Small donors in world politics: The role of trust funds in the foreign aid policies of Central and Eastern European donors

Balázs Szent-Iványi, Bernhard Reinsberg, Simon Lightfoot

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The Central and Eastern European (CEE) EU member states have emerged as new donors of international development assistance since the turn of the millennium. The literature has tended to focus on the bilateral components of these policies, and neglected CEE multilateral aid. This paper contributes to filling this gap by examining how and why CEE donors contribute to trust funds operated by multilateral donors. The aim of the paper is twofold: First, it provides a descriptive account of how CEE countries use trust funds in the allocation of their foreign aid. Second, it explains this allocation using data from qualitative interviews with CEE officials. CEE countries make much less use of trust funds than might be expected. This is due not only to the loss of visibility and control over their resources, but also to how CEE companies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) rarely achieve funding successes at multilateral organisations.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)663–683
Number of pages21
JournalEuropean Journal of Development Research
Volume31
Issue number3
Early online date31 Oct 2018
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jul 2019

Bibliographical note

© Springer Nature B.V. 2018. The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/s41287-018-0175-y

Keywords

  • Central and Eastern Europe
  • Foreign aid
  • International organisations
  • Multi-bi aid
  • New donors
  • Trust funds

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