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Journal of Undergraduate Research

Keywords

civil society activity, foreign aid, NGO, CIVICUS, aid community

College

Family, Home, and Social Sciences

Department

Political Science

Abstract

Foreign aid, and aid effectiveness, has been one of the most heated debates in international relations and US foreign policy in the past several decades. Is aid ever effective? Under what conditions? At stake are billions of dollars and, potentially, millions of lives and livelihoods. The most frequently cited concern is that much aid is “lost” in countries with poor governance; used up in corrupt, inefficient, and unprepared bureaucracies. The governance condition, while empirically contested, has nonetheless become conventional wisdom among donors. To avoid this loss, donors increasingly bypass poor governments by subcontracting projects to Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). NGOs are perceived as more efficient and less corrupt, with less bureaucracy and more on-the-ground knowledge than agencies and donor countries. Giving money to NGOs instead of governments or international organizations of states (like the UN or the World Bank) has become an increasingly common practice in the aid community.

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