ABSTRACT
As stated in Chapter 2 little is known about where NGO aid is spent and what its determinants are. This chapter contributes to this discussion by identifying and analysing the determinants of the country choices of Dutch NGOs. There are two major reasons for selecting the Dutch NGOs to study determinants of NGO-aid allocation. First, no previous research on this subject has ever been performed in the Netherlands. Second, the Dutch civil society programme is one of the largest (> US$700 million annually) and oldest (since 1965) in the world. Oxfam Novib, the largest Dutch NGO, will be analysed in more depth because of its size and its reportedly unique geographic allocation system (Borren 2007). This chapter is structured as follows. In the first section, key features of
the Dutch co-financing system for NGOs are described, including their geographic characteristics. In the second section, the five potential determinants of Chapter 2 are contextualized in the Dutch case by means in-depth interviews. In the third section a quantitative analysis is used to rigorously test these determinants. In the last session, a case study is provided of one of the NGOs, with the aim of identifying major mediating factors, which actually influence those potential determinants.
