The Securitization of Overseas Development Aid

The priorities and purposes of Overseas Development Aid (ODA) have been shifted their course from development and humanitarian to security and military goals starting of the late 1990s. This process was later accelerated by the 9/11 terrorist attack in the United States of America and the followed the Global War on Terror regime. As a result, international donor and bilateral economic assistances have shifted their focus from the global poverty reduction project to global security and counter-terrorism agendas. Security and military assistance starts taking a substantial portion of the foreign aid budget of some of the leading donor countries like the United States (U.S.) and most of the international development organizations used foreign aid as counter terrorism instrument. Consequently, the countries in the frontlines of the Global War on Terror have started becoming to the center, kicking the countries in-need out of the foreign aid ladder. These post-Cold War era developments are taken by many authors in the field as an effort of developed countries to buy safety for their own citizens using foreign development aid. This paper aims to explain the recent developments and academic discussions of ODA policies and practices of major donor countries and international development agencies in light with securitization theory.