Abstract
Official Development Assistance (ODA) is a crucial financial support for developing countries but is currently declining from its peak, missing targets, and facing significant cuts from major donors. While ODA significantly contributes to development, the quality of aid and partnerships requires reform, moving from donor-led approaches to more effective, country-specific, and country-owned development strategies that enhance local capacity and results. This research aims to understand how best to allocate and utilize ODA to effectively address the unique development needs of each receiving country, maximizing its impact and ensuring that aid programs are aligned with national priorities, leading to more sustainable and equitable development. One of the main challenges of our research has to do with the relevance of discussing aid dependency, alignment with national priorities, and donor-driven agendas. The focus is to question country-specific cooperation approaches that would help analyze the best practices, differentiated strategies, and the role of local stakeholders. The method is to assess and analyze rather than to impose policy changes for more effective, needs-based ODA, including enhanced transparency and stakeholder engagement. Some of the key aspects include shifting from donor-driven projects to recipient-driven priorities, conducting policy consultations with partner governments before requests are formalized, and strengthening multilateral and bilateral policy dialogues to ensure ODA aligns with the developing country’s own national development plans. Our purpose is to improve aid effectiveness, reduce aid dependency, and promote sustainable development by fostering ownership within the developing country itself.
Presenters
Fafa SeneStudent, Postdoctoral Researcher, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (TUFS), Tokyo, Japan
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Economic, Social, and Cultural Context
KEYWORDS
ODA, PARTNERSHIPS, COUNTRY-SPECIFIC, DEVELOPMENT, SUSTAINABILITY
