Politics and the Effectiveness of Foreign Aid - Research Proposal Example

Theme Sub Saharan Africa, comprising of 47 countries, is highly strategic region with huge natural resources but prevalent abject poverty and mal-nutrition, illiteracy, violent conflicts and has the two third cases of HIV/AIDS. Financial aid to sub-Sahara countries becomes crucial, primarily for the following four reasons: Health is one of the fundamental rights of all persons. Health is incorporated in the 1946 constitution of WHO1 and 1948 declaration of Human Rights. They clearly state the need for a minimum standard of living and access to medical facilities, food and housing for every human being, irrespective of race, religion, political belief and socio-economic conditions. The pandemic of HIV/AIDS threatens not only the local population but has widespread ramifications for the rest of the world and needs to be addressed urgently and incorporated as intrinsic part of business strategy and social responsibility by the global business community. Financial aids to the sub Sahara is critical for developing infrastructure for the development processes so as to enable the local population to become self reliant and become proactive participants. The regions boast of the huge natural resources, rich in minerals and precious metals like gold, platinum, diamond etc. which are presently being exploited by the foreign agencies with scarce regard to the welfare of the local population. Financial aid would serve as the major incentive for promoting democratization of the republics and reinforcing equitable distribution of wealth through programmes and policies. The approach needs to be focused on literacy and development processes to promote income generating activities designed to raise the standard of living. But the rampant corruption in the sub Sahara greatly dissuades the donors which may defeat the objective of aid. According to a BBC report, ‘corruption is costing Africa more than $148bn dollars a year, increasing the cost of goods by as much as 20%, deterring investment and holding back development’ (BBC, 2002). The corruption has been found to be the most insidious factor that infiltrates almost all strata of society of Sub Saharan Africa. From the high level political grafts to low level bribing of police and custom official has become the norm that de-accelerates the development process. It therefore, becomes the major instrument adversely impacts the objectives of financial aid and must be addressed to improve and improvise the outcome of the same. Main Question What is financial aid’s effect on the Sub Saharan Africa? The question is highly relevant for the study because it showcases the pros and cons of the financial aid to the Sub Saharan Africa. While the humanitarian aid greatly facilitates healthcare modules and poverty alleviation programmes, the financial aid to the countries is often subject to the condition of following democratic process and mitigate the influence of vested interests. The major objectives and aims of financial aid is to device effective control measures that would prevent misuse of funds and at the same time, ensure that the fund actually reaches the needy and used by them to improve their living standard. The democratization helps evolve innovative mechanisms and integrated approach to facilitate minimum standard of living and access to medical facilities, food and housing for every human being, irrespective of race, religion, political belief and socio-economic conditions. Theory In the contemporary times, the financial aid to the sub Saharan Africa has become highly relevant for variety of reasons. While humanitarian ground is intrinsic to the funding agencies, the wide ranging socio-political and business compulsions make the financial aid extremely sensitive issue. Scholars have asserted that ‘physical and human capital accumulations are powerful determinants of economic growth… inappropriate economic policies and lack of infrastructures in the developing countries effect capital accumulation’ (Haque et al., 2007). In Sub Saharan Africa, through years of colonial rule, the rulers had stripped the nations of their resources and wealth, leaving it gasping for food, shelter and resources of income generation. The need to restore their dignity through creation of channels for development and establishment of a government that would work for the cause of common man must become the key factor in the disbursement of financial aid. The hypothesis that financial aid would greatly facilitate development processes is bound within the parameters of social and economic control mechanisms that are need based and must promote equity amongst the population. The aids highlight the critical paradigms of socio-economic upliftment of the region and bring forth factors and issues which hinder the development processes and help mitigate them through collective dialogue with the conflicting parties. Putnam has stressed that within societies, especially rural and poverty driven societies, social networking and development of trust becomes vital ingredient for motivation and economic development (Putnam, 1993). Hence, the study would be testing the existing theory of constructive funding but at the same time would make efforts to decipher the innovative mechanisms of self discovery and self reliance. According to Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the foreign aid comprises of grants, concessional loans and net of previous aids/ loans that absolves the past loans as current aid and is broadly called Official Development Aid (ODA) to countries with low per capita income (OECD, 2002). In SSA, ODA remains