Publication: Arab Donors' Early Response to the Arab Spring
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Date
2012-07
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2012-07
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The World Bank's 2010 study, Arab Development Assistance: four decades of cooperation, and the subsequent note, Arab donors respond favorably to the global financial crisis (Rouis 2011), showed that the three Gulf countries - Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have provided generous aid financing over the years. This paper, which extends the analysis to 2010 for Arab overseas development assistance (ODA) and to 2011 for the assistance provided by the Arab regional financial institutions, confirms that this generosity continues in the wake of the global economic crisis and the events of the Arab Spring movement. The paper shows that Arab assistance has been responsive in addressing critical development and humanitarian needs in developing countries. There are preliminary indications that Arab donors and financial institutions have made some adjustments in response to the needs of the Arab countries going through the unprecedented political transition sparked by the Arab Spring. Arab donor countries and financial institutions have responded favorably and promptly during the global economic and financial crisis. Their increased assistance to countries affected by the Arab Spring has yet to materialize beyond the stage of pledges and commitments.
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“Rouis, Mustapha. 2012. Arab Donors' Early Response to the Arab Spring. MENA Knowledge and Learning Quick Notes Series;No. 69. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/16170 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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Publication Response of the Arab Donors to the Global Financial Crisis and the Arab Spring(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-12)Development assistance from Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and Arab financial institutions has been responsive in addressing development and humanitarian needs in many developing countries. Since the global financial crisis (2008-2011), the combined net official development assistance (ODA) from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE peaked at US$ 6.5 billion in 2008at the height of the global financial crisis. It has since remained relatively high at US$ 4.8 billion annually on average. Total ODA from the three also increased significantly as a share of gross national income, yielding a weighted average of 0.55 percent during 2008-2011, compared to 0.49 percent in the previous four years. The share of Arab financial institutions' aid to International Development Association (IDA) recipients grew by 9 percentage points between 2005-2007 and 2008-2012, reaching 47 percent of total commitments. The overall annual average of financial assistance provided to Arab Spring countries by Arab financial institutions in 2011 and 2012 was slightly higher than the average during the global economic and financial crisis, which in turn was nearly 70 percent higher than the average prior to the crisis. The Gulf countries pledged substantial financial support to the countries undergoing political transitions in the wake of the Arab Spring, but disbursements lagged behind those countries' acute needs. 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Arab Gulf countries and regional financial institutions were responsive to this new reality and collectively scaled up financial assistance to address critical development and humanitarian needs in developing countries.Publication Arab Development Assistance(Washington, DC, 2010-06)This study provides an overview of Arab official development assistance (ODA) over the past four decades. Trends in volume, composition, and direction are discussed in chapter two and the institutional framework is discussed in chapter three. Over 90 percent of Arab development assistance is provided by three countries: the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).Publication Arab Development Assistance : Four Decades of Cooperation(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010-08)Over the past four decades, Arab aid, which has been relatively under-studied, has played an important role in global development finance. Arab donors- predominantly the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)-have been among the most generous in the world, with official development assistance (ODA) averaging 1.5 percent of their combined gross national income (GNI) during the period 1973-2008, more than twice the United Nations target of 0.7 percent and five times the average of the Organisation For Economic Co-Operation And Development (OECD)- Development Assistance Committee (DAC) countries. In addition to government-to-government aid, Arab donors have established a number of specialized financial institutions to provide development assistance to low-income countries. Assistance through these institutions increased substantially by 4.4 percent per year in real terms over the period 1990-2008. There are good reasons to believe that Arab aid will continue to play an important role in international development assistance into the foreseeable future. Arab donors have recently increased their aid volumes, and Arab financial institutions are well capitalized, with the capacity to scale up assistance.Publication Finance for Development(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-11)Over the past couple of decades, global financing for development has changed dramatically. The biggest shifts have been the rapid increase of net private financing flows to developing countries, in particular to middle-income countries (MICs); the sustained growth of official development assistance (ODA) from Development Assistance Committee (DAC) members, even excluding debt relief; the emergence of MICs as growth poles and sources of ODA with different approaches to aid delivery than those of DAC donors; and the expanded role of private aid. In addition, past trends of proliferation, fragmentation and earmarking of aid have continued. 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