Foreign Aid and Socioeconomic Development: The Perceptions of Aid in Nigeria

Abstract

Arguments on aid effectiveness, which are predominately cross-country analyses, remain contestable, with little attention paid to the end-users of aid. Hence, this paper makes use of survey responses from four States in Nigeria to examine the ‘perceived’ impacts of foreign aid on socioeconomic development. The findings show that arguments on aid effectiveness will remain contestable. This is evident even among end-users of aid. While people with lower socioeconomic status are more optimistic about the impacts of aid, this is not applicable across all States. Therefore, aid allocation should not be ‘a one-size-fits-all approach’. Hybrid systems that involve end-users are imperative.