the major inflow of finance and constitutes significant percentage of country’s GDP (WB, 1998, 2001). Financial aid has also come under lot of controversy because of the effects that it has made on the society at large. Some believe that foreign financial aid facilitates economic growth and reduces poverty in long run under good policy (Burnside and Dollar, 1997, 2000; Collier and Dollar, 2001; Mosley, 1980). But many scholars disagreed on this fundamental hypothesis when wide ranging indicators were used. Vos asserted that aid depresses the growth of the country (Vos, 1988) and Eaton showed that it has mixed impact on the savings of the older and younger generation (Eaton, 1989). Hansen and Trap averred that it only impacted small percentage of saving as against the rising GDP (Hansen and Trap, 2001). Boon (1996), taking infant mortality as indicator, argues that it had no significant impact and showed that poor remained deprived of its benefits. Others have maintained that aid has shown no significant impact on the economic growth of the recipient countries (Gyimah-Brempong, 1992; Potiowsky and Qayum, 1992; White, 1992). The comparative history of research issues and paradigms greatly facilitate in understanding the issues and helps to evaluate new paradigms of the changing social (Mahoney and Rueschemeyer, 2003). The historical aspects promote use of innovative and new challenges within the objectives and thereby provide the research with credibility. The various indicators of development are major Factors that help to evaluate the impact of foreign aid to a country and it would be highly interesting to test not only the current hypothesis but use innovative co-variates of evaluation to find the balance that would best serve the objectives of the study. Przeworski and Teune (1970) have been quite emphatic that main objective of the comparative sociological research must be to replace the names of nations with the names of variables so as to promote equity amongst the low income countries, especially SSA. This generalization would help provide the researcher with outcomes that can be applied across the board for countries requiring financial aid. Indeed, George and Bennett (2005) have presented a comprehensive analysis of research tools and have tried to evaluate the role of case studies for improved research methodology and outcome. They have convincingly argued that case studies, statistical methods, and formal models are complementary rather than competitive and need to incorporate within the research methodologies, especially in qualitative research which relies heavily on the trends. Methodology The social scientists are known to apply different research methodologies for different types of research, usually depending on the subject and area of concern. The major objective of all types of researches is to assess the impact of issues or facts on the people, either directly or indirectly. The various approaches to research are therefore important to identify, so to reach to a comparatively accurate results or outcome for the given research question or aim. The study would be taking into account the conceptual model as well as the theoretical model. The research study would primarily be qualitative in nature but encompass elements of quantitative research also so that better and more accurate conclusions could be achieved. Qualitative research is a very important tool for evaluating trends and behavioural pattern of the people who are in a position to influence a set of defined parameters or vice versa. It helps to analyse the changing paradigms of the evolving social values and the factors that affect the decisions for adopting the changes. The research methodology is significant for my research topic as it is based on ‘grounded theory’ where the qualitative analysis of the data is used for generating theories that reflect the realities of life. Researchers believe that a detailed description of the emotional state of people is necessary for understanding the quality of social life. This detailed description is often referred as ‘thick description’ and may contain radical ideas and concepts which could facilitate better understanding of the issues under study. ‘It establishes the significance of an experience, or the sequence of events, for the person or persons in question. ‘In thick description the voices, feelings, actions and meanings of interacting individuals are heard’ (Denzin, 1989, p. 83). Social scientists are therefore more inclined to use this type of research so that social changes and real life situations could be predicted with relative accuracy at unpredictable and unexpected circumstances. The generation and testing of such theories in areas that are defined by differentiation and polarisation have not only yielded results but the improvisation and further researches have been carried forward in these area in successive years which have strengthened the beliefs on qualitative research. Indeed, vital feature of this research is that it is conducted under natural environment where real life situations are the focus of the study and no assumptions or presumptions are made. The researchers are inclined to get deeply involved into the natural setting so as to better understand the complex nature of social life and the behavioral pattern of the subjects. Social life has ‘many layers of meaning’ (Berger, 1966, p. 34), and the researcher must ‘lift veils’ (Blumer, 1976, p. 15) to decipher the deepest meaning and interpret them in the right context. Research Epistemology The research addresses the impact of foreign aid to sub Saharan Africa and therefore requisite epistemology would be interpretive