Regional international organizations in Africa as recipients of foreign aid: Why are some more attractive to donors than others?
| Published date | 01 December 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00108367221147791 |
| Author | Sören Stapel,Diana Panke,Fredrik Söderbaum |
| Date | 01 December 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/00108367221147791
Cooperation and Conflict
2023, Vol. 58(4) 522 –541
© The Author(s) 2023
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DOI: 10.1177/00108367221147791
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Regional international
organizations in Africa as
recipients of foreign aid: Why
are some more attractive to
donors than others?
Sören Stapel , Diana Panke and
Fredrik Söderbaum
Abstract
Foreign aid to regional international organizations (RIOs) has increased tremendously in recent
decades. The vast differences between RIOs give rise to the question of why some RIOs attract
considerable amounts of aid while others attract much less, or even nothing at all. To address
that question, this article sets out and examines a set of hypotheses that focus on various
characteristics of RIOs that allow donors to reduce transaction costs. Empirically, the analysis
proceeds via two steps: the hypotheses are first subjected to an empirical plausibility probe
based on quantitative methods and then illustrated based on case study of the Southern African
Development Community. The findings reveal that RIOs are most attractive when they operate in
a range of policy fields, involve many member-states and are engaged in long-lasting collaborations
with donors. By contrast, there is little support for conventional explanations as to why RIOs
attract funding – for instance, claims that being democratic, being most in need or providing
donors with market access will lead to greater funding. The rather disturbing policy implication is
that a small number of RIOs are likely to continue to attract the bulk of funding, whereas poorly
funded RIOs are unlikely to attract significant amounts of aid.
Keywords
Africa, foreign aid, regionalism, Southern African Development Community
Introduction
Why do some regional international organizations (RIOs)1 attract a lot of foreign aid
while others receive much less, or even nothing at all? The dominant standpoint in the
scholarly literature maintains that RIOs are driven and shaped ‘from within’ by
Corresponding author:
Prof Fredrik Söderbaum, University of Gothenburg, School of Global Studies, Konstepidemins väg 2B, 413
14 Göteborg, Sweden.
Email: fredrik.soderbaum@globalstudies.gu.se
1147791CAC0010.1177/00108367221147791Cooperation and ConflictStapel et al.
research-article2023
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Stapel et al. 523
members-states and intra-regional actors (see Börzel and Risse, 2016; Mattli, 1999).
While a growing literature emphasizes the role of external pressures and partners in the
promotion of regionalism and RIOs (Buzdugan, 2013; Jolliff Scott, 2020; Katzenstein,
1996; Klose, 2019; Krapohl, 2017; Söderbaum, 2016), knowledge about external fund-
ing, which is one of the core instruments that external actors rely on when seeking to
influence RIOs from the outside, remains limited.
Regional official development assistance (ODA) is the most important type of exter-
nal funding for regionalism and RIOs in many parts of the developing world. Whereas
country-based ODA is directed towards nation-states, regional ODA aims to support
transnational projects and transboundary problem-solving across a range of policy fields.
RIOs are important targets and delivery channels in this regard. In the case of some of
the most prominent RIOs in Africa, donors fund between 60% and 90% of their budgets
(Engel and Mattheis, 2020). Hence, a number of RIOs would simply be unable to func-
tion without regional ODA. However, although regional ODA has increased substan-
tially over the past two decades, there has been no systematic research on why external
funding is so unevenly distributed across RIOs.
Even if substantial amounts of foreign aid are provided to RIOs in other parts of the
developing world, the phenomenon is most widespread in Africa, which makes African
RIOs the core focus of this article. Africa’s 18 multipurpose RIOs differ substantially in
terms of the amounts of regional ODA they receive (see Figure 1).2 The African Union
(AU) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) stand out as the largest
recipients by far. A few other RIOs, such as the Economic Community of West African
States (ECOWAS), the East African Community (EAC) and the Intergovernmental
Authority on Development (IGAD), also attract substantial funding, but much less than
the frontrunners. At the other end of the spectrum, a number of African RIOs receive little
or no donor funding at all.
Figure 1. ODA disbursements to African RIOs (2002–2015).
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