Once dominated by traditional aid providers, the donor landscape has evolved to become a more diversified environment for developing countries. In a 2013 study, the Overseas Development Institute fittingly dubbed this new era “the age of choice.” For long-standing donors looking to make their presence more strongly felt in their partner countries, however, more sources of development finance could also mean an age of challenges.
But a survey commissioned by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and conducted by the Australian National University’s Development Policy Center shows that traditional donors are far from becoming obsolete in their partner countries. Instead, the survey, which covered 40 developing countries with varying levels of aid dependence, points to how partner governments see opportunities changing for different donors in the next five to 10 years.
“It’s true that there is now a far greater number of development providers out there,” Hetty Kovach, policy analyst at OECD and co-author of the study, told Devex. “On the whole, most people find it a positive thing. What we did really clearly see is that partners are increasingly looking to different development providers for different qualities and strengths.”