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Despite the increasing recognition of China's role as a global health donor, particularly in Africa, few studies have explored its effectiveness. We geographically matched project-level aid data from AidData with household survey data from Demographic and Health Surveys across eight African countries to examine the effect of Chinese health aid on the nutritional status of children in recipient countries. In addition to adopting a spatiotemporal identification strategy, we also included mother fixed-effects to examine variations among siblings who were exposed to Chinese health aid projects at different times. The empirical results consistently indicated that children living adjacent to Chinese health aid projects had a better nutritional status. The treatment effect of Chinese health aid projects is heterogeneous across household characteristics, types, and sectors of aid projects. Finally, vaccination may serve as a mechanism linking Chinese health aid and child nutrition in the treatment areas of recipient countries.

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Introducción: La crisis sanitaria de la COVID-19 y la falta de enfermeras precipitó la contratación e incorporación de estudiantes de enfermería como auxilio sanitario. Objetivo: analizar el impacto de la pandemia en los estudiantes de cuarto curso de enfermería, con tratados como auxilio sanitario. Metodología: Estudio observacional, descriptivo y retrospectivo de los estudiantes de último año del grado de enfermería de la EUI-Sant Pau de Barcelona contratados en concepto de auxilio sanitario durante los meses de marzo a mayo de 2020. Se evaluó el impacto de la pandemia mediante el uso de un cuestionario de elaboración propia. Variables analizadas: edad, género, impacto sobre la actividad académica y satisfacción con la colaboración durante el auxilio sanitario. Resultados: De los 90 estudiantes de cuarto matriculados, 53 se incorporaron como auxilio sanitario de los cuales 38 (71,7%) respondieron al cuestionario. El 63,1% de los estudiantes vivían con la familia y de estos un 57,9% se separaron de esta para evitar contagios. El 73,7% no tenían experiencia laboral. La mitad de los estudiantes fueron ubicados en la UCI del hospital universitario. El 85% recibieron una formación exprés sobre el manejo del paciente crítico y el 60,6% manifestó que la incorporación afectó negativamente al rendimiento académico. El 95% de los estudiantes manifestó un grado de satisfacción de 4/4. Conclusiones: La pandemia de la COVID-19 precipitó la incorporación de más de la mitad de los estudiantes de cuarto al mundo laboral. Si bien más de la mitad de los estudiantes consideraron que su incorporación como auxilio supuso un detrimento en su formación, el grado de satisfacción fue muy elevado. (AU)

Introduction: The COVID-19 and the shortage of nurses in Spain precipitated the hiring and incorporation of nursing students as health aid. Aim: to analyze the impact of the pandemic on fourth-year nursing students hired as health aid. Methods: Observational, descriptive and retrospective study of last year nursing degree students at School of Nursing EUI-Sant Pau de Barcelona hired as health aid from March to May 2020. The impact of the pandemic was evaluated through the use of a self-prepared questionnaire. Variables analyzed: age, gender, impact on academic activity and satisfaction with the collaboration during the health aid. Results: Of the 90 fourth-year students enrolled, 53 volunteered as health aid, of which 38 (71.7%) responded to the questionnaire. Of the students living with their family (63,1%), 57.9% separated from them to avoid contagion and 73.7% had no work experience. Half of the students were assigned to the ICU of the university hospital. In our school, 85% of the students received express training on critical patient management and 60.6% stated that the incorporation negatively affected academic performance. The degree of satisfaction expressed by the students was 4/4 on a Likert scale in 99% of the cases. Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic precipitated the incorporation of more than half of fourth-year students into the world of work. Although more than half of the students consider that their incorporation as a health aid harmed their training, the degree of satisfaction was very high. (AU)

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BACKGROUND: Syria has been in continuous conflict since 2011, resulting in more than 874,000 deaths and 13.7 million internally displaced people (IDPs) and refugees. The health and humanitarian sectors have been severely affected by the protracted, complex conflict and have relied heavily on donor aid in the last decade. This study examines the extent and implications of health aid displacement in Syria during acute humanitarian health crises from 2011 to 2019. METHODS: We conducted a trend analysis on data related to humanitarian and health aid for Syria between 2011 and 2019 from the OECD's Creditor Reporting System. We linked the data obtained for health aid displacement to four key dimensions of the Syrian conflict. The data were compared with other fragile states. We conducted a workshop in Turkey and key informants with experts, policy makers and aid practitioners involved in the humanitarian and health response in Syria between August and October 2021 to corroborate the quantitative data obtained by analysing aid repository data. RESULTS: The findings suggest that there was health aid displacement in Syria during key periods of crisis by a few key donors, such as the EU, Germany, Norway and Canada supporting responses to certain humanitarian crises. However, considering that the value of humanitarian aid is 50 times that of health aid, this displacement cannot be considered as critical. Also, there was insufficient evidence of health displacement across all donors. The results also showed that the value of health aid as a proportion of aggregate health and humanitarian aid is only 2% in Syria, compared to 22% for the combined average of fragile states, which further indicates the predominance of humanitarian aid over health aid in the Syrian crisis context. CONCLUSION: This study highlights that in very complex conflict-affected contexts such as Syria, it is difficult to suggest the use of health aid displacement as an effective tool for aid-effectiveness for donors as it does not reflect domestic needs and priorities. Yet there seems to be evidence of slight displacement for individual donors. However, we can suggest that donors vastly prefer to focus their investment in the humanitarian sector rather than the health sector in conflict-affected areas. There is an urgent need to increase donors' focus on Syria's health development aid and adopt the humanitarian-development-peace nexus to improve aid effectiveness that aligns with the increasing health needs of local communities, including IDPs, in this protracted conflict.

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Background: Whether health aid has a positive, negative, or no effect on the health status of recipient countries is controversial. Objective: The current paper examines the long-run effect of health aid on health status in low-income countries. Methods: The long-run health function was estimated using infant mortality as a proxy for health status and panel data constructed from 34 low-income countries from 2000 to 2017. For the estimation, fixed effect, random effect, and Hausman-Taylor estimators were employed. Results: The estimation results indicate that health aid has a beneficial and statistically significant long-run effect on the health status of low-income countries. Doubling health aid saves the lives of 44 infants per 1000 live births in the long run. Conclusion: This study shows that health aid could be one of the best interim tools with which the health status of low-income groups could get improved and helps meet the target of universal health coverage. Despite the favorable effect of health aid observed in this study, recipient countries need to find ways of promoting surrogate domestic health financing systems, as external assistance cannot be an everlasting means of improving population health.

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Background: The United Kingdom (UK) used to be the second largest bilateral provider of official development assistance (ODA) for health. However, in 2021 the UK government cut its annual aid budget by 30%. We aim to understand how these cuts might affect financing for health systems in UK aid recipient