Financing for development has changed dramatically in the last 20 years. As financial flows have increased, so too has the proliferation of official finance providers and implementing entities—alongside the continued fragmentation of development activities. All of this has added to the complexity of the global aid architecture landscape and impacted aid effectiveness.
In its research, the World Bank’s Development Finance vice presidency explores trends in the landscape of aid architecture, proliferation and fragmentation. Analysis is focused on changes in volumes of financing, sources of financing, and delivery mechanisms—with a keen eye to how these affect progress toward development goals.
A Changing Landscape - Trends in Official Financial Flows and the Aid Architecture (Nov. 2021): This paper provides an impartial quantitative overview of changes in the global aid architecture landscape, particularly over the last decade, with a focus on changes in volumes of financing, sources of financing, and delivery mechanisms. It serves as groundwork for more detailed and qualitative analysis of emerging issues in the global aid architecture, such as the proliferation of donor entities and fragmentation of aid flows, the rising volume of aid offered beyond the country level, and the concessionality of aid.
BLOG: Read key takeaways in this Brookings Institute blog by the authors of “A Changing Landscape”
Coming up (Spring 2022): new research on “Trends in Proliferation and Fragmentation of the Aid Architecture”
