Regional international organizations in Africa as recipients of foreign aid: Why are some more attractive to donors than others?

Abstract

Foreign aid to regional international organizations (RIOs) has increased tremendously in recent decades. The vast differences between RIOs give rise to the question of why some RIOs attract considerable amounts of aid while others attract much less, or even nothing at all. To address that question, this article sets out and examines a set of hypotheses that focus on various characteristics of RIOs that allow donors to reduce transaction costs. Empirically, the analysis proceeds via two steps: the hypotheses are first subjected to an empirical plausibility probe based on quantitative methods and then illustrated based on case study of the Southern African Development Community. The findings reveal that RIOs are most attractive when they operate in a range of policy fields, involve many member-states and are engaged in long-lasting collaborations with donors. By contrast, there is little support for conventional explanations as to why RIOs attract funding – for instance, claims that being democratic, being most in need or providing donors with market access will lead to greater funding. The rather disturbing policy implication is that a small number of RIOs are likely to continue to attract the bulk of funding, whereas poorly funded RIOs are unlikely to attract significant amounts of aid.

Navigating Regional Regime Complexity: How and Why Does the European Union Cooperate With Regional Organizations?

“…European and American ROs are frequently considered to have higher levels of capacities. By contrast, research has shown that the political and administrative resources of African and Asian ROs are more limited (Engel & Mattheis, 2020), and ROs in these regions frequently rely on external funding and administrative support from donors (Stapel et al, 2023;Stapel & Söderbaum, 2020). Considering that the capacities of ROs matter for establishing cooperation agreements, it is likely that, all else being equal, more cooperation agreements will be concluded by European and American ROs compared to African and Asian ROs.…”

Failing women and girls during Covid-19: The limits of regional gender norms in Africa

“…However, even at the time the budget was set, member states were already in contribution arrears by $50m, leaving donor funders to bridge the shortfall and increasing regional organisations’ reliance on aid (The Citizen, 2022). Meanwhile, most of the RECs – with the exceptions of SADC and to a lesser extent ECOWAS and EAC – receive relatively little donor support, which is instead concentrated on the AU (Stapel et al, 2023).…”