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Africa has been dependent on aid for decades. Despite vast amounts of aid flows over the years, poverty on the continent remains widespread with 460 million people or 30% of the population still living below the extreme poverty line. Since 2020, the global economy continues to experience numerous destabilising shocks. The history showed that Africa in the past did not escape global shocks, and particularly its spill-over effects on aid flows. In fact, the more recent destabilising geopolitical, economic, and even climate shocks might potentially influence the nature, direction, structure, and extent of aid flows to Africa. An added dimension to African aid flows is the role of China, now the largest individual country donor of development aid to the continent. Since China is managing its foreign aid differently than other donor countries, the country has reshaped the global landscape of development finance. Furthermore, the changing global geopolitical power shifts caused shifts in the global distribution of power, added pressure to the influence of multilateral institutions and could impact on aid flows to Africa. From a policy formulating and planning perspective, it is essential to understand whether these destabilising shocks and challenges have caused or will contribute to a paradigm shift in the aid-debate to migrate to the sixth generation thinking on the topic where the structure, sectoral allocations, donor composition and management of aid may differ from those in previous periods.
Elsabé Loots is a Professor Emeritus (Economics) at the University of Pretoria. Her area of specialisation is development economics, with her research primarily focused on African economic development topics and globalisation. Over her career, she has been involved in a range of sectoral industry reports, two NEPAD African Peer Review Mechanism Background Papers and an African Union/United Nations Country Review Mission. During the latter part of her career she held various management positions: as Dean of the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences at the University of Pretoria, Dean of the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences at the Potchefstroom Campus of North-West University, and as Head of the School of Business and Economics at Monash South Africa. She also held professorial appointments at the University of the Free State and the University of Johannesburg. She is a former President of the Economic Society of South Africa and of the South African Commerce Deans Association. She previously served on the International Advisory Board of The Association for the Advancement of African Women Economists. She is an inaugural member of the Women in Business Education and an elected member of the Academy of Science of South Africa. She is served as the Co-Chair of the AACSB Africa Regional Network. Her latest edited book is Economic Shocks and Globalisation: Between Deglobalisation and Slowbalisation, published by Routledge in 2024.
