Incorporating Donor Dimensions into Aid Implementation and Effectiveness Research

“Previous research suggests that recipient country implementing environments play a significant role in mediating the impact of aid. To date, however, research has focused almost exclusively on the recipient country side of the donor-recipient relationship, with very little attention paid to the institutional environment and characteristics of donors. Broadening the scope of aid research to investigate the ways in which donors influence aid goals, implementation, and effectiveness may offer new insights to the persistent puzzle of how aid could best be configured to maximize its impact in reducing poverty and improving human development. Based on persistent donor critiques and political economy and participatory development conceptual frameworks, this paper offers a set of donor-side variables as a first step in integrating this neglected but powerful set of actors into empirical work on aid effectiveness. Rather than using micro- and macro-level units of analysis to conduct such research, I argue that mezzo-level cross-donor and cross-project comparisons provide a more appropriate methodological approach. A mezzo-level approach allows for greater comparison and generalizability than micro-level project evaluations, while retaining some level of disaggregation and detail not found in macro-level cross-national studies.”