable donations, free aid, or the conclusion of other transactions related to the disposal of such property . Such actions are taken in violation of the requirements stipulated in the laws of Ukraine dated October 22, 1999 "On humanitarian aid" and dated July 5, 2012 "On charitable activities and charitable organizations."
 It is recognized that the statement, which is widespread in the scientific literature, that Article 201-2 provides for responsibility for the theft of humanitarian aid items is incorrect. The correlation of this criminal offense with offenses against property is shown.
 It has been proven that the analysis of the content of Article 201-2 based on its place in the system of the Special Part of the Criminal Code of Ukraine as a criminal offense in the field of economic activity is of primary importance for solving most problematic issues.
 It was established that Article 201-2 applies to persons who carry out economic activities with items of humanitarian aid and ensure the receipt of such items from donors to their recipients. It does not apply to the actions of donors and recipients of humanitarian aid.
 It is justified that the public danger of the actions provided for in Art. 201-2, is that the use of items of humanitarian aid for the purpose of making a profit may lead to the non-receipt or late arrival of humanitarian aid to its recipients.
 It is proposed to supplement Art. 201-2 of the Criminal Code, part 4, in which to establish increased criminal liability for actions that led to the death of people or other serious consequences. Such responsibility should arise regardless of the total value of the items of humanitarian aid.
 The difference between the ban on the use of humanitarian aid for profit and the use of humanitarian aid for non-intended purposes is shown. This difference must be taken into account in the legislative improvement of Article 201-2.

Depoliticised humanitarianism: critiquing the effectiveness of international aid for the Bedouin communities in the Jerusalem periphery

ABSTRACT Since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, Palestine has been the subject and recipient of significant humanitarian and development aid. This article critiques the humanitarian and developmental assistance provided by major donors in Palestine, with a particular focus on the E-1 area in the central West Bank, highlighting its depoliticisation and the misdiagnosis of the context of Palestine as a post-conflict situation, and showing how aid has had an adverse effect on Palestinians. This article, drawing on the Do No Harm approach, argues that aid has not only been ineffective in achieving its stated goals, but has also harmed Palestinians by entrenching the occupation and advancing settler colonialism.

Covid-19 Social Aid Admission Selection Using Simple Additive Weighting Method as Decision Support

The process of receiving Covid-19 social assistance to residents who are recorded as social aid recipients in the RT.07 RW.10 Kp. Sukapura Jaya area is still uneven. The second problem is that there is no particular mathematical calculation to determine the value of the weight of the criteria, especially for residents who are recorded as receiving Covid-19 social aid in the RT.007 RW.10 Kp. Sukapura Jaya area. The gradual decline in social aid programs so that the number that falls does not match the data of social aid recipients. This caused a polemic for RT administrators in distributing social aid programs. The decline in social aid programs does not match the number of citizens recorded. It overcomes citizens who cause social jealousy—analyzing the problems experienced by the RT management in the distribution of Covid-19 social assistance, especially the RT.07 RW.10 Kp. Sukapura Jaya area to residents who are recorded as recipients. Selecting Covid-19 social assistance recipients, especially in the RT.07 RW.10 Kp. Sukapura Jaya area. So the application of methods as decision support is needed, and it is needed to help determine the weight of particular criteria for citizens who are recorded as more in need. This study proposes a decision support method using the Simple Additive Weighting (SAW) method, which is expected to help decision-making in solving problems for selecting Covid-19 social aid recipients in the RT.07 RW.10 Kp. Sukapura Jaya community. The purpose of the study is to select residents who are recorded to receive social aid who are more in need first will get Covid-19 social aid.

Does Maintained Medical Aid Coverage Affect Healthy Lifestyle Factors, Metabolic Syndrome-Related Health Status, and Individuals' Use of Healthcare Services?

Concerns about the moral hazards and usage of universal health insurance require examination. This study aimed to analyze changes in lifestyle, metabolic syndrome-related health status, and individuals' tendency to use healthcare services according to changes in the eligibility status of medical aid recipients. This paper reports a retrospective cohort study that involved analyzing data from 2366 medical aid recipients aged 40 years or older who underwent national health screenings in 2012 and 2014. Of the recipients, 1606 participants continued to be eligible for medical aid (the "maintained" group) and 760 changed from being medical aid recipients to National Health Insurance (NHI) enrollees (the "changed" group). Compared to the "changed" group, the "maintained" group was less likely to quit smoking, more likely to begin smoking, less likely to reduce binge drinking to moderate drinking, and had a significant increase in blood glucose and waist circumference. Annual total medical expenses also increased significantly in the "maintained" group. Since the mere strengthening of healthcare coverage may lead to moral hazards and the failure to link individuals' tendency to use healthcare services and outcomes, establishing mechanisms is necessary to educate people about the health-related outcomes of maintaining a healthy lifestyle and ensure the appropriate use of healthcare services.