in nature. This is highly relevant for my research as the broad spectrum of knowledge gained through this methodology would greatly facilitate in realizing the aims and objectives of the study. Interpretivism broadly interprets the various elements of inter-related factors within the aids strategy to improve and improvise the performance outcome of the goals and objectives of the aid disbursement. Epistemology of ‘Positivism’ and ‘Realism’ would not be suitable in my area of research primarily because they conform to the rigidity of the system. Positivism is based on the fact that experience can be proved a theory wrong but it cannot be prove right conclusively (Karl Popper, 1989). The realism, on the other hand, takes the various aspects of psychology into the observed and measured knowledge and acknowledges the ‘real world’ (Cook & Campbell, 1979). My research domain requires theories that can incorporate the dynamics of the changing environment and therefore, are not adopted. Research Ontology The theoretical ontology of research based on subjectivism broadly emphasizes the need to arrange the knowledge database in some hierarchical structure so that it can be shared and reused. My research would adopt this ontology so that the research topic would not only add value to the existing database of foreign aid parameters but delve deeper into the wider implications of the meaning of foreign aid within the pre-defined parameters of given socio-economic and political paradigms. Research Approach In order to meet the aims and objectives of the research proposal, my research methodology would mainly concentrate on the empirical research based on inductive methodology and using regression analysis. In empirical research observations and experiments are used to derive to come to some particular theory or knowledge. According to Robson it ‘involves a systematic investigation of an experience which should be both sceptical and ethical’ (Robson, 2002). The similar group of the models and subjects are observed and studied. Thereafter, based on the observations, they are interpreted to come to some broad based theory. The inductive research methodology is particularly found to be appropriate for my research proposal as it would facilitate me to be better able to explore, examine and discover ideas that could be used to further improve the qualitative framework of foreign aid to sub Saharan Africa. The inductive methodology is not only an extremely effective way of getting general, observation based information but it also helps us to come to common but logical assumptions about things and events that are observed and directly and indirectly affect people and event. The necessary awareness and feedback procedures and subsequent observations of the events lead to conclusions based on the evaluations of the same. These evaluations often give us a new and fresh insight into the phenomena or events that are being studied for the purpose and facilitate improvements. Using regression analysis on these factors, establishing credible relationship amongst the variables and related factors becomes easier, thereby helping the researcher in myriad ways and means. Hence, it can be said that the methodology using regression analysis is appropriate because of the following factors: It helps to compare and analyze factors and covariates which directly or indirectly impact each other and the outcome. To evaluate the extent of association (impact) of the various inter-related factors. It also helps to study the outcome by making adjustments within the covariates and their influence. The regression analysis also helps to determine important risk factors that impact the outcome and quantify cases to predict the best alternatives for optimal outcome of the objective. The use of regression analysis in qualitative data set is preferred because it helps to identify causal processes that are indispensable factors affecting the outcome. In Designing Social Enquiry, King, Keohane and Verba (1994) have used large N-regression analysis on the qualitative data, providing standard and in general, establishing the need to regression analysis for ‘scientific inferences in qualitative research’ which also happens to be the sub-title of their book. Indeed, the scientific approach to the qualitative research adds value and credibility to the inductive approach and greatly facilitates much wider imperatives and factors that may directly r indirectly influence the outcome of the research. The intangibility of some of the major issues, to influence the aid becomes important parameters to measure the overall impact of the objectives and goals of the study. Brady and Collier (2004) have strongly disagreed with this view and assert regression analysis is intrinsic art of research analysis. But the use of regression analysis makes it imperative for the researcher to apply judicious approach in coming to inferences on the broader platform of extending ideas and prediction using overestimation and degree of freedom within the co-variates. Sources of bias The validity and bias are not the main concern of the qualitative research as the main purpose of the researcher is the deeper understanding of the issues and objecives rather than validation. According to Harry Wolcott (1994) ‘What I seek is something else, a quality that points more to identifying critical elements and wringing plausible interpretations from them, something one can pursue without becoming obsessed with finding the right or ultimate answer, the correct version, the Truth’. (Ibid. pp. 366-7). Therefore, in qualitative research, validity or authenticity normally depends on the following; The