ABSTRACT
During the preparation of this volume the world economy entered a period of extreme volatility, beginning with a housing and financial crisis in the United States that rippled throughout the world. At press we are entering a period of great uncertainty, which is impacting nearly every sector of the economy, including higher education. In response to this crisis, governments from the Group of 8 (G8) highly industrialized countries called for greater intergovernmental cooperation. This call represents a departure from the previous positions of these governments who have touted the mantra of market-driven global economic and social governance. The impact of this shift remains to be seen, yet what is now clear is that the presence and importance of multilateral and bilateral organizations in the global political economy cannot be questioned. Global actions have been taken in order to control the economic crisis, as pointed out by David H. McCormick, the US Secretary of Treasury for International Affairs, “as this thing has spread [the crisis], the opportunities for cooperation have risen” (Lander and Andrews 2008, A1-A24). This chapter takes up the relationship between multilateral and bilateral aid to higher education over the period lasting from 2002 to 2006. Little has been written about the relationship between multilateral and bilateral sources of higher education aid. There is some literature on the discourse coming from multilateral and bilateral agencies, but considerably less addressing the amounts of aid provided by these agencies to the educational sectors and in particular to higher education (Maldonado-Maldonado 2006). This chapter works toward closing this gap in the literature. What follows is a summary of major patterns of aid allocation to the higher education sector by multilateral and bilateral agencies and an analysis and discussion of these patterns. At the outset, a cautionary note is in order. Data on multilateral and bilateral aid activities are incomplete, and at times inconsistent as reporting standards vary from source to source. This chapter relies primarily on data drawn from the Organization for Cooperation and Development’s
Development Aid Committee’s (OECD-DAC) online database, covering the period 2002 to 2006, the most recent year for which data are available at the time of press. These data are reported by major bilateral and multilateral aid providers by sector and subsector on an annual basis. However, these data are at times incomplete due to sources that do not report or under-report in a particular year, so such supplementary primary sources (the World Bank, InterAmerican Development Bank, etc.) are used at times to supplement OECDDAC data. When these sources are used it is noted. It is important to observe this not only because of the technical particularities of data presentation but also because what it implies about research on aid activities more generally. Since data on these activities is not complete, it is also important to keep in mind that the figures presented offer an accurate account of relative aid allocations but may lack desired levels of precision.
