Between caution and controversy: lessons from the Gulf Arab states as (re-)emerging donors

Abstract

The history of Gulf donorship, its trajectory and underlying motivations, continues to be an understudied aspect of foreign aid. While the Gulf Arab states are not new donors, their manner of regional coordination, branding, and aid management are distinct. Often helping fellow countries of the South, particularly Arab and Muslim countries, these countries have moved towards stronger private sector involvement and into social spending programmes. Owing to their oil wealth, Gulf Arab states' are increasingly generous and yet they are also cautious after 9/11 about how and by whom their aid is channelled. Nevertheless, with oscillations in oil prices, continued controversy over rising Islamism post-Arab-Spring, the future of Gulf aid remains a valuable subject of study.

Notes

¹ This article specifically looks at the six member states of the GCC: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. We use the terms ‘Gulf Arab’, ‘GCC’ and ‘Gulf’ in reference to this subregion of the greater MENA region. Although we acknowledge that Iran and Iraq are part of the geographic Gulf region, we are specifically examining the Gulf states that currently retain membership in the GCC.

² The Goldman-Sachs acronym ‘BRICs’, of course, also includes Russia as a re-emerging economy.

³ The lack of data available from the Gulf Arab states is well known among regional researchers, and was discussed at length by Shushan and Marcoux (2011) in relation to aid data. In 2008, the former director of the UN Millennium Campaign, Salil Shetty, was quoted in an article as decrying the lack of ‘clear numbers’ on aid contributions from Gulf Arab states, noting, ‘it's very opaque. There needs to be more transparency’ (Abocar 2008).

⁴ In just the last year, we have also seen funding packages within the GCC. Specifically, the GCC developed a US$20 billion aid package for Bahrain and Oman, prompted by their protest movements in the shadow of the Arab Spring. This was coupled with vast domestic spending in each country, which included (in varying forms and combinations) subsidy increases, salary hikes and the sudden offer of public sector jobs in the thousands (Bladd 2011; Ulrichsen 2011).