Shifting official development assistance during COVID-19: earmarking, donor concentration and loans
Context In contrast to bilateral aid, aid disbursed from multilateral institutions increased significantly at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, at a time when a coherent and effective multilateral response is needed most, the COVID-19 pandemic revealed a shifting landscape of donor agencies that struggle with basic functions, such as cross-national coordination. While multilaterals are uniquely positioned to transcend national priorities and respond to pandemics, functionally we find official development assistance (ODA) from these entities may increasingly mimic the attributes of bilateral aid. We explore three important, but not comprehensive, attributes of aid leading up to and during the COVID-19 pandemic: (1) earmarking, (2) donor concentration and (3) aid modality. Methods We examine ODA disbursements over time in 2020 constant prices from 2010 to 2021 and plot share of inflow that is earmarked against each United Nations multilateral against their average annual financing
