Aiding and Abetting: Is donor Official Development Assistance competition greatest in sectors key to Chinese interest?

The rise in Chinese Official Development Assistance (ODA) in the last twenty years has rattled and affected the allocation of traditional donors of the international development community likely leading to insufficiently targeted support, a lack of donor coordination, and suboptimal ODA effectiveness. A dearth of research considering the relationship between donors’ ODA allocations evades development theory and any hope for future donor coordination and tripartite cooperation. Accordingly, this paper investigates traditional-Chinese donor competition between 2000-2017 in 144 recipient countries and whether this competition, if it exists, is stronger in sectors and regions where Chinese ODA projects are most prevalent.