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Gesture Politics or Real Commitment?: Gender Inequality and the Allocation of Aid

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  • Axel Dreher
  • Kai Gehring
  • Stephan Klasen

Abstract

Donors of foreign aid increasingly claim to consider gender inequality in the recipient countries to be a serious concern. While aid specifically to promote gender equality receives only a tiny share of aid budgets, allocations to education, health, and civil society projects could be affected by gender inequality concerns. In this paper, we investigate whether donors indeed give more aid to countries with larger gender gaps ('need') in education, health, employment, or women's rights, or rather reward improvements in those indicators ('merit').

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  • Axel Dreher & Kai Gehring & Stephan Klasen, 2013. "Gesture Politics or Real Commitment?: Gender Inequality and the Allocation of Aid," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2013-079, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    • Handle: RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2013-079
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    Cited by:

    1. Boris Branisa & Carolina Cardona, 2015. "Social Institutions and Gender Inequality in Fragile States: Are They Relevant for the Post-MDG Debate?," Southern Voice Occasional Paper 21, Southern Voice.
    2. Dreher, Axel & Gehring, Kai & Klasen, Stephan, 2015. "Gesture Politics or Real Commitment? Gender Inequality and the Allocation of Aid," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 464-480.
    3. Klasen, Stephan, 2020. "From ‘MeToo’ to Boko Haram: A survey of levels and trends of gender inequality in the world," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    4. Fuchs, Andreas & Richert, Katharina, 2018. "Development minister characteristics and aid giving," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 186-204.
    5. Ranjula Bali Swain & Supriya Garikipati & Fan Yang Wallentin, 2020. "Does Foreign Aid Improve Gender Performance in Recipient Countries?," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(7), pages 1171-1193, October.
    6. Finn Ole Semrau & Rainer Thiele, 2017. "Brazil's Development Cooperation: Following in China's and India's Footsteps?," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(3), pages 287-307, April.
    7. Cardwell, Ryan & Ghazalian, Pascal L., 2018. "The effects of aid agency independence on bilateral aid allocation decisions," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 136-148.
    8. Hicks, Daniel L. & Hicks, Joan Hamory & Maldonado, Beatriz, 2016. "Women as policy makers and donors: Female legislators and foreign aid," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 46-60.
    9. Raphael J. Nawrotzki & Verena Gantner & Jana Balzer & Thomas Wencker & Sabine Brüntrup-Seidemann, 2022. "Strategic Allocation of Development Projects in Post-Conflict Regions: A Gender Perspective for Colombia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-26, February.
    10. Faik Bilgili & Masreka Khan & Ashar Awan, 2023. "Is there a gender dimension of the environmental Kuznets curve? Evidence from Asian countries," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 25(3), pages 2387-2418, March.
    11. Caren Grown & Tony Addison & Finn Tarp, 2016. "Aid for Gender Equality and Development: Lessons and Challenges," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(3), pages 311-319, April.
    12. Fuchs, Andreas & Richert, Katharina, 2015. "Do Development Minister Characteristics Affect Aid Giving?," Working Papers 0604, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    13. Quamruzzaman, Amm & Lange, Matthew, 2016. "Female political representation and child health: Evidence from a multilevel analysis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 48-57.

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