Foreign Aid and Africa’s Quest for Development: Issues and Challenges for Nigeria
Chapter One
Objective of the study
The objectives of the study are;
- To ascertain the impact of foreign aid on Nigeria development
- To ascertain how successful is foreign aid in development of Nigeria
- To find out the challenges of foreign aid in developing Nigeria
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Conceptual Framework
The concept of foreign assistance is a voluntary action which is dependent on the recipient country from a donating country, governments, private organizations, individuals, which are providing support to the recipients’ economic growth. An important objective of most ODA to developing countries is the promotion of economic development and welfare, usually measured by its impact on economic growth (Todaro, 2009). This aid can involve providing financial grants or loans, technical advice, training, equipment and commodities such as food, health, infrastructure and transport (Wells, 2000). Foreign aid does not only refer to the transfer of capital from one country to another but rather all governmental transfers from one country to another. Similarly, the term foreign aid is generally used in the sense of flow of resources from the rich countries to the poor underdeveloped countries at some point, ‘all real resource transfer’ from developed to underdeveloped or developing countries were included as foreign aid and this raised conceptual problems because it includes certain resource transfer which do not essentially qualify as foreign aid (Ajayi & Oke, 2013).
According to Tadess (2011), the generally accepted and used definition of foreign aid is one that encompasses all official grants and concessional loans, in currency or in kind, that are broadly aimed at transferring resources from developed to less developed nations on development and income redistribution grounds. United Nations (2009) has defined economic aid as an outright grants and long term loans for non-military purposes by Governments and various international organizations. Mosley, Jane and John (1991) also stated that foreign aid is a transmission of real resource from one country to another that normally won’t take place as a result of the operation of market forces or in absence of specific official action put in place to promote such transfer from the donor country. Therefore foreign aid includes direct government transfers as well as those promoted by special official action such as government guarantees. The Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development OECD, 1998). Masud and Yontcheva (2005) defined aid as Official Development Assistance (ODA) which qualifies on three criteria: first, it is to be undertaken by official agencies. Secondly, it is to have the main objectives of promoting economic development and welfare and thirdly, it has to have a grant element of twenty five percent or more
Berthélemy and Jean-Claude (2006 ) opined that aid might bilateral or multilateral, but these two types of aids are not the same because the bilateral aid is a two-way stream meaning that it is sent from one government to the other. Bilateral aid is when the capital flows from a developed nation to a developing country. Strategic political considerations and humanitarian ones often direct Bilateral Aid. These are to assist in long-term projects to promote democracy, economic growth, stability, and development. Whereas, Multilateral aid is given by a coalition of countries and/or organizations to a specific country. Multilateral Aid is assistance provided by many governments who pool funds to international organizations like the World Bank, United Nations and International Monetary Fund that are then used to reduce poverty in developing nations. Though this sector constitutes a minority of the US’s foreign aid, the nation’s contributions make up (Anwar, 2000). More so, Barret (1998) argued that foreign aid could be in the form Food aid which have to do with programme on food aid and humanitarian food aid. Such Programme is presumed to be a kind of relieve on the foreign exchange constraint to the import of the necessary intermediate inputs or by providing fiscal resources through counterpart funds generated by the local sale of programme food aid. These resources can be used by the recipient country to invest in agricultural research and extension and Improvement of rural infrastructure in particular. However, programme food aid may have Dutch disease effects on domestic food producers and thus hurting the food sector’s competitiveness in the world markets.
In addition to that Riddell (2007) acknowledged that another form of aid that developing nations usually benefit from is technical aid. Technical Assistance (TA) includes the provision of skills, knowledge know-how and advice. For many decades, technical assistance has also been provided in form of teaching staff mainly in primary and secondary education in developing countries. Furthermore, more specialized trainers have continually performed skills training functions to meet their needs and to achieve their immediate objectives.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research is the process of arriving at a dependable solution to problems through planned and systematic collection, analyzing and interpretation of data (Osuala, 1993).
Green and Full (1975) defines research methodology as the specification of procedures for collecting and analyzing the data necessary to solve the problem at hand such that the differences between the cost of obtaining various levels of accuracy and the expected value of the information associated with each level of accuracy is optimized.
Thus, in this chapter the method and techniques of data collection and analysis for this study are discussed in details, research design, population of study, sample and sampling technique, sources of data collection, research instrument, validity of the instrument, reliability of the instrument, procedure for administration of research instrument, as well as the limitation of the research methodology. This will be important in order to Foreign Aid and Africa’s quest for Development: Issues and challenges for Nigeria.
Research Design
The research design adopted in this research work is the survey research design which involves the usage of self-designed questionnaire in the collection of data. Under the survey research design, primary data of this study will be collected from shell petroleum development company in order to determine the impact of modern office soft skills of office technology and management students on job performance. The design was chosen because it enables the researcher to collect data without manipulation of any variables of interest in the study. The design also provides opportunity for equal chance of participation in the study for respondents.
Population of Study
The population of study is the census of all items or a subject that possess the characteristics or that have the knowledge of the phenomenon that is being studied (Asiaka, 1991). It also means the aggregate people from which the sample is to be drawn.
Population is sometimes referred to as the universe. The population of this research study will be the Seventy-five (75) staff of ministry of foreign affairs, Abuja
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
This chapter is about the analysis and presentation of data collected from the field through questionnaire. The analysis of the data with particular question immediately followed by the presentation of findings.
As mentioned in chapter three, 50 questionnaires were administered and 50 were retrieved and necessary analysis was carried out on them and presented as follows:
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Introduction
It is important to ascertain that the objective of this study was on Foreign Aid and Africa’s quest for Development: Issues and challenges for Nigeria. In the preceding chapter, the relevant data collected for this study were presented, critically analyzed and appropriate interpretation given. In this chapter, certain recommendations made which in the opinion of the researcher will be of benefits in addressing the challenges of Foreign Aid and Africa’s quest for Development
Summary
This study was on Foreign Aid and Africa’s quest for Development: Issues and challenges for Nigeria. Three objectives were raised which included: To ascertain the impact of foreign aid on Nigeria development, to ascertain how successful is foreign aid in development of Nigeria and to find out the challenges of foreign aid in developing Nigeria. In line with these objectives, three research questions and hypotheses were formulated and answered. The total population for the study is 75 staff of ministry of foreign affairs in Abuja. The researcher used questionnaires as the instrument for the data collection. Descriptive Survey research design was adopted for this study.
Conclusion
Foreign aid is not and must not be seen as a mere demonstration of benevolence between two countries, rather, it should be considered a business affair in its intent and content. Its nature, dealings and manner must be business-like. The recipient countries must design and structure a mechanism for coping with the conditional ties attached to aid rather than complaining of its aftermath which they were of course, aware of before taking such loans. More so, foreign loan is not a free gift of nature. As expected, it is interest-yielding, with a lot of ideological underpinnings intended to impose one country’s ideology on the other in order to have dominion and external control on the recipient country.
Obviously observable, is the absence of the culture of financial transparency and accountability in developing countries. Corruption has become a national virtue among government officials to the extent that public funds are diverted to private uses. In Nigeria, government officials transfer public funds to their private bank accounts. Corruption and official leakages are the major limitations to economic development in the developing world, a condition that retard national growth and economic development.
Recommendation
The study therefore recommends that foreign aid should be encouraged for economic prosperity. The study also suggests that further study should look at how each of this aids affect the development of some regions in Nigeria
References
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