Aid and Conflict at the Subnational Level – Evidence from World Bank and Chinese Development Projects in Africa

Abstract

Using geo-referenced data on development projects by the World Bank and China, we provide a comprehensive analysis of the effect of aid on conflict using fixed effects and instrumental variables strategies. The results show that aid projects seem to reduce rather than fuel conflict, on average. Our analysis suggests that this is driven by projects in the transport and financial sectors, and through less lethal violence by governments against civilians. There are no clear differences based on ethnic fractionalization and government affiliation of a region, but some indications of spill-overs to other regions. We also find no increased likelihood of demonstrations, strikes or riots, but a higher likelihood of non-lethal government repression in areas where China is active.

Aid Effectiveness in Fragile States

“…Second, we take advantage of georeferenced data on World Bank investment projects and conflicts and we zoom in on the role played by conflicts at the sub-national level. 20 We rely on the data collected by Gehring et al (2019), which provide information on whether an ADM2 region in a certain year experienced a conflict, and on AidData for the geocoded World Bank 19 The indicator variable :$ equals to one if during the length of the project the country experienced a war conflict defined as causing at least 1000 battle-related deaths in one calendar year (Intensity level=2). 20 The literature on aid and conflict progressively used georeferenced data to investigate subnational dynamics.…”

Is Favoritism a Threat to Chinese Aid Effectiveness? A Subnational Analysis of Chinese Development Projects

“…12 The resulting georeferenced dataset contains 1,575 project locations geocoded at the ADM2 level and 1,898 project locations at the ADM1 level. 13 Despite the short time since the dataset's public release, the georeferenced Chinese aid dataset has already been used in a number of subnational studies of Chinese aid (e.g., BenYishay et al 2016;Brazys et al 2017;Kotsadam 2018a, 2018b;Gehring et al 2018).…”

“…For ease of exposition, we use the term "aid" to refer to all official financing flows (Official Development Assistance and Other Official Flows).6 Since we have introduced this instrument in the working paper version of this paper, subsequent work has adopted it for different research questions. Examples areGehring et al (2018), andHumphrey and Michaelowa (2019).…”

Mapping implementation research on nutrition-specific interventions in India

“…Berman et al (2013) find some evidence for a violence-reducing effect of a CDD program, the USAID-funded Community Stabilization Program (CSP). 17 It should be noted, however, that their study is predominately interested in CERP, and testing for the effect of CDD programs is done en passant. Chou (2012) also included two CDD programs (NSP, and USAID Local Community Development in Afghanistan) in her evaluation of CERP in Afghanistan, but found no effect.…”