We present a two-step approach of assessing whether major donors of foreign aid have met recent demands for less proliferated and better coordinated aid efforts. First, we calculate Theil indices revealing the concentration of each donor's aid on recipient countries and specific aid sectors....

The Millennium Development Goals adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2000 have established global targets for development cooperation until 2015. They are being regularly monitored, and one may already now conclude that they will be achieved unevenly across the globe. In that light, it is...

This collection of scholarly articles summarizes the main topics from a two-year dialogue and research programme between the Chinese Institute of International Studies (CIIS) and the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) on the concepts of Building a...

Development assistance has for many decades been aiming to support developing countries’ strategies to achieve more sustainable development. Yet, evidence shows that the impact of such assistance has been well below expectations. This study examines the efforts of assistance providers and...

European Union (EU) funding for United Nations (UN) organisations has expanded significantly over the last two decades. The EU's partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is an important example of EU-UN cooperation, and UNDP was the fourth-largest UN recipient of European...

The future shape of European trade policy and the right stance to take in security and climate matters are currently the subject of fierce Franco-German debate. These issues are also relevant to development policy in the context of the overarching 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Despite...

In the past decades the involvement of local experts in the planning and evaluation of development programs has steadily increased. Ownership of development planning is propagated as major aim of bilateral and international development co-operation. Yet, the quality and performance of many local...

In recent years, China has become a major power on the African continent, not only with respect to trade and investment, but also as a donor of development aid. Although there is no accurate measure of the exact size of China's aid program, since China rather underestimates the volume in...

We analyze the aid portfolio of various bilateral and multilateral donors, testing whether they have prioritised aid in line with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In doing so, we combine sectorally disaggregated aid data with indicators reflecting the situation of recipient countries...