Premium
Need, Merit, Self‐Interest or Convenience? Exploring Aid Allocation Motives of Grassroots International NGOs
Author(s) -
Davis JohnMichael,
Swiss Liam
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of international development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.533
H-Index - 66
eISSN - 1099-1328
pISSN - 0954-1748
DOI - 10.1002/jid.3505
Subject(s) - grassroots , herding , value (mathematics) , political science , self interest , public relations , public administration , economics , law , politics , geography , machine learning , forestry , computer science
Despite substantial scholarly attention given to aid allocation motives of state agencies and professionalized non‐governmental organizations (NGOs), privately funded grassroots international NGOs (GINGOs), which have rapidly emerged in the global North, have escaped academic analysis. Using an original dataset of 948 Canadian NGOs, this study compares country aid allocation patterns along competing variables of need, merit, self‐interest and convenience between professionalized, mid‐sized independent and grassroots international NGOs. Our results underscore the importance of a disaggregated analysis yet reveal similar aid allocation trends between all three NGO groups and show significant herding behaviour. These findings question the added value of the growing phenomena of GINGOs. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.