Does foreign aid affect innovation and institutional quality in middle-income countries?

In this study, we explore the dynamics between innovation, institutional quality, and foreign-aid flows in middle-income countries. Using an appropriate econometric model, we investigate the links between these variables in 79 middle-income countries (MICs) over 2005–2020. The results from our study show that foreign aid, institutional quality, and innovation have strong endogenous relationships. The short-run outcomes show that innovation Granger-causes institutional quality; foreign aid Granger-causes innovation; and quality of institutions Granger-causes foreign aid. The long-run outcomes indicate that institutional quality and innovation significantly affect the flow of foreign aid to the MICs. These results indicate that policy-makers in both foreign aid donor and recipient countries should pursue appropriate policies on foreign aid, quality of institutions, and innovation. For instance, in the short run, planners and evaluators in donor countries can direct their aid to MICs that have persistent challenges in improving their institutions and enhancing their innovative capabilities. In the long run, recipient countries ought to recognize that their institutional quality and innovation have a considerable impact on the inflows of foreign aid to their countries.

Covid-19 Social Aid Admission Selection Using Simple Additive Weighting Method As Decision Support

The process of receiving Covid-19 social assistance to residents who are recorded as social aid recipients in the RT.07 RW.10 Kp. Sukapura Jaya area is still uneven. The second problem is that there is no particular mathematical calculation to determine the value of the weight of the criteria, especially for residents who are recorded as receiving Covid-19 social aid in the RT.007 RW.10 Kp. Sukapura Jaya area. The gradual decline in social aid programs so that the number that falls does not match the data of social aid recipients. This caused a polemic for RT administrators in distributing social aid programs. The decline in social aid programs does not match the number of citizens recorded. It overcomes citizens who cause social jealousy—analyzing the problems experienced by the RT management in the distribution of Covid-19 social assistance, especially the RT.07 RW.10 Kp. Sukapura Jaya area to residents who are recorded as recipients. Selecting Covid-19 social assistance recipients, especially in the RT.07 RW.10 Kp. Sukapura Jaya area. So the application of methods as decision support is needed, and it is needed to help determine the weight of particular criteria for citizens who are recorded as more in need. This study proposes a decision support method using the Simple Additive Weighting (SAW) method, which is expected to help decision-making in solving problems for selecting Covid-19 social aid recipients in the RT.07 RW.10 Kp. Sukapura Jaya community. The purpose of the study is to select residents who are recorded to receive social aid who are more in need first will get Covid-19 social aid.

Classification for Covid-19 Affected Family Cash Aid Recipients Using Naïve Bayes Algorithm

The COVID-19 pandemic that occurred in Indonesia had a huge impact on the country's economy. One of the solutions set by the government in dealing with COVID-19 is to use APBD funds for social assistance in the form of cash, namely "Village Direct Cash Assistance" (BLT DD). With the hope that the people affected by COVID-19 can be helped by this assistance. There are several problems in the distribution of social assistance, one of which is recipients who are not on target. Therefore, it is necessary to use methods to correctly classify recipients. This study uses the Naïve Bayes method to classify people who receive and do not receive aid. From the results obtained on the confussion matrix, the people who received BLT DD assistance and were predicted to receive were as many as 33 people/KK, the people who did not receive BLT DD and were predicted not to receive as many as 34 people/KK, the people who received BLT DD and were predicted not to receive as many as 2 people/KK , and people who do not receive BLT DD and are predicted to receive as many as 6 people/families. As for the classification accuracy value obtained using the Naïve Bayes method is 89%, while the error rate obtained is 11%.

Penerapan Algoritma K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN) Untuk Mengklasifikan Jenis Penerimaan Bantuan

One of the villages in North Lampung which has many socio-economic problems is Madukoro. Some of the problems that often occur in This village includes high poverty rates, low levels of education and low levels of public health. The K-Nearst Neighbor (KNN) algorithm method was chosen by the author because it can be used as a solution to determine the classification of aid recipients. The K-Nearst Neighbor (KNN) algorithm will determine beneficiaries based on work level, age and income. Calculation results using Microsoft Excel show that there are 110 PKH assistance classes, 57 elderly assistance classes, 9 BLT classes with a total data of 176 beneficiary data. And from the results of the calculation of government assistance in the village of North Lampung Madukoro using rapid miner, it is known that the PKH assistance class is 110 people with an accuracy rate of 89.57%, the elderly assistance class is 58 people with an accuracy rate of 87.50% and then the BLT class is 9 people. with an accuracy rate of 100.00% with a total data of 176 beneficiary data.

