Foreign aid, corruption and socio-economic development in sub-saharan Africa

Abstract

This thesis investigates the inter-related effects of foreign aid, control of corruption and governance on the development of Sub-Saharan African countries. The study examines how corruption influences the effect that infrastructural and total foreign aid have on social and economic development in this part of Africa. This study employs the fixed effect regression quantitative model to analyze the impact of foreign aid on corruption and socio-economic development in Sub-Saharan African countries between 2002 and 2014. The results of this study shows that contrary to expectation, infrastructural aid is uncorrelated with corruption except when there is a governance measure such as regulatory quality and democracy. Similarly, the results show that the effect of total foreign aid and infrastructural aid on health expenditure (social development) is reduced as control of corruption increases, but showed no effect on GDP annual growth (an indicator of economic development). In conclusion, this study shows that foreign aid leads to increased health spending in high corruption countries, thereby making funds more susceptible for embezzlement by officials through corruption.