Do Donors Provide Foreign Aid Based on Needs? An Analysis of Funding Flows to Higher Education During the Implementation of the SDGs

A key objective of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is to leave no one behind and support least developed and other fragile countries first. The same is an objective of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) group of bilateral donors. This study focuses on higher education and analyzes if DAC donors follow their commitment to support countries in need of assistance through the provision of foreign aid. Using the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development's (OECD) aid data from DAC countries, it analyzes aid flows to higher education in developing countries targeted by the SDGs during the first 7 years of the SDG implementation. To assess whether donors provide aid based on needs, aid flows are analyzed in reference to the OECD's classification of countries in need of assistance, higher education enrolments, the Human Development Index, and per capita gross national income in recipient countries. The findings indicate that recipients' needs were not the most important factors guiding DAC donors' choices of aid recipients, suggesting that donors are guided by their strategic and other priorities when providing aid to higher education in developing countries. Apart from calling on donors to provide foreign aid based on needs in recipient countries, the study points to the importance of selecting countries in need of assistance in global development plans based on observable indicators of needs, and not based on their geography and assumed fragility.