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Open research questions in International Development and Aid

114 unresolved questions extracted from the limitations and future-work sections of 5,253 International Development and Aid papers in our library. Each links back to the study that raised it.

What the literature leaves open

  • There are several importnat limitations to the approach I describe above. Primarily, my dataset of ODA is limitied in two important ways. First, I lack a column specifying the financial mechanism through which the commitmnet is disbursed, so I am unable to track whether a developing country receives climate finance through a concessional or non-concessional loan or through a grant. Additionally, I lack project-level granularity of the ODA commitments. Some studies have successfully created their own dataset of project-level climate finance ODA using various reports and qualitative information (Savvidou et al., 2021). However, this was not a task I could successfully complete for the entire twenty years of global ODA data. Furthermore, I lack disbursement information, so effectively what is analyzed in this thesis are what climate finance was promised, when, to whom, and what for. What actually got distributed is unaccounted for in the dataset. For these reasons, I supplement the results of my data analysis using analyses from other researchers to both reinforce my findings as well as fill in the missing gaps produced by the data analysis. For example in the first section of the results, I engage with 29 analyses by Reuters, Development Initiative Organization, and Carbon Brief of Japanese ODA finance trends along with Savvidou et al. (2021) project-level analysis of ODA for climate change adaptation in West Africa.

    Between Need and Power: Evidence from Two Decades of Climate Finance · 2026 · DOI

  • The factors influencing donor countries’ overall contributions to developmental assistance for health (DAH) are little known, despite the importance of DAH in improving health conditions in low- and middle-income countries.

    No Time to Fight, People Are Dying Out There · 2025 · DOI

  • The foreign aid-corruption relationship is a controversial unresolved topic, which has not been explored adequately in the context of popular and bloody uprisings such as the 2010–2011 Arab Spring.

    Exploring the effect of the Arab Spring on the relationship between foreign aid and corruption · 2024 · DOI

  • This points to a tension between two long-lasting ideals in international development cooperation and this article argues that – despite their shared aim of increased recipient agency, initiative, and influence – the interrelation between national ownership and local participation needs to be investigated.

    Exploiting International Development Ideals. The Rwandan Government’s Approach to Local Participation in Light of its Exercise of National Ownership · 2023 · DOI

  • The contribution of this paper to the field is that it broadens the relatively scarce literature on CEE foreign policies, in general, and on the Africa-policies, in particular, and offers a documented overview to better understand the Hungarian case, which has normative relevance for EU policies and geopolitics.

    Relations with the Global South, solidarity and pragmatism in Hungarian foreign policy since the 1960s – a focus on Africa · 2022 · DOI

  • Although other NGDO’s resources are insufficient to result in the NGDO being able to exercise influence, they help to strengthen the long-term collaborative relationship with decision-makers, which is necessary for the micro-phenomenon of NGDO influence to occur.

    When do Lithuanian NGDOs Succeed in Influencing Foreign Policy? · 2022 · DOI

  • This article will contribute to filling the gap in knowledge and understanding of the complex interdependencies which influence the evolution of healthcare policies in a country not only affected by an ongoing refugee crisis, but also at the geopolitical crossroads of international interests in the Middle East region.

    Transnational interdependency and healthcare system change: The role of humanitarian and development aid in shaping health policy in Jordan · 2020 · DOI

  • For Uganda, while proponents have invested a considerable amount of hope in the ATF as a source of sustainable domestic funding for the HIV response, substantial work remains to be done to address a number of questions that continue to beguile the current ATF architecture.

    It’s politics, stupid! A political analysis of the HIV/AIDS Trust Fund in Uganda · 2019 · DOI

  • While South-South Development Cooperation (SSDC) is claimed to unlock domestically sourced expertise of countries of the Global South to address development challenges in countries with similar political economic and social conditions, not much is known about the capacity building approaches used.

    Analysing South-South Capacity Building. Comparing Six Flagship Projects of Brazil, India and China in Mozambique · 2018 · DOI

  • Based on this dataset, it argues that when political elites have limited information to target distributive goods specifically to swing voters, they allocate more donor projects to districts where opposition to the incumbent is strong, as opposed to districts where the incumbent enjoys greater popularity.

    The Political Economy of Aid Allocation in Africa: Evidence from Zambia · 2018 · DOI

  • It concludes that, given the limited success of state-directed formal integration approaches, a non-conventional approach to integration (which involves non-state actors such as the private sector, informal cross-border traders and civil society organisations), should be explored for higher levels of integration in Africa.

    Regional Integration and Development in Africa: Rethinking Borders and Informality · 2018

  • The study is stimulated by three factors – a few studies have focused on factors influencing OFDI from African countries; scanty empirical evidence on factors that influence South Africa’s OFDI; and the infancy state of African scholarship on the nexus between diplomacy and international investment.