Optimization of Modeling Techniques for Economic Rstoration information systems after the Covid-19 pandemic by Simple Additive Weighting

The Covid-19 pandemic had a major impact on the world economy, including Indonesia. Rp. 677.2 Trillion is prepared by the Indonesian government for the recovery of this condition by providing assistance to business actors. Then eligibility of beneficiaries based on certain criteria is a complicated process, the aid process has an opportunity to make inaccurate decisions because the process of determining aid is based on subjectivity. It is likely that the selected business actors do not achieve the standards desired by the government. For this reason, a decision support system was developed that could perform the calculation process against all the criteria for determining beneficiaries. The Simple Additive Weighting (SAW) method which can be used in determining the eligibility of beneficiaries as a decision support system for the government. Business actors who will be selected to be eligible aid recipients have the criteria that have the highest ranking value that hasm been determined. The criteria needed are the criteria for not receiving people's business credit (KUR), the criteria for starting business capital, the criteria for having business information (SKU) and the criteria for not being a civil servant. Due to the large number of business actors who received this assistance, it made it difficult for the government to mminimize errors in providing assistance, so that quite a number of business actors received this assistance but did not comply with government criteria. The final results of this study found that the decision support system with the SAW method problem in determining the provision of method can produce the largest value with a weight of 1.00 which is selected as an alternative "Acceptable" and the smallest value is chosen as an alternative " Not Eligible to Receive "assistance with a calculation result of less than 0.500.

Integration of Fuzzy C-Means and SAW Methods on Education Fee Assistance Recipients

Every year, UMTAS gets a quota for KIP tuition fee assistance provided by KEMDIKBUD. This program is intended for high school / vocational/equivalent graduates from poor and vulnerable families. The evaluation results of its implementation have problems, including the number of applicants exceeding the quota given by KEMDIKBUD and some applicants coming from well-off families. This research uses the fuzzy c-means method for data clustering and the SAW method for ranking. The results of data grouping using the fuzzy c-means method obtained the first cluster (C1) of 72 data and the second cluster (C2) of 119 data. Group C1 is closer to the provisions of aid recipients (eligible) compared to data group C2 (ineligible) because Data C1 consists of 100% DTKS recipients, 50% KIP and KKS card owners, 100% parental income <750,000, 40.28% parental dependents >=2 people and 29.17% applicants with achievements. 72 registrant data included in Data C1 are then ranked using the SAW technique to get weights, and 30 data with the highest weight will be used as a decision on recipients of KIP-Kuliah Education fee assistance according to the quota provided. The optimization of Fuzzy C-Means with SAW methods in selecting recipients of education fee assistance is objective and right on target.

Evaluasi Pelaksanaan Program Bantuan Pangan Non- Tunai (Bpnt) dengan Metode E-Warung di Kabupaten Bojonegoro Tahun 2021 (Studi Kasus di Dinas Sosial Kabupaten Bojonegoro)

The poverty rate in Bojonegoro Regency in 2021 has increased by 166.52 thousand people. Therefore, it is necessary to make efforts to reduce the lives of the poor towards prosperity by means of the government taking sustainable actions to facilitate access to food. Non-Cash Food Assistance is one of the programs issued by the government, but in its implementation there are still many problems that make the program not effective enough.This study aims to find out and describe how to evaluate the implementation of the non-cash food assistance program (BPNT) using the e-shop method in Bojonegoro Regency in 2021.The research methodology uses a qualitative descriptive research method with several informants as research subjects. Data obtained by interview, observation and documentation techniques. Furthermore, the data analysis technique used is data reduction, data presentation, and drawing conclusions.The results of the study show that the Evaluation of the Implementation of the Non-Cash Food Assistance Program (BPNT) using the E-warung Method in Bojonegoro Regency in 2021 has not run optimally and has not been fully effective even though several indicators have been fulfilled quite well, such as the benefits obtained by several informants. However, there are still a number of indicators that have not been fulfilled sufficiently to hinder the success of the Evaluation of the Implementation of the Non-Cash Food Assistance Program (BPNT) using the E-warung Method in Bojonegoro Regency in 2021, namely inaccuracy in targeting aid recipients, inaccuracy in the quality of food ingredients, inaccuracy in the delivery of assistance, shortage of E-warong agents in areas that are quite far from other sub-district agents. Based on the results of the research, the researcher gave advice to the Bojonegoro Regency Social Service in the form of the need to monitor and evaluate the process of implementing assistance, and to increase the number of E-warung in various sub-districts in Bojonegoro.

