Earmarked funding and the performance of international organizations: evidence from food and agricultural development agencies

Reinsberg, B. (2023) Earmarked funding and the performance of international organizations: evidence from food and agricultural development agencies. Global Studies Quarterly, 3(4), ksad056. (doi: 10.1093/isagsq/ksad056)

Abstract

How do funding structures affect the performance of international organizations (IOs)? Considering the rapid growth of earmarked funding over the past decade, the need to address this question has become a matter of urgency. To answer this question, I divide IO performance into outcome performance (i.e., achieving results that are relevant and sustainable) and process performance (i.e., having systems, rules, and practices that enable IOs to achieve self-defined goals effectively, efficiently, and responsively). Drawing on the principal−agent framework and studies of organizational behavior, I derive expectations about how earmarked funding can affect those performance dimensions. To empirically examine these expectations, I rely on qualitative case studies of three major IOs in food and agricultural development—Food and Agricultural Organization, International Fund for Agricultural Development, and World Food Program—using semi-structured interviews with IO staff and evaluation reports from multiple sources. I find that earmarked funding undermines performance, albeit not uniformly across performance areas and organizational contexts. I highlight the need for future research that considers how funding structures, institutional structures, and organizational behavior interact to affect organizational performance.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: This work was supported by a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship (“Earmarked funding and the effectiveness of international organizations”--MR/V022148/1).
• Keywords: Earmarked funding, multi-bi aid, international organizations, food and agriculture, development cooperation, organizational performance.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Reinsberg, Dr Bernhard
• Authors: Reinsberg, B.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Politics
• Journal Name: Global Studies Quarterly
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• ISSN: 2634-3797
• ISSN (Online): 2634-3797
• Published Online: 19 October 2023
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2023 The Authors
• First Published: First published in Global Studies Quarterly 3(4): ksad056
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons License

Project Code	Award No	Project Name	Principal Investigator	Funder's Name	Funder Ref	Lead Dept
311169		Earmarked funding and the effectiveness of international development organizations (EF-IO)	Bernhard Reinsberg	Medical Research Council (MRC)	MR/V022148/1	S&PS - Politics