At face value, foreign aid is generally extended either to contain crises situations or promote development. In Africa, it appears that foreign aid has failed on both counts. One crucial question being asked by experts is, why has there been so little development in sub-Saharan Africa despite so much aid? Indeed, even the World Bank has admitted grudgingly that assistance programs have been either ineffectual or had very small development impact on recipient countries. This study seeks to examine foreign aid effectiveness and management. Focusing on the nature of the relationships between donors and recipients, the study argues that to foster economic development in Africa, a need exists for a transformation in aid relations away from fragmented donor-driven projects and programs to a predictable long-term support to African owned programs. The work addresses these challenges by reviewing current debates and analysis of new forms, instruments, promises, and direction of development cooperation. Donor discourses, which are on ownership, partnership, less conditionalities, and more empowerment, are not always followed in practice. In fact, the objective reality is that foreign aid donors usually target an assortment of aid instruments at diverse objectives. That notwithstanding, foreign aid (generally) can only be effective in achieving the objectives set by donors when it is planned, structured, and implemented in partnership with aid recipients. Clearly, the nature of the relationships between donors and recipients has a critical influence on the effectiveness of development aid. So far, the current aid experience is that the relationship between African governments and their aid donors is characterized by a vast inequality. As such, this study takes the position that there is no viable alternative to Africans taking effective charge of their destiny and deliberately creating conditions that are essential for effecting desirable change in the region's fortunes. It also takes the position that Africa's development partners such as the international financial institutions should actively seek to create and nurture the space needed by Africans for the realization of their developmental goals / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2003.

At face value, foreign aid is generally extended either to contain crises situations or promote development. In Africa, it appears that foreign aid has failed on both counts. One crucial question being asked by experts is, why has there been so little development in sub-Saharan Africa despite so much aid? Indeed, even the World Bank has admitted grudgingly that assistance programs have been either ineffectual or had very small development impact on recipient countries. This study seeks to examine foreign aid effectiveness and management. Focusing on the nature of the relationships between donors and recipients, the study argues that to foster economic development in Africa, a need exists for a transformation in aid relations away from fragmented donor-driven projects and programs to a predictable long-term support to African owned programs. The work addresses these challenges by reviewing current debates and analysis of new forms, instruments, promises, and direction of development cooperation. Donor discourses, which are on ownership, partnership, less conditionalities, and more empowerment, are not always followed in practice. In fact, the objective reality is that foreign aid donors usually target an assortment of aid instruments at diverse objectives. That notwithstanding, foreign aid (generally) can only be effective in achieving the objectives set by donors when it is planned, structured, and implemented in partnership with aid recipients. Clearly, the nature of the relationships between donors and recipients has a critical influence on the effectiveness of development aid. So far, the current aid experience is that the relationship between African governments and their aid donors is characterized by a vast inequality. As such, this study takes the position that there is no viable alternative to Africans taking effective charge of their destiny and deliberately creating conditions that are essential for effecting desirable change in the region's fortunes. It also takes the position that Africa's development partners such as the international financial institutions should actively seek to create and nurture the space needed by Africans for the realization of their developmental goals. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2003.

The study examined the theory and practice of international political economy in sub-Saharan Africa from a developmental point of view. The study looked specifically at the politics of economic integration for development, multilateral institutions that are involved in the developmental aid of the region, the challenges posed to sub-Saharan Africa's development by the international system (multilateral institutions and western developed countries) and extra regional partnership initiatives for the region's development. The study ascertained that sub-Saharan African leaders have, since the era of decolonisation, embarked on different ways or mechanisms to address the economic crisis of the region but, however, failed to rescue the region. Amongst mechanisms adopted was that of creating regional economic groupings like ECOW AS and SADC. However, majority of regional settings created for economic development did not have much of successes in saving sub-Saharan countries from debt crisis. Failure of these settings has been more pointed on the unpreparedness of other regional countries to cooperate. Multilateral institutions (IMF, World Bank and WTO) on the other hand, worsened the underdevelopment situation in the region, and therefore continued to dictate economic policy to sub-Saharan African countries. This was possible because many sub-Saharan African countries relied on aid from these institutions. Multilateral institutions continued to feature in the underdevelopment of sub-Saharan Africa by posing challenges like globalisation, economic policy and democratization to the development of the region. These challenges interfered with the development process of Sub-Saharan Africa. However, with NEP AD as \ he latest initiative for extra-regional partnership, there is some hope that sub-Saharan region and Africa at large will benefit from developmental initiatives proposed by NEP AD. / M.Soc.Sc. (International Relations) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2005

