Help or hindrance? Exploring the impact of foreign aid on local skills

About the project

Understanding the relationship between aid and skills is critical to international development discourse, and particularly the aid-development nexus. Economists have long contended that skills – the level, composition and quality of skills available – drive economic growth and development. Existing research posits various channels in the aid-growth/development relationship like the real exchange rate, changes in manufacturing output, institutional capacity, and governance. This project is novel in assessing the aid-skills-economic development relationship. If aid positively impacts local skills, the overall effect may be growth/development enhancing. On the other hand, if the impact is negative, this may hinder development and increase the likelihood of continued aid-dependence.

The project aims to explore the aid-skills relationship in four ways.

Assessing existing evidence to propose a theory of the different ways in which aid can influence local skills available.

Mapping foreign aid targeting skills development in Africa since 1960.

Exploring the relationship between foreign aid and the skills composition in aid-receiving countries using secondary quantitative panel data.

Understanding the contexts/conditions under which the aid-skills relationship may be stronger/weaker.

The research contributes to the scholarly debate on aid effectiveness and can also usefully inform policy.

Project team

Dr Jamelia Harris Link opens in a new window(Principal Investigator, IER Warwick)

Jamelia is an economist with expertise in development and labour economics. She has conducted both academic and policy-driven research in Africa, the Caribbean and UK. Her current research focuses on labour markets, but she has also researched government finances, and the effects of climate change on communities. She has designed surveys and conducted quantitative and qualitative analysis of primary and secondary data.

Luke Bosworth (Senior Project Assistant, Computing).

Luke holds a BSc (Hons) in Computer Science and specialises in accessing, collating, matching, and analysing large datasets, primarily in the areas of labour market information and forecasting. He designs and develops programs in R, Python, SPSS, and STATA to analyse and manipulate diverse datasets, With a strong interest in Big Data, he explores its potential to supplement or replace traditional data sources for labour market intelligence and forecasting. In addition to his analytical work.

Rosie Day (Computing Officer).

Rosie has over 12 years' experience working in various analytical roles and has used her programming expertise to work on large-scale labour market forecasting projects such as Working Futures and Cedefop’s pan European forecasting model of skills supply and demand. She has also worked on several projects within the theme of labour market classification and is an experienced user of the CASCOT computer software. Rosie was also a member of the Futuretrack project team looking at the careers of UK graduates and is managing the survey data for this project.

Stefanie Poole Link opens in a new window(Project support office)Link opens in a new window

Stef will provide administrative and clerical support to the project.

Research output

Project duration:

Aug 2025 - July 2028

Project funder: