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Aid, governance and corruption control: a critical assessment

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Abstract

If the OECD’s Development Co-operation Report for 2009 is correct in its claim that ‘The international aid effort now adds up to less than the sum of its parts’, then continued rapid growth in aid transfers is likely to contribute to further aid absorption problems, as well as institutional atrophy and deteriorating governance and corruption control among aid recipients. This article considers aid for good governance and anti-corruption, using Tanzania as an example. “The supply side of aid” sketches the bigger picture in which such aid is located, stressing collective action problems facing the aid industry in the current period of growth and diversification. “The consequences of aid proliferation on corruption control in an aid-dependent state” provides some empirics from Tanzania. “Conclusions: whither ‘corruption control?’” draws some conclusions for the future of aid for governance and corruption control. A key message is that donor-driven governance and corruption control initiatives have failed to address the governance weaknesses that excessive and uncoordinated aid has helped to create.

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Notes

  1. Official Development Assistance (ODA) consists of grants and loans with a high grant element such as IDA loans from the World Bank. This article is not concerned with emergency or post-conflict aid or humanitarian relief.

  2. The amounts of aid consumed by aid agencies and commercial interests in the home country reduce significantly the amounts actually ‘delivered’. However, there is a lot less tied aid than previously.

  3. [5]:13–19. PRSP principles are country ownership, results orientation, comprehensiveness, a partnership orientation and a long-term outlook.

  4. Bräutigam [6] estimates Chinese ODA to Africa at USD 1.4 billion in 2007. Data on Chinese aid transfers are treated as state secrets.

  5. [17]:16. There are also about 40 UN agencies.

  6. The program consists of agricultural development (including USD 100 million for the Green Revolution in Africa [AGRA]), financial services, libraries, and health, water and education projects. In June 2006, Warren Buffet pledged to contribute USD 30 billion to the Gates Foundation. Wikipedia accessed 27/01/11; Gates Foundation website accessed 27/01/11.

  7. See Bräutigam [6]. The author argues that the practice of earmarking Chinese companies to carry out turn-key development projects limits the opportunities for African officials to divert funds.

  8. UN-AIDS, the (US) President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GF), and the World Bank’s Multi-Country HIV/AIDS Program for Africa (the MAP). GAVI is a global fund for vaccines.

  9. All references from relevant Wikileaks entries except the MCA ([20]:160). Tanzania’s recent receipts from these sources are reported below.

  10. Nelson 2010:304. According to Nelson [28]: ‘During the last 2 years more than 14 new bilateral and multilateral mechanisms for financing environmental development policy have been created, making coherence and complementarity of international cooperation even more difficult.’ According to Nelson the REDD initiative risks being undermined by ‘political elites in neopatrimonial governance systems.’

  11. [38] citing an article in Foreign Affairs.

  12. CARE website accessed 20/12/10. Americans give about USD 300 billion a year to charity.

  13. Wikipedia accessed 30/01/11.

  14. [4].

  15. [22]. The fact that the main funders of EU aid all have their own large bilateral aid programmes says a lot about the practical limits of aid coordination.

  16. [34].

  17. De Walle and Johnston 1996:80 [16]. The quote in quotes is from Whittington and Calhoun [37], page 307.

  18. [25]. See also [7].

  19. Kramer [26].

  20. World Bank Annual Development Reports, various years.

  21. Aid to NGOs is not considered as ODA.

  22. Requests for the next 5 years from the GOT to the Global Fund total USD 678 million.

  23. For critiques of the MCA methodology see [12, 20].

  24. Nelson 2010.

  25. [9,10,11,13].

  26. There is evidence that some concessional loans are contracted through cronyism. Examples are given in Cooksey [9].

  27. Transparency International (various years); [12,14].

  28. See [2] for some examples from West Africa.

  29. [33] and [35].

  30. [32].

  31. [31].

  32. African Power and Politics Programme (APPP) funded by DFID.

  33. A critical implication is that budget support fills the gap created by under-collection of local tax revenues, one of the moral hazards listed above.

  34. The development of a corrupt ‘allowances culture’ in aid dependent countries has both external and internal causes [13].

  35. [27].

  36. The impact of donor-supported democratisation over two decades is also ‘mixed’.

  37. Official and civil society efforts to make aid more transparent are laudable but face huge obstacles, if the overall thrust of this article is correct.

  38. [3]. The notion that aid agencies should base aid transfers on performance and results assumes that the aid industry is not driven by the imperative to disburse and maintain market share.

  39. Faust [19], cited by Booth [5].

  40. See [18] for examples of failed conditionality.

  41. See [1] forthcoming.

  42. See [21, 24, 5]. The alternative of working through existing patronage-based institutions is also problematic.

  43. See DFID’s Drivers of Change and African Power and Politics Program (APPP), SIDA’s Power Analyses, The Netherlands Strategic Governance and Corruption Analyses and USAID’s Democracy and Governance Assessment.

  44. [8], Conclusions: whither ‘corruption control?’.

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  1. Tanzania Development Research Group, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

    Brian Cooksey

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Correspondence to Brian Cooksey.

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This article is an edited version of: ‘Can aid agencies really help combat corruption? An overview of donor policies and practices in East Africa’, a paper presented at the III ANCORAGE-NET Biannual Meeting Protecting Aid Funds in Unstable Governance Environments: Towards an Integrated Strategy, Lisbon, 18–19 May 2010.

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Cooksey, B. Aid, governance and corruption control: a critical assessment. Crime Law Soc Change 58, 521–531 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-011-9359-5

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