Since 1929, the world economy has not encountered any financial crisis as severe as the case of the Great Depression, until 2007 when the fall of stock markets and the collapse of large financial institutions in the United States resulted in a worldwide recession. According to an IMF report, and as a result of the direct impact of the crisis, advanced economies such as those of the United States and Europe are suffering from a systemic banking crisis with economic output expected to contract by over 1 ¾ % in 2009. (Bourdin 2009:2) Although the crisis erupted in the United States, the effects quickly spread to countries worldwide. However, its effects are said to be more devastating for the poorest regions in the world including Sub-Saharan Africa. During the last few years, prior to the crisis, many Sub-Saharan African countries had enjoyed a growth rate of over 5%. This was partly as a result of sound economic policies and increased external support in the form of debt relief and higher inflows from economically powerful countries in the West. However, with the current financial crisis, wealthy nations have been forced to concentrate on sustaining their own economy. As a result, amongst changes like tighter immigration policies, skyrocketing oil prices and food prices, foreign aid is being withdrawn. (ibid 2009:3) According to foreign media reports, donor governments and the G8 are no longer as committed to aid as before the crisis. This research paper examines the evolution of aid to Africa in view of various contexts through a broad historical economic and political economy overview, and finally corroborates these observations with a discourse analysis of a sample of BBC online articles. The research project thus investigates in this last section, the BBC’s representation of poverty and aid in Sub-Saharan Africa before and during the current global economic crisis.

The Post-colonial era trade relations between Europe and Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries has been regulated by a number of economic cooperation agreements, namely the Yaoundé, Lomé, and Cotonou Conventions to the current Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) that had recently been concluded in the ECOWAS and SADC sub regions respectively. The EPAs negotiations have been marred with challenges particularly in Africa; with many countries having responded by not signing Interim EPAs and Nigeria has also stated they will not be concluding the EPA. Nigeria and South Africa have responded to the current negotiations in differing ways nonetheless their responses were somewhat similar. This study will attempt to understand and systematically explain Nigeria’s and South Africa’s positions on the EPAs negotiations process. In order to gain the understanding the study investigates whether EPAs negotiations stalled due to the influence and/or responses of Nigeria and South Africa? The factors involved in the negotiations that may explain the responses. What consequences the principle of reciprocity has on the responses Nigeria and South Africa? This research is going to be desk research using process tracing to systematically analyse the development of the negotiations between the EC and ACP countries particular attention being afforded to Africa and the resulting responses by Nigeria and South Africa. Some of the findings are that in the case of South Africa the principle of reciprocity was not a major factor in shaping South Africa’s responses to the negotiations, whereas the opposite holds true for Nigeria. Regional integration played a major part in the case of Nigeria. / MT2016

An aggregate agricultural production function (a pooled covariance model) based on the metaproduction approach, was estimated using cross section, time series data for 32 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) covering the 1970-1993 period to evaluate the effect of foreign aid on agricultural production. The Almon lag structure of the foreign aid (Official Development Assistance) variable was specified to account for the effect of foreign aid over time. The results support the hypothesis that the aggregate effect of aid on agricultural production in SSA is positive. The marginal effect of foreign aid in SSA is calculated to be $0.14 which can be interpreted to mean that a one dollar increase in aid in each of the past six years would be expected to increase the value of agricultural output by 14 cents in the current year. / There is a great variation in the effect of foreign aid on agricultural production when countries are classified according to agro-climatic region, income level and policy environment. Excluding Eastern and Southern Africa where the effect of aid is negative, the marginal effect of foreign aid ranges from $0.40 in Sudano-Sahel to $1.32 in Central Africa. The marginal effect of foreign aid is larger in middle income countries as compared to high income countries; it is negative in low income countries. The effect of aid is positive and significant in countries classified under a favourable policy environment but negative and insignificant in countries classified under an unfavourable policy environment. The structural adjustment dummy variable is positive and significant in most regressions indicating that structural adjustment programs have been beneficial to agriculture in most Sub-Saharan African countries.

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