There is a major need of regional integration in Africa, largely recognized by the African countries themselves and the international community as well. Meeting this need is a priority for the ADB. Although significant progress has been made by the ADB to support regional integration in FAD...

State fragility is a concept that emerged among the international community of donors in order to adapt aid policies to particularly difficult situations. Fragility has thus been measured to design a special treatment in favour of fragile states, otherwise lef t behind. In this context, but...

The African Development Bank allocates its concessional resources through a procedure which is mainly based on the quality of the beneficiary countries' economic policy and governance. This allocation procedure relies mainly on the Performance-Based Allocation formula which can be criticized on...

This paper considers why and how the Performance Based Allocation (PBA) used in multilateral development banks and in particular at IDA, could be improved by taking the structural handicaps of eligible countries into account. The PBA relies on a debatable definition of performance. It does not...

We analyse the relationship between income volatility and inequality and the conditional role played by aid and remittances. Using a panel of 142 countries for the period 1973 to 2012, we find that income volatility has an adverse impact on inequality, and that the poorest people are the most...

The monetary and exchange rate system of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) is characterised by a single currency, the West African CFA franc (XOF). Its anchor is a fixed exchange rate against the euro. France provides an unlimited and unconditional guarantee for this exchange...

Assessing the vulnerability which is independent of present policy is needed both to identif, the most vulnerable poor countries, and to design criteria for the allocation of international resources. With this regard two kinds of vulnerability and corresponding indices are considered: the...

Developing country performance with respect to economic policies and institutional behaviour is a common criterion for the allocation of aid among recipient countries. This paper questions the manner in which performance is used in this regard, arguing that performance is too narrowly defined. A...

This paper provides a first systematic examination of the graduation trends and prospects after the 4th UN Conference on the least developed countries and the adoption of the Istanbul Plan of Action (IPoA). A major statement of the IPoA is "the aim of enabling half the number of least developed...

This paper analyzes aid allocation from a normative point of view. It attempts to design aid allocation criteria adapted to development goals and combining the principles of effectiveness and equity in a transparent and integrated framework. The common view about aid selectivity, which...