Press release: Study: Public or private use of foreign aid in Indonesia?

Nr. 141/2012 - 26.07.2012

Göttingen doctoral candidate in Economic Sciences receives award and 7,500 U.S. dollars

(pug) The World Bank’s Urban Poverty Project allows communities in Indonesia to make their own decisions about carrying out development aid projects. According to a study at the University of Göttingen, these development aid projects are more likely to be used for public rather than private purposes when the influence of the wealthy is larger within individual communities. The author of the study, Rivayani Darmawan, is a doctoral candidate at Göttingen University’s Faculty of Economic Sciences. The Global Development Network has now awarded the 31-year-old Indonesian for her work with the “Medal for Research on Development”. This included award monies in the amount of 7,500 U.S. dollars.

In her study “Elite Capture in Urban Society: Evidence from Indonesia”, Rivayani Darmawan evaluated data from the World Bank’s Urban Poverty Project. She differentiated between development aid projects of direct material use to poorer sections of the population, e.g., scholarship awards or healthcare grants, and projects which benefit the public at large, e.g. the building of roads or sewer systems. She discovered that projects primarily benefitting the general public were more likely to be implemented in communities demonstrating large differences between poor and wealthy social groups, whereas fewer projects which would directly benefit poorer social groups were carried out. “As wealthy social groups have a significant influence on the decision-making process in these communities, they give precedence to those projects which also benefit themselves“, the author explains. “The poor cannot assert themselves against the wealthy.” This phenomenon is also referred to as elite capture.

Rivayani Darmawan is doing her Ph.D. at Göttingen University's Chair of Development Economics, under the supervision of Professor Stephan Klasen. She began her doctoral program at the Centre for Development Research in Bonn (ZEF). The Global Development Network is an independent international organisation headquartered in New Delhi, which brings together scientists and institutes focused on the field of development studies and provides them with financial funding and awards for research in this area. The award was presented at the organisation’s Annual World Congress in Budapest.

Contact:
Rivayani Darmawan (English only)
Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
Faculty of Economic Sciences
Chair of development Economics
Phone +49 551 39-4015
Email: rrivaya@uni-goettingen.de
Internet: www.uni-goettingen.de/de/64094.html

Gesche Quent
Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
Faculty of Economic Sciences
Communications and Marketing
Phone +49 551 39-5847
Email: gesche.quent@wiwi.uni-goettingen.de
Internet: www.uni-goettingen.de/de/54837.html