European Union’s Budget Support and the conditions under which it is effective: the case of Sector Budget Support in Health sector

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Supervisors: Tom Delreux
Faculty: Faculté des sciences économiques, sociales, politiques et de communication
Degree label: Master [120] en études européennes (UCLouvain / USL-B)
Abstract: At the beginnings of the 2000s, both the international aid arena and development policy of the EU went through major reforms. During these events, Budget Support (BS) has been presented as a new and effective aid delivery method. The European Union (EU) had a particular interest in promoting this aid method. After a period of glory, its popularity decreased dramatically. The critical voices started to call it a blank check for corrupt regimes. Its supporters were bringing as proof of its effectiveness the various evaluation reports. Nevertheless, these assessment reports show mixed results and the effectiveness of this instrument appears to depend on a country by country basis. This master thesis puts forward two questions. The first one asks whether BS has contributed to one of its missions: the attainment of MDGs. This question ignores the mixed results of the evaluation reports and checks whether EU Budget Support works independent of the characteristics of the beneficiary countries. The second question which is the main question of this study tries to identify the conditions for the BS effectiveness in the MDGs’ attainment.