Foreign aid commitments vs disbursements to higher education in Palestine: an analysis of donors’ intentions and deliveries over two decades

Fragile and conflict-affected countries are often negatively affected when it comes to foreign aid volatility and significant discrepancies between donor commitments and disbursements of aid. In this research, we focus on aid to higher education in Palestine – a fragile, conflict-affected, occupied and aid-dependent country with a history of aid volatility and unpredictability and an underfunded higher education sector. Using the aid flows data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, we critically analyze foreign aid commitments and disbursements to higher education in Palestine during 2002–2022. Our aim is to understand donors’ intentions in the commitment stage, and the implementation of their intentions and priorities through the delivery of aid. Our findings show that the local higher education in Palestine has been neglected by donors during the commitment stage of aid provision over the past two decades. This suggests that donors have not seen the sector as a strategic priority worth supporting, even after large-scale destruction of institutions in Gaza in the past. Given the complete destruction of higher education in Gaza since October 2023, our findings provide a bleak indication for rebuilding the sector in the future.