Aid Effectiveness in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Analysis of Mismatches Between Donors and Recipients

Abstract

The last half a century of Foreign Aid disbursal to Sub-Sahara Africa had been dominated by the need to address the perennial problem of its effectiveness. This has provided to a great number of stakeholders a premise for dismissal of foreign aid to be an instrument for economic growth and poverty reduction as initially thought. Drawing from recent literature, a conceptual framework was designed to capture and investigate various contextual factors that would contribute or initiate particular characteristics of the donor-recipient relationship. From a perspective of aid recipients, this study assumes that a management approach to aid would provide an understanding of mismatches between donors and recipients as a possible reason for aid effectiveness standards being unsatisfactory to many. A qualitative case study of two idiosyncratic countries: Cameroon and Tanzania was conducted utilizing a retroductive analysis approach. To provide additional internal validation, a stakeholders' analysis and a business appraisal were also conducted. A number of explanatory mechanisms were constructed and answered positively the research preoccupation of identifying donor-recipient mismatches as well as showing that these mismatches affected to a very large extent the effective management of foreign aid.Further research is recommended chiefly in the donor-recipient relationship vis-à-vis foreign aid quality looking at the history, current and future international interactions. Also, researches in new and meaningful ways of assessing foreign aid impacts.

Date of Award	31 Dec 2011
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The University of Manchester
Supervisor	Richard Duncombe (Supervisor)