Preferred Partners? Co-financing with the African Development Bank and the Legitimation of Foreign Assistance

Foreign donors often co-finance development projects with local actors. But how is co-financing between a foreign donor and major regional actor perceived by the public in aid recipient countries? In this paper, we examine how co-financing arrangements between foreign donors and the African Development Bank (AfDB) affect the perception of donors and the projects they finance in South Africa and Nigeria. We find that while citizens are less optimistic about the quality of co-financed projects compared to solo-financed projects, they are more willing to trust foreign donors, attribute local knowledge to them, and defer to them in development policy disputes when they co-finance with the AfDB than when they finance projects on their own. These soft power benefits are amplified among citizens who especially attached to panAfricanist sentiments. Our results highlight co-financing as an understudied soft power mechanism that legitimises the development authority of foreign donors in recipient countries.