DOHA: The Northwestern University in Qatar (NU-Q) is set to begin a research project on different aspects of Qatar’s foreign aid to developing countries.
The study will also examine factors that distinguish Qatar among the donor countries, according to Dr Hasan Mahmud, Assistant Professor of Sociology, NU-Q, principal investigator of the study.
Qatar has recently been recognised as a mid-size foreign aid donor country comparable to New Zealand and Portugal. While Qatar has been donating to poor countries for many years, the amount of its foreign aid has increased by 300 percent between 2008 and 2013 from $433m to $1.8bn (Fourth National Human Development Report, Qatar, 2015).
“This is particularly commendable given the stagnation and decline in foreign aid from the traditional donor countries at present,” Dr Mahmud told The Peninsula.
A recent public opinion survey found that majority of Qataris support expanding foreign aid whereas their counterparts in most traditional donor countries are against foreign aid.
“As a sociologist, my research will explore Qatari foreign aid discourses and practices on its own terms. This necessitates empirical studies to outline a more reliable standard to measure the effectiveness of Qatari foreign aid from Qatar’s perspective, and thus, enhance understanding of foreign aid from non-traditional donor countries, especially in the Arab Gulf Region,” said Dr Mahmud.
The study will also contribute academically in at least three ways as it will train a younger generation of researchers in Qatar, it will train research apprentices to prepare research presentation for academic conferences and to get published in academic journals and it will encourage scholars and researchers in Qatar to further explore Qatari foreign aid and possibly initiate larger comparative studies of foreign aid in other Gulf countries.
The research project on Qatar’s foreign aid to developing countries is funded by Undergraduate Research Experience Programme (UREP) and three students at NU-Q are involved as research apprentices. The study will be completed in July 2017.
The project follows a mixed-method approach involving archival research, content analysis and interviewing key actors.
Since government ministries and departments play the major role in managing foreign aid, this study will primarily look at government foreign aid.