The Link Between Aid-for-Trade and Contingent Protection

Foreign aid, in theory, is expected to mitigate constraints that impede the economic development of recipient countries. At the same time that help is committed, donors are seemingly taking actions that are harmful to developing economies in obvious ways. An example is the tacit circumvention of the putative rules-based global trading system through contingent protection activities. In this article, it is postulated that, on one hand aid-for-trade (AfT) is expected to have positive impact on the exports of aid recipients by better integration into the global trading order, on the other hand, aid provider (donor) curtails access to its own markets by actuating contingent protection against the recipient (exporter). Using contingent protection cases data from 2003 to 2018 (a 15-year period) against 106 recipient countries of the United States of America’s AfT, this study finds a significant and positive impact of AfT on the surge in contingent protection activities. This effect is entirely driven by the aid for economic infrastructure and services, while the other main category of AfT- production sector, has no discernible effect on the rise in protection against the recipient. To examine the heterogeneity in donor decisions, this study is expanded to other traditional donors like Australia, Canada, the European Union (EU) and New Zealand. This article finds that Australia behaves similar to the USA; however, for Canada and the EU, the relationship between aid and market access is not statistically significant. JEL Codes: F1, F35, O19

United Kingdom aid cuts: implications for financing health systems.

The United Kingdom (UK) used to be the second largest bilateral provider of official development assistance (ODA) for health. However, in 2021 the UK government cut its annual aid budget by 30%. We aim to understand how these cuts might affect financing for health systems in UK aid recipient countries. We conducted a retrospective analysis of domestic and external funding for 134 countries that received UK aid for the 2019-2020 budget year. We grouped countries into two cohorts: those that continued to receive aid in 2020-2021 ("budget") and those that did not ("no budget"). Data was collected from publicly available datasets and we compared UK's ODA, UK's health ODA with total ODA, general government expenditures and domestic general government health expenditure to assess the donor dependency and donor concentration of budget and no budget countries. Budget countries are more reliant on external aid to finance their governments and health systems than no budget countries, with a handful of exceptions. While the UK does not appear to be a major ODA contributor among most no budget countries, it is in many budget countries. Two no budget countries in particular may be faced with health systems financing challenges given their high ratios of UK health aid to domestic government health expenditures: the Gambia (1.24:1) and Eritrea (0.33:1). Although "safe" for this budget cycle, a number of low-income countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have very high ratios of UK health aid to domestic government health expenditures, including South Sudan (3.15:1), Sierra Leone (0.48:1), and the Democratic Republic of Congo (0.34:1). The 2021-2022 UK aid cuts could have negative impacts in a few countries highly dependent on UK health aid. Its departure could leave these countries with rather large funding gaps to fill and create a more concentrated donor climate.

Implementation of K-Means and SAW Methods in Determining Non-Cash Food Aid Recipients

Determination of prospective non cash food assistance recipients, especially in Air Talas village, still uses a manual system so that in the process of determining the recipient there is a risk that the recipient will be inaccurate, so that the village government needs a system that can assist the process of determining prospective non cash food assistance recipients. This study aims to implement the K-Means and SAW methods in determining recipients of non cash food assistance in Air Talas village. The benefits of this research can help the Air Talas village government in determining and recommending prospective non cash food assistance recipients in accordance with established criteria, making it easier to filter, group, and rank appropriate population data according to criteria. In addition, this research is also useful for providing convenience to the community through data collection, clustering, and ranking in a transparent, real, and fast and accurate manner using decision support system software. The K-Means clustering method and the Simple Additive Weighting Ranking method were used in this study with data collection techniques through interviewing sources, in this case the village government, the social section of the community, and through collecting village archive data and relevant journals. The research location is Air Talas village with 316 data used. The results of the study are clustering data as much as 77 data obtained from feasible clusters. The cluster data was then tested using the accuracy value and obtained a value of 80%. Then the research is also in the form of ranking data using clustered data which obtains an accuracy value of 64%.

