Aid accessibility: Equity & education in Kenya

While we hope that the needs of recipients determine the allocation of foreign aid, we know that aid also involves the interests of donors. Substantial evidence suggests that supply-side factors dominate aid delivery, with both donor and recipient governments allocating aid according to their own domestic political agendas. Are there ever conditions under which need drives allocation and aid flows primarily to those that need it most? The distribution of education aid across regions in Kenya offers a most-likely case for such equitable, need-driven aid allocation. Kenya’s political stability and history of collaboration with aid organizations, paired with still high levels of need create favorable conditions for aid delivery to occur equitably. Yet, statistical analysis suggests that even there, the highest volume of aid does not flow to the neediest areas. This paper introduces new subnational data on aid location and maps the concentration of aid allocation in relation to the level of need across regions within Kenya. In the education sector, while most aid flows to high-need locations, aid is nearly absent in Somali-majority areas that have the highest levels of need but the fewest interventions. Such inequitable distribution of both education and assistance in its provision demonstrates how the political preferences of donors and recipient governments can divert aid away from the populations and places that need it most, reducing its effectiveness.