The folly of “aid for stabilisation”

Over the last two decades, billions in aid money has been spent in highly insecure regions of conflict affected states in the hope that aid would lead to less violence and more stability. A recent wave of academic work on the impact of aid on violence has now amassed convincing empirical evidence that this hope is futile. Aid injected in highly insecure regions, where violence is a reality and insurgents retain some capacities, will increase, not dampen violence. This essay first provides a summary of the findings of the recent empirical literature. It then demonstrates that two causal mechanisms – predation and sabotage – explain why aid in highly insecure settings will likely lead to less, not more, stability. The essay then exemplifies these two causal mechanisms, using original qualitative and quantitative data from Afghanistan. It ends with a discussion of the implications for donors engaged in countries affected by conflict.