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Greening Aid? Understanding the environmental impact of development assistance

24 September 2008 12:00-13:15 (GMT+00) - Public event, London

Flooding in Hanoi (Source: shapeshift, Flickr - http://flickr.com/photos/shapeshift/75751077/)
  • Greening Aid explains major trends and shifts over the past two decades, ranks donors according to their performance, and offers case studies that compare and contrast donors and types of environmental aid.  This meeting gave the authors their first opportunity in the UK to discuss their analysis.

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    Speakers:
    J. Timmons Roberts - Chancellor Professor of Sociology and Acting Director, Environmental Science and Policy Program, College of William and Mary, USA.
    Bradley C. Parks - Research Fellow, Institute for the Theory and Practice of International Relations, College of William and Mary; Associate Director, Department of Policy and International Relations, Millennium Challenge Corporation.
    Discussants:
    Camilla Toulmin - Director, International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)
    Seán Doolan - Environment adviser, Africa Division, Department for International Development (DFID)
    Chair:
    Neil Bird - Research Fellow, Forests, Environment and Climate Change Programme, ODI

     

  • An ODI and Oxford University Press public event in the ODI Reading List series.
The recently published Greening Aid analyzes trends in development assistance during the pre- and post-Rio Earth Summit period. The authors have compiled one of the largest datasets of foreign aid ever assembled. By evaluating the likely environmental impacts of more than 400,000 development projects by more than 50 donors to over 170 recipient countries between 1970 and 2001, they seek to answer three central research questions:
  • Which donor governments spend the most on foreign assistance for the environment and why?
  • Why do some donor governments delegate the allocation and implementation of environmental aid to multilateral agencies when they could simply allocate it themselves?
  • And why do some recipient countries receive more environmental aid than others?
Greening Aid explains major trends and shifts over the past two decades, ranks donors according to their performance, and offers case studies that compare and contrast donors and types of environmental aid.  This meeting gave the authors their first opportunity in the UK to discuss their analysis.