Aid flows to Africa in the context of continued global destabilising shocks, uncertainty, renewed challenges and aid dependence

Africa has been dependent on official development assistance or aid for decades. Despite the aid over the years, poverty remains widespread on the continent with 460 million people living below the extreme poverty line of US$1.90 a day. With its 23 low-income economies, the continent is highly dependent on aid flows. The aim of this research project is to establish, within the context of the recent global destabilising shocks, what has been and will be the impact on the nature, direction, structure and extent of aid flows to Africa and whether it has caused a paradigm shift in the aid-debate to migrate to the sixth generation thinking on the topic. This research project considers four global destabilising shocks namely the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic; secondly, the destabilising impact of the Russian-Ukraine War; thirdly, the decelerated global economic growth; and fourthly, the changing global geopolitical power shifts. All these events have the potential to destabilise and/or redirect future aid flows to African countries. This research project intends to answer the question on whether these destabilising events have changed the structure, sectoral allocations, donor composition and management of aid from those in previous periods