TDF

Program Overview

Tracking underreported financial flows

As officially-reported Western aid becomes a smaller fraction of the total financing for sustainable development, AidData is pioneering new methods to track the large and growing number of development investments made by non-Western governments like China and Qatar, non-state actors like companies and private philanthropies, and low- and middle-income countries themselves.

AidData uses unique data and methods to answer a range of questions about these less understood global development actors:

What are their investment priorities?
How closely do their investments align with national development priorities and global goals?
In which countries and sectors are they most and least influential?
What are the intended and unintended effects of their investments?

Featured Publications

Policy Report

Corridors of Power: How Beijing uses economic, social, and network ties to exert influence along the Silk Road

Samantha Custer, Justin Schon, Ana Horigoshi, Divya Mathew, Bryan Burgess, Vera Choo, Amber Hutchinson, Austin Baehr, and Kelsey Marshall

2021-12-13

Policy Report

Silk Road Diplomacy: Deconstructing Beijing's toolkit to influence South and Central Asia

Samantha Custer, Tanya Sethi, Jonathan A. Solis, Joyce Jiahui Lin, Siddhartha Ghose, Anubhav Gupta, Rodney Knight, Austin Baehr

2019-12-10

Policy Report

Influencing the Narrative: How the Chinese government mobilizes students and media to burnish its image

Samantha Custer, Mihir Prakash, Jonathan A. Solis, Rodney Knight, Joyce Jiahui Lin

2019-12-09

Policy Report

Ties That Bind: Quantifying China's public diplomacy and its "good neighbor" effect

Samantha Custer, Brooke Russell, Matthew DiLorenzo, Mengfan Cheng, Siddhartha Ghose, Jacob Sims, Jennifer Turner, Harsh Desai

2018-06-27

Tracking Chinese Development Finance: An Application of AidData’s TUFF 2.0 Methodology TUFF, tracking, underreported financial flows, China, Chinese funding, Chinese aid, Chinese debt Methodology Samantha Custer, Axel Dreher, Thai-Binh Elston, Andreas Fuchs, Siddharta Ghose, Joyce Jiahui Lin, Ammar A. Malik, Bradley C. Parks, Brooke Russell, Kyra Solomon, Austin Strange, Michael J. Tierney, Katherine Walsh, Lincoln Zaleski, and Sheng Zhang

Methodology

Tracking Chinese Development Finance: An Application of AidData’s TUFF 2.0 Methodology

Samantha Custer, Axel Dreher, Thai-Binh Elston, Andreas Fuchs, Siddharta Ghose, Joyce Jiahui Lin, Ammar A. Malik, Bradley C. Parks, Brooke Russell, Kyra Solomon, Austin Strange, Michael J. Tierney, Katherine Walsh, Lincoln Zaleski, and Sheng Zhang

2021-09-29

Journal Article

The effects of trade, aid, and investment on China's image in Latin America

Journal of Comparative Economics

Vera Z. Eichenauer, Andreas Fuchs, Lutz Brückner

2021-06-01

Note: A version of this article was previously published as an AidData Working Paper.

Featured Blog Posts

December 2021

New report on Beijing's efforts to cultivate influence amidst rival powers in South and Central Asia

AidData today released an extensive new study on China's public diplomacy efforts to win over foreign leaders and publics along the Silk Road, in what Beijing considers its “greater periphery.”

In November 2020, the leaders of Shanghai Cooperation Organization member states (including China, India, Pakistan, and Russia) held a meeting via video conference. Photo from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, under fair use.

August 2021

Corridors of power: Understanding China’s toolkit to influence the Silk Road

We break down China’s influence toolkit in South and Central Asia, as profiled in AidData’s interactive dashboard and a report newly available in Russian.