Reallocation of aid funds to alternative priorities

Name(s): 
Regional transfers of development capital
Unbridled competition for aid funding
Fashionable aid
Nature 
Development aid funds, originally scheduled for developing countries, may be diverted to alternative priorities such as the emerging democracies of eastern Europe.
Incidence 
In 1991, many civil rights cases in South Africa were not able to have legal representation because of cuts in traditional sources of funding, largely attributed to competition with eastern European causes. Human rights laws firms faced a financial crisis as a result, and lawyers were frequently before their cases come to trial through lack of payment of fees.
Claim 
Channelling funds into eastern Europe beyond its legitimate needs poses great danger of an explosion and a further deterioration of the North-South relationship.
Counter-claim 
Total foreign direct investment flows in 1993 amounted to $195 billion, of which flows to all of Africa were just $3 billion and to Central and Eastern Europe only $5 billion. Thus fears that FDI flows to this region would be at the expense of developing countries do not appear to have been justified.
Type 
(F) Fuzzy exceptional problems