7.6. The detrimental consequences of the selectivity
principle
The political recommendations of Burnside and Dollar (1997)
may have harmful implications to the neediest populations. As expressed by
Quibria (2004, p1 1), «Despite the putative merit of selectivity, its
implications for equity in poor countries can be quite adverse.» In fact,
there seems to be a high correlation between low income and poverty on the one
hand and limited administrative and institutional capacities on the other. If
aid resources are allocated only to countries that can design and implement
«good» policies, this would exclude automatically some poorer
countries which need foreign assistance the most. On the other hand,
selectivity will favour allocation to very few large countries with relatively
«good» policies and administrative capacities. In other words,
selectivity would affect countries where aid can have the greatest impact in
terms of equity.
More fundamentally, these results beg two important questions.
On the one hand, we may wonder whether it is really appropriate to measure aid
effectiveness through its impact on economic growth. On the other hand, is it
really optimal to have different kinds of aids with different objectives?
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