Funding, Competition and the Efficiency of NGO Aid: An Empirical Analysis of US NGOs Engaged in Foreign Aid Peter Nunnenkamp (Kiel Institute for the World Economy) Hannes Öhler (University of Goettingen) New Directions in Welfare, 2011 Congress OECD Paris, France, 7 July 2011
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Peter Nunnenkamp (Kiel Institute for the World Economy) Hannes Öhler (University of Goettingen)
Funding, Competition and the Efficiency of NGO Aid: An Empirical Analysis of US NGOs Engaged in Foreign Aid. Peter Nunnenkamp (Kiel Institute for the World Economy) Hannes Öhler (University of Goettingen) New Directions in Welfare, 2011 Congress OECD Paris, France, 7 July 2011. Motivation. - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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Funding, Competition and the Efficiency of NGO Aid:
An Empirical Analysis of US NGOs Engaged in Foreign Aid
Peter Nunnenkamp (Kiel Institute for the World Economy)
Hannes Öhler (University of Goettingen)
New Directions in Welfare, 2011 Congress
OECD Paris, France, 7 July 2011
Motivation
• NGOs play an important role in foreign aid:– more than 40% of development aid by the United
States is channeled through NGOs• …and are widely believed to be more effective
than official aid agencies (e.g., McCoskey 2009)• Open question whether NGOs reduce
administration costs of aid delivery• administration and management expenses of US-
based NGOs engaged in foreign aid: 6.1% of the overall budget
• Administration costs of official US agencies: 5.7%
Motivation, cont.
• However, the share of non-charitable expenses varies greatly:– Expenses for admin. and management: 0% - 50%– Fundraising expenses: 0% - 40%• “Excessive” fundraising:
“…from finding solutions and helping needy recipients to pleasing their donors and winning television coverage” (The Economist, January, 2000)
• Perquisite consumption:– NGO entrepreneurs/managers may divert part of the revenues
for private use• Possible determinants:
– Competition among NGOs– Official funding
Expenses forfundraising
Costs of administration
and management
Competition +/- ? +/- ?
Official funding - +
Hypotheses
Data and method
• Cross-section of >500 US-based NGOs with foreign aid activity in 2007
• Data from the USAID registry:– Any US NGO has to register in order to apply for official
funding • Costs of admin./management and expenses for
fundraising as alternative dependent variables (% of each NGO’s total expenses)
• Explanatory variables of main interest: competition and official funding
• Official funding: share of public funds in total revenue of each NGO
• We measure competition with respect to the recipient countries in which the NGOs are active
• Sum of the foreign aid expenditures of NGO j=1,…,N that overlap with the foreign aid expenditure of NGO i
• Divided by the total population of NGO i’s country portfolio
Measure of competition
NGO i NGO j=1,…,N
Burkina Faso
Nigeria
Cambodia
Vietnam
Bolivia
Afghanistan
Cameroon
Data and method, cont.
• Various controls to account for NGO heterogeneity:– size, relative importance of foreign aid activity,
degree of diversification (countries, sectors), experience, HQ location, characteristics of country portfolio, sector dummies
• OLS / Tobit to account for the censored nature of the dependent variables (17 % of [small] NGOs do not report any fundraising)
Results
(1) (2) (3) (4)
OLS Tobit OLS TobitShare of admin. and manag.
costs Share of expenses for fundraising
Share of official funds 0.032** 0.032** -0.059*** -0.077***
(0.013) (0.013) (0.008) (0.010)
Overlap with overseas programs -0.079** -0.081** 0.053 0.062
of other NGOs (weighted by population) (0.035) (0.033) (0.038) (0.039)
Controls yes yes yes yes
Sector dummies yes yes yes yes
Observations 518 518 518 518
R-squared 0.234 0.212
Robust standard errors in parentheses
*** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1
Results, cont.
• Different sources of official funding (USAID, other US gov., other gov. and IO) have similar negative effects on fundraising, but USAID stands out in increasing administration costs
• The negative impact of competition on admin. costs turns insignificant when we exclude NGOs with particularly high admin. costs (at least 2 SD above the mean)
Conclusion
• It seems that competition among peers helps to improve the efficiency of NGO aid…– …as it does not lead to excessive fundraising,– …and tends to reduce administration costs.
• Highly unproductive NGOs either reduce their admin. costs or exit the market
• Implications for the debate on donor coordination and aid fragmentation: more coordination and specialization may come at the cost of NGO efficiency
Conclusion, cont.
• In some contrast to conventional wisdom (Edwards/Hulme: “too close for comfort”), official funding may induce NGOs to spend more on charitable activity…
• …as higher costs of administration are more than offset by lower expenses for fundraising
• Higher admin. costs due to officially requested bureaucracy or softer budget constraints (perquisite consumption)?
Future work
• Instrument the variables of interest with data of the year 2001 to mitigate endogeneity concerns
• Specification in differences (2007 – 2001) to control for unobserved NGO heterogeneity
• Follow-up study: Are less efficient NGOs less likely to survive?
• Highly relevant for the NGOs themselves, the private and official donors of NGOs, and the aid receiving countries