    Public Policies and Institutions Influencing South Africa’s Outward Foreign Direct Investment · 2017 · DOI

  • This paper addresses gaps in the literature and challenges the accepted nostrum that China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) dominates China’s aid programme.

    China’s foreign aid system: structure, agencies, and identities · 2017 · DOI

  • Nonstate providers in Africa vary widely in size, scope, organizational makeup, and capacity, ranging from a handful of Presbyterian women enhancing local food security through their community garden in a rural village in Ghana, to the delivery of health services to Sudanese refugees in Kenya by World Vision, a Christian relief organization working in twenty-five countries in Africa.

    Introduction to the Special Issue: The Politics of the Nonstate Provision of Public Goods in Africa · 2015 · DOI

  • However, 22 years after the communist collapse and the Yugoslav dismemberment, a broad re-examination of the aid policies pursued in SEE and of the rationale behind these policies is becoming increasingly necessary, in light of (a) the global financial and economic crisis, (b) the sharp decline of support from external bodies and (c) the persistence of controversial and unresolved conflicts and rivalries at the macro-regional level, particularly where reconciliation remains to be reached.

    Re-examining international development assistance to Southeast Europe: time for a post-functionalist approach? · 2014 · DOI

  • This article fills an important gap in the literature by exploring the trends in social welfare in four MENA countries that have undertaken extensive economic liberalization programs under the auspices of the IMF and the World Bank — namely, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco.

    Economic Reform, Social Welfare, and Instability: Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia, 1983–2004 · 2014 · DOI

  • Due to their participation in interregional relations, other regional organizations are developing and institutionalizing the requirements of international actorness, but insofar as a comparative framework for systematically comparing and contrasting actorness across different organizations is lacking, it is difficult to predict the likely outcomes of such relations.

    Actorness beyond the <scp>E</scp>uropean <scp>U</scp>nion: Comparing the International Trade Actorness of <scp>SADC</scp> and <scp>ECOWAS</scp> · 2014 · DOI

  • Adding to the extremely limited literature on non‐ EU actorness, the model is tested in an analysis of the actorness of the Southern African Development Community ( SADC ) and the Economic Community of West African States ( ECOWAS ) in the field of international trade negotiations.

    Actorness beyond the <scp>E</scp>uropean <scp>U</scp>nion: Comparing the International Trade Actorness of <scp>SADC</scp> and <scp>ECOWAS</scp> · 2014 · DOI

  • But to what extent does the aid provided to persons whose lives have been endangered and upended by war, natural catastrophes or other major crises meet their critical needs and aspirations? While the ideal of universal needs-based humanitarian aid remains elusive, efforts to improve the quality and standards of assistance and to increase ‘downward accountability’ towards affected persons by involving them more effectively in the management of the response are underway.

    The Relevance and Effectiveness of Humanitarian Aid: Reflections about the Relationship between Providers and Recipients · 2013 · DOI

  • The story they tell divides development thinking into three eras: an initial era of state-led development; the Washington Consensus era, which focused on government retrenchment and market solutions; and the current era, which has been characterized as post-consensus or no consensus, but in which the pendulum swung back towards a more important role for government.

    Rich Donors, Poor Countries. · 2012 · DOI

  • Funding for Millennium Development Goal 6 (combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases) accounts for much of the recent increase in health ODA, while many other health priorities remain insufficiently funded.

    Where did all the aid go? An in-depth analysis of increased health aid flows over the past 10 years · 2009 · DOI

  • Although a global theory of public finance remains to be established an analysis of Official Development Assistance (ODA) with a perspective from traditional public finance theory seems useful.

    Applying Musgrave's Branches of Government Expenditures to ODA · 2004 · DOI

  • Whilst external actors, notably the ‘donor community’, are trying to better prepare themselves for the eventualities of crises of governance and state collapse in various countries, and to design more effective strategies and instruments, it remains to be seen to what extent there is a ‘fit’ between the determinants and dynamics of state collapse and the responses and solutions for restoration which are offered.

    State Collapse and Fresh Starts: Some Critical Reflections · 2002 · DOI

  • Specifically, we argue that although external assistance can play a positive role in the successful consolidation of political and economic reforms, the contribution of external assistance to the post‐Soviet transitions has been limited by the institutional arrangements, technical proficiency, and political motivations of the aid providers.

    International Assistance to the Former Soviet Union: Conditions and Transitions<sup>1</sup> · 2000 · DOI

  • It argues that since donors are not well-equipped to handle these types of interventions, they need to avoid undermining the autonomy and legitimacy of recipient organizations: their absorptive capacity is limited, only certain types of organization are able to contribute effectively to democracy promotion, and little is known about their impact.

    Strengthening Civil Society in Africa: the Role of Foreign Political Aid · 1995 · DOI

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114 open questions have been extracted from the limitations and future-work passages of 5,253 International Development and Aid papers in our library. Each one below links back to the study that raised it, so you can read the original claim in context.

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