GEG successfully concluded its Negotiating Aid project in 2008, with findings published in a book by Dr Lindsay Whitfield (ed) The Politics of Aid: African Strategies for Dealing with Donors, a policy brief, and presented at conferences in Mali, Mozambique, Ghana and Zambia.

Between 2005 and 2007, GEG carried out research on the factors accounting for the bargaining power in aid negotiations of governments in eight African countries: Ghana, Mali, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania, Zambia, Ethiopia and Botswana. The case studies assessed the degree of control governments are able to secure over their development policies. Through the country cases, the project sought to understand complex aid relationships from the viewpoints of recipient governments, investigating what strategies African states have adopted to advance their objectives in aid negotiations and how successful their efforts have been. The case studies developed detailed descriptions of the institutions and processes that make up contemporary donor-recipient relations. They concentrated on the past and present economic, ideological, political and institutional contexts of aid negotiations, and how these conditions shape the balance of negotiating capital between governments and donors. They then used specific cases of aid negotiations to move beyond this general picture.

The findings of the book are summarized in GEG Working Paper 2008/42.

A briefing paper for African governments is available in English, French and Portuguese, entitled ‘Managing Aid Dependence: How African governments lost ownership and how they can regain it’.

A separate briefing paper for donor agencies, entitled “Reforming Foreign Aid Practices: What country ownership is and what donors can do to support it,” is available in English and French.

Dissemination events were held in Ghana, Mozambique, Mali and Zambia.