Emergency Medical Team Deployment Modalities: A Delphi Study

Introduction:The COVID-19 pandemic presented obstacles to Emergency Medical Teams (EMT) deployment, including concern of exposure to COVID-19 and travel restriction in many areas of the world. Recognizing these challenges, EMTs sought alternatives to physical deployment, such as virtual deployment. However, concerns have been raised regarding access to internet in aid recipient countries, as well as patient privacy and data leakage in general due to insecure internet connections and intentional data hacking. There is limited literature, and no internationally agreed set of criteria, on the evaluation of deployment including the recipient countries’ ministries of health’s opinion on the deployments. In order to compare alternative deployment modalities, a set of criteria to evaluate an EMT deployment must be established.Method:The research will identify a set of criteria that can be used to evaluate a deployment; to identify the possible alternative modalities to traditional physical deployment; and to explore perceptions of acceptability and ability to meet the goals of international humanitarian assistance. A stakeholder analysis will be conducted to identify the key informants and relevant stakeholders, and the Delphi Approach will be utilized to seek experts’ opinions and reach consensus.Results:This research will help to establish a set of criteria for evaluating deployments, and to identify the alternative deployment modalities, the advantages, and disadvantages, and to evaluate each alternative modality, with the hopes of guiding EMTs to plan their future deployments, as well as to provide alternatives should there be further restrictions in the future.Conclusion:At this moment, this research is at the planning stage and ethical approval has not yet been sought. Should this abstract be accepted, ethical approval will have been obtained, and data collection will have just started in May. The presentation will include a summary of relevant literature, the methods, and any preliminary results.

Aid accessibility: Equity & education in Kenya

While we hope that the needs of recipients determine the allocation of foreign aid, we know that aid also involves the interests of donors. Substantial evidence suggests that supply-side factors dominate aid delivery, with both donor and recipient governments allocating aid according to their own domestic political agendas. Are there ever conditions under which need drives allocation and aid flows primarily to those that need it most? The distribution of education aid across regions in Kenya offers a most-likely case for such equitable, need-driven aid allocation. Kenya’s political stability and history of collaboration with aid organizations, paired with still high levels of need create favorable conditions for aid delivery to occur equitably. Yet, statistical analysis suggests that even there, the highest volume of aid does not flow to the neediest areas. This paper introduces new subnational data on aid location and maps the concentration of aid allocation in relation to the level of need across regions within Kenya. In the education sector, while most aid flows to high-need locations, aid is nearly absent in Somali-majority areas that have the highest levels of need but the fewest interventions. Such inequitable distribution of both education and assistance in its provision demonstrates how the political preferences of donors and recipient governments can divert aid away from the populations and places that need it most, reducing its effectiveness.

A stranger has big eyes but sees nothing: How indigenous social welfare systems endure and survive the dark side of international aid

ABSTRACT Criticisms against international aid in Africa focus mainly on the notion that aid creates dependency, induces corruption, fosters currency overvaluation, hurts economic development, and doesn’t allow aid recipient countries an opportunity to take advantage of the global economy. Neglected by these arguments are how aid efforts weaken the cultural capital, resourcefulness, and ways of life of recipient communities. The strength and sustainability of any community lies in its cultural values and systems. In this paper, we frame indigenous beliefs in the context we know and work (Namibia), outline indigenous social welfare practices, and argue that aid is not neutral or value-free, but loaded with assumptions, motives, and beliefs alien to the recipient country, which can harm local systems, practices, and institutions.

A Network Model Approach to International Aid

Decisions made by international aid donors regarding the allocation of their aid budgets to recipients can be mathematically modelled using network theory. The many countries and multilateral organisations providing developmental aid, mostly to developing countries, have numerous competing or conflicting interests, biases and motivations, often obscured by a lack of transparency and confused messaging. Using network theory, combined with other mathematical methods, these inter-connecting and inter-dependent variables are identified, revealing the complicated properties and dynamics of the international aid system. Statistical techniques are applied to the vast amount of available, open data to first understand the complexities and then identify the key variables, focusing principally on bilateral aid flows. These results are used to create a weighted network model which is subsequently adapted for use by a hypothetical aid recipient. By incorporating modern portfolio theory into this weighted network model and taking advantage of a donor's reasons for allocating their aid budgets to that recipient, a simulation is carried out treating the problem as an optimal investment portfolio of aid determinant 'assets' which illustrates how a recipient can maximise their aid receipts. Suggestions are also made for further uses and adaptations of this weighted network model.