Humanitarian versus national interests: a statistical reflection on official development assistance and whether it is directed.

• Author: Dobransky, Steve
• Position: Report

Editor's Note: American Diplomacy rarely publishes statistical analysis. But because this paper analyzes the debate over foreign aid's purposes and motivations, we thought it might be of interest to our readers. The paper examines the most recent data on the recipients of official development assistance, presenting fourteen traditional hypotheses regarding foreign aid, and it challenges each one with socio-economic statistics from the CIA's World Factbook online. The paper concludes that national interest motivations appear to be a major factor in foreign aid, contrary to the many publicly stated explanations.--Ed.

Introduction

Foreign aid has always been a hotly debated topic in the post-WWII period. With the inception of the Marshall Plan, the United States carried out one of the greatest economic recovery acts in history. As the Cold War intensified, the idea of the Marshall Plan was expanded to include the rest of the developing world, many of whom were just getting out of the throes of European colonialism and were ripe targets for both superpowers. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) was created in 1960 by twenty of the wealthiest countries to promote better economic relations between countries. The Development Assistance Committee (DAC) was established thereafter within the OECD to support economic development in the Third World. All donor aid that was at least 25% in grants was considered to be Official Development Assistance (ODA), as opposed to loans and other conditional assistance by institutions like the World Bank. The intentions were ideal but the argument remained as to whether ODA was primarily for economic and humanitarian reasons or did national interests and power politics influence it in reality?

The scholarly debate continues to this day as to what the primary purpose of foreign aid is and should be. Should foreign assistance be for humanitarian purposes and the promotion of socio-economic development in the impoverished world? Or, should it be for national interests and the promotion of security and power? Hans Morgenthau complained more than half a century ago that he, as a realist, could not fully answer this question, given the mixed picture of interests and stated intentions. With current OECD/DAC data along with the CIA's online World Factbook, we may now be able to get a better understanding of what the primary purpose(s) of foreign aid is. This research paper analyzes and evaluates ODA and its recipients by looking at key socio-economic data to determine what may be driving ODA's direction and purpose.

A Brief Scholarly Review

Proponents of foreign aid as a humanitarian goal have been large and vocal throughout the past half century. Scholarly wise, David Lumsdaine was the leading proponent of the humanitarian strand in foreign assistance. In Moral Vision in International Politics (1993), Lumsdaine argues that modern foreign assistance must have had a strong moral fiber since it reached hundreds of billions of dollars and was supported by large numbers of constituents inside and outside of government for decades. He notes like others (Wood 1986, and Ruttan 1996, et al.) that nothing in all of history compares with the massive wealth transfer between countries (peacefully and voluntarily) and the declared ideal humanitarianism.

Since the end of the Cold War, many scholars (Meernik, Krueger, and Poe 1998, Lancaster 2007, and Heckelman and Knack 2008, et al.) have recognized that foreign assistance has taken on a much greater emphasis for promoting economic development, as well as democracy. The stated goals and ideals of foreign aid are widely promoted, but they often may not reflect reality. The humanitarian research stresses the amount, types, and recipients of foreign aid. The OECD and others have collected much data showing the totals, distribution, and categories of foreign aid. Few studies, however, have attempted to measure the real-world results and effectiveness of foreign aid over the decades, as well as the statistical relationship between ODA and specific humanitarian/national interests; general totals and targets yes, but not the outcomes and socio-economic details. After trillions of ODA over the last several decades, it behooves us to assess the current recipients' key socio-economic data and, then, determine whether or not humanitarian or national interests have prevailed.

Baldwin (1966 and 1985), Hook (1995), and Lancaster (2007), et al. have argued that foreign aid can be driven by national interests, including security and power politics. David Baldwin's Economic Statecraft (1985) and Steven Hook's National Interest and Foreign Aid (1995) are the classic examples showing foreign aid being used primarily for power interests. They state that throughout the Cold War it could be demonstrated that a number of major powers directed their amount and type of foreign assistance to countries that corresponded with their national interests--i.e. security, political, economic, and ideological interests. They point out that foreign aid was often framed domestically as promoting the national interests and that the direction and character of foreign assistance supported these claims. They stress that regardless of the secondary purposes and results that the humanitarianism may have garnered, the underlying purpose of foreign aid was and still is hardcore national interests. They support their claims by looking at the total amount and specific recipients of foreign aid in the post-WWII period and they conclude that the national security and economic interests of the donors must have played a significant and overriding role in which they gave their foreign aid.

Research Data and Methods

In order to assess whether primarily humanitarian or national interests influence ODA, this paper will use the most recent data (2008) from OECD/DAC. The DAC reports include a list of all of the recipients of ODA, and each recipient's total GNI (gross national income, which is similar to gross domestic product), GNI per capita, and total population. It should be noted that of the 151 recipients of ODA, not all recipients were sovereign countries and that some GNI and GNI per capita data were not in the DAC reports, so current GDP and GDP per capita were used. All this and remaining data and variables were collected from the CIA's World Factbook online.

The main research question is whether primarily humanitarian or national interests determine ODA. The dependent variable is Net ODA. The independent variables are socio-economic and military factors that may influence the total amount of ODA and each one in itself proffers a hypothesis. The fourteen independent variables are GNI (GDP) per capita, population size, GNI (GDP) total, literacy, education, life expectancy, infant mortality, and urbanization levels, HIV/AIDS rate, total arable land, total exports, total imports, external debt amount, and military expenditures as a...