When is aid not a helping hand? Local corruption and foreign aid effectiveness in Sub-Saharan Africa

In many African countries, poor governance and corruption are cited as reasons foreign aid fails to produce growth. However, previous cross-national research on this topic has only compared national corruption measures, which overlooks that citizen exposure to corruption, foreign aid, and economic growth may vary widely within a country. This research uses local-level data on corruption, development, and foreign aid in four African countries from 1999 to 2014 to better capture how aid influxes interact with reported corruption levels to impact regional development patterns. Using the theoretical framework of foreign aid as a capital investment requiring fertile conditions to meet economic and development goals, it is theorized that local areas with higher levels of corruption receiving more foreign aid will have lower levels of economic development. Although no statistically significant findings have been obtained, the findings of this research provide a base for future research on the interaction of local-level corruption and foreign aid, which may provide policymakers with important insights on when and where foreign aid can be successful.