The purpose of the paper is to discuss the evolution of India’s assistance programmes for economic development of partner countries. The recent rejuvenation of India’s aid is in line with the broader phenomenon of the re-appearance of so called ‘emerging donors’. The bulk of publicity is on China and there are still gaps in scholarly writings on India. The paper herein aims to address those gaps, providing insight on the scope and geographical reach of India’s aid activities, the selection of modalities and sectors supported as well as changing patterns of aid administration. The literature review and interviews were conducted to fulfill this goal. The re-appearance of India as a development assistance donor was the consequence of a decade of rapid economic growth. The rejuvenated programmes are more diverse, focused not only on Nepal and Bhutan but also on other countries within India’s extended neighborhood. The point of gravity was moved from infrastructure support towards capacity building. There are continuous attempts to centralize aid administration. India’s foreign aid programme is still growing and seeking strategic long-term orientation.
Contemporary aid architecture is a highly compound set of rules and institutions that governs aid flows to developing countries. It is a result of evolution process that begun after World War II and keeps evolving in an uncoordinated way. Two major trends are to be distinguished in the course of the process i.e. aid proliferation and aid fragmentation. According to IDA definition this paper associates proliferation with the number of donor channels providing ODA to a given recipient country, and fragmentation with the number of donor-funded activities as well as their average value. The aim of this paper is to present the scope and evolution of aid proliferation and fragmentation phenomena, to indicate consequences on aid effectiveness and to discuss recent donor led activities to prevent and mitigate further development of the trends. The main conclusions of the paper are as follows: aid fragmentation and proliferation is a consequence of lack of coordination among donor activities and focuses on particular interest of the parties. There has been clearly visible intensification of both phenomena since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The research based on Hirschman-Herfindahl index as well as qualitative studies indicate profound negative consequences of the phenomena on aid effectiveness. They erode the capacity of public administration of a recipient country, diminish the value of aid and hinder economic growth. International community of donor and recipients of development assistance undertake activities to mitigate and prevent. The most important so far is the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness. An operationalisation of the ideas of alignment and harmonisation is the main response to the problem. The declaration introduces specific, measurable targets to track progress in field of eradication aid proliferation and fragmentation.
JavaScript jest wyłączony w Twojej przeglądarce internetowej. Włącz go, a następnie odśwież stronę, aby móc w pełni z niej korzystać.