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Summary: Major DAC donors are widely criticized for weak targeting of aid, selfish aid motives, and insufficient coordination. The emergence of an increasing number of new donors may further complicate the coordination of international aid efforts. At the same time, it is open to question whether new donors (many of which were aid recipients until recently) are more altruistic and provide better targeted aid according to need and merit. Project-level data on aid by new donors, as collected by the AidData initiative, allow for empirical analyses comparing the allocation behavior of new versus old donors. We employ Probit and Tobit models and test for significant differences in the distribution of aid by new and old donors across recipient countries. We find that, on average, new donors care less for recipient need than old donors. New and old donors behave similarly in several respects, however. They disregard merit by not taking the level of corruption in recipient countries into account. Concerns that commercial self-interest distorts the allocation of aid seem to be overblown for both groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: The previous literature largely ignores the heterogeneity of aid channels used by each single donor country. We estimate Tobit models to assess the relative importance of recipient need, merit, and self-interest of donors for various channels of official and private German aid across a large sample of recipient countries in 2005–07. Our findings underscore the need for a disaggregated analysis of aid allocation. Aid channels differ significantly in the extent to which need and merit are taken into account. Yet, the German case does not reveal unambiguously superior aid channels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a two-step approach of assessing whether major donors of foreign aid have met recent demands for less proliferated and better coordinated aid efforts. First, we calculate Theil indices revealing the concentration of each donor's aid on recipient countries and specific aid sectors. Second, we map overlaps of aid from different donors and over time to analyze the degree of coordination. Our results point to a wide and persistent gap between the rhetoric of political declarations and the donors' actual aid allocation during the period 1995-2006. Few donors have specialized on a limited set of recipients and aid sectors, and coordination has remained elusive. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Empirical evidence on the targeting of private aid is largely lacking, even though corporate donors are an increasingly important source of aid. We contribute to closing this gap by performing a case study of Nestlé. The allocation of Nestlé’s aid is compared to that of Swiss ODA and NGO aid, testing for both altruistic and selfish aid motivations. We conclude that Nestlé’s aid clearly lacks focus in terms of targeting poor countries, which appears to be the downside of the strong link between commercial presence and aid. Moreover, according to our Tobit estimations, Nestlé grants more aid to recipient countries with stronger democratic but also more corrupt institutions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Being closer to the poor, NGOs are widely believed to provide better targeted aid than state agencies. But empirical evidence is largely lacking. We contribute to closing this gap by drawing on an exceptionally detailed Swiss database that covers different forms of NGO aid and several official aid benchmarks. The Tobit estimations account for both altruistic and selfish aid motivations. Whether or not NGOs provide better targeted aid depends on the source of NGO funding as well as the choice of the official benchmark. In contrast to widespread belief, however, the allocation of self-financed NGO aid reveals striking similarities to the allocation of official Swiss development aid. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Summary We account for competition for export markets among donor countries of foreign aid by analyzing spatial dependence in aid allocation. Employing sector-specific aid data, we find that the five largest donors react to aid giving by other donors with whom they compete in terms of exporting goods and services to a specific recipient country at both stages of their allocation of aid for economic infrastructure and production sectors. By contrast, evidence for export competition driving aid allocation is lacking for more altruistic donors and for aid in social infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: We analyze the targeting of non-governmental organization (NGO) aid across countries in a multivariate regression framework, based on a dataset for 61 important international NGOs. While our results show that NGOs are more active in the neediest countries, we reject the hypothesis that NGOs complement official aid through engaging in difficult institutional environments. Rather, they replicate location choices of official “backdonors.” Moreover, NGOs follow other NGOs so that aid gets clustered. Finally, NGOs select recipient countries with common traits related to religion or colonial history. Our findings suggest that NGOs keep a low profile rather than distinguishing themselves from other donors. It remains open to debate, however, whether these findings also apply to the wide variety of smaller NGOs (not covered by our sample). [Copyright &y& Elsevier]