researcher does not disturb the natural settings of the subjects and wins their confidence so they are able to react naturally and express their opinions freely. The researcher is able to clearly understand the delicate nuances of the subjects under study and has correctly interpreted their experiences, problems and feelings. This can be validated if the researcher gives the detailed account to the subjects and ask them for their views on his interpretations. If their opinion corroborates with that of researcher’s, he has captured the subjects’ feelings correctly and is likely to come to correct research outcome. Usage of the concept of triangulation in the research methods that combines more than one method to explore the issue. When different perspectives are added to the same issue or primary focus, there is higher probability of accuracy and depth in the analysis of the issue. Sometimes using more than one researcher for the same research helps to identify the differences that may require closer inspection of the data and more visits and interaction with the subjects for further clarifications thus giving more teeth to the development of the new theory. Scope and limitations Comprehensive sampling with wide ranging issues which are influenced by foreign aid in SSA would be sought in the data set so that the scope of study is large enough to ensure the success of the research’s aims and objectives. The empirical method of the research is appropriate mainly because the aim and objectives of the research need a survey requiring qualitative analysis of the role of financial aid to SSA for overall socio-economic growth of the countries. The study would be limited to the framework of data provided by the premier world donors like World Bank, IMF and ODA to SSA only and study the impact of financial aid vis-à-vis socio-economic growth and hence the sampling would be limited to SSA, especially where the growth is seen to be stagnant for the last few decades. Some people have criticised the inductive methods because of lack of valid means of obtaining proof. It is said that since the conclusions are drawn from the data observed, the results or the conclusions may vary if the observations of the participants differ. Data Measurement techniques would comprise of questionnaires and interview schedules. Since the research involves the study of the factors that have far reaching impact of funding on the socio-economic development, a relatively large sample size comprising of beneficiaries (people and state) and donor organizations in Sub Sahara Africa, who have been directly and indirectly involved in the financial aid, would be considered. The sample would primarily be collected from people who directly or indirectly benefit from the aid. The study would be taking into account the conceptual model as well as the theoretical model. The samples selection and the questionnaires would be prepared as per the theoretical model of survey and a wider conceptual model of the research would be used to analyze the data. Primary data collection would be collected through detailed and qualitative and quantitative questionnaires prepared, keeping in mind the compulsions for the financial aid and the facilitating factors that would promote and improve standard of living from the major donor agencies of the world. Special interview Schedules would also be used to gauge the responses of the people towards global business practices and the improvisations that are needed to be made in the current circumstances to incorporate the welfare of the local population and region as a whole. Secondary information sources such as libraries, commercial bibliographic databases for peer review, internet resources and e journals would be used for literature review. Conclusion The qualitative research promotes an approach to the research area that deals primarily with the observations on the target subjects and hence requires something more than numbers to evaluate the emotional impact of their feelings on the issues and factors which are under study. It is therefore a strong contender for research studies that must take human feelings and different criteria of social relationships into the account. The qualitative methods are comprehensive in their understanding of the social relationships and try to evaluate behavioural pattern of the people or target subjects so as to evolve new theories that can correctly interpret the social changes. They are, at the same time, designed to consolidate the perspectives and experiences of the subjects to portray and reflect the behavioural pattern that may determines the aims and objectives of the research. The reliability of the qualitative research cannot be doubted when conducted under ethically defined parameters and implemented with the same sincerity. The empirical data, collected under natural environment with contextualized interpretation of the same, within the given scenario and self validated by the subject, ensure a high degree of authenticity and usefulness in generating a social theory. I sincerely believe that my study would help evaluate the impact of financial aid to sub Saharan Africa and throw invaluable insight into the various inter-related factors that promote or hinder the development processes in SSA. (3460) Reference BBC News. (18 September, 2002). Available from: [Accessed 19 November, 2009]. Berger, P. L. (1966). Invitation to Sociology. New York. Doubleday. Blumer, H. (1976). The methodological position of symbolic interactionism in Hammersley, M. and Woods, P. (eds) The Process of Schooling. London. Routledge and Kegan Paul. Boone, P. 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