Foreign Aid, Conditionality and Ghost of the Financing Gap : A Forgotten Aspect of the Aid Debate

Ranaweera, Thilak

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: FOREIGN AID;    DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE;    CONDITIONALITY (FINANCE);    FINANCING OPTIONS;    POLICY FRAMEWORK;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-3019
RP-ID  :  WPS3019

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Assessing Aid: What Works, WhatDoesn't, and Why (The World Bank, 1998) generated a newwave of controversy about foreign aid and policyconditionality that had seen several decades of intensedebate. Much of the recent debate has focused on theaid-growth relationship and the role of "good"policies. While a great deal has been said about qualitativeaspects of aid effectiveness (that is, fungibility, amongother things), little attention has been paid so far to someimportant quantitative aspects. The author draws attentionto this neglected aspect of the aid debate to show that thelevel of aid requirements of a country is an equallyimportant and integral part of aid and aid effectiveness.The author compares the World Bank/IMF approaches toestimation of external assistance requirements of a countryin quantitative terms with an alternative model, the"balance of payments constrained growth model"(based on the Harrod trade multiplier). He finds that thelatter model is not a real alternative as it is anincomplete model. More important, he shows thatinternational financial institutions use these quantitativeframeworks in a very flexible and pragmatic way to carry ona meaningful policy dialogue with both donors and recipientcountries, which has an important bearing on aid effectiveness.