DOES FOREIGN AID PROMOTE HUMAN RIGHTS? Evidence from a quantitative large-N study of 121 aid-receiving countries, 2003-2021

Abstract

Human rights are in crisis. Even if the Universal Declaration of Human Rights celebrates 75 years in 2023, the anniversary comes at a time when the world is experiencing human suffering so grave that international human rights organizations are alerting for a global human rights crisis. Parallelly, the international donor community proclaims that foreign aid has an important role in promoting global human rights conditions. Previous research on the subject is rather scarce. Most earlier studies focus on the opposite relationship – the effect of human rights on foreign aid and aid allocation, and results are very mixed. The research on related themes, for example the effect of foreign aid on democracy and governance, shows contradictory results to what we might expect from the relationship between foreign aid and human rights. Hence, there are still many doubts regarding this notion – does foreign aid really succeed in promoting human rights? This thesis addresses the question and the gap in the literature by investigating the total gross disbursements of Official Development Assistance in 121 aid-receiving countries during the time period 2003-2021. Applying a time-series cross-sectional analysis and using a fixed effects model, the results of this thesis indicate a statistically significant, positive effect of foreign aid on human rights.