Aid Categories that Foster Pro‐Poor Growth: The Case of Sierra Leone

Philip Michael Kargbo and Kunal Sen

African Development Review, 2014, vol. 26, issue 2, 416-429

Abstract: This paper examines the effect of different categories of foreign aid on poverty reduction. It uses a country case study for Sierra Leone to explore the impact of different aid types on pro‐poor growth as a dimension of poverty reduction. Using annual time series data spanning from 1970 to 2007 and employing the bounds test approach to cointegration by Pesaran and Shin (), the study finds strong evidence to suggest that only aid in the form of grants do have a pro‐poor effect. This result is more obvious in the long run than in the short run. Aid in the forms of loans and technical assistance could not prove signficant for fostering pro‐poor growth in the country. Thus, even though total aid reveals a highly significant long‐run impact in improving pro‐poor growth in Sierra Leone, when disaggregated, only aid in the form of grants shows strong evidence of reducing poverty in the country. The implication of these findings is that for reducing poverty in typically poor and fagile states, aid in the form of grants should be encouraged. The increasing donor interest in technical assistance aid in recent years should be reconsidered as there is no strong evidence that it reduces poverty.

Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (65)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8268.12101

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:afrdev:v:26:y:2014:i:2:p:416-429

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=1017-6772

Access Statistics for this article

African Development Review is currently edited by John C. Anyanwu, Hassan Aly and Kupukile Mlambo

More articles in African Development Review from African Development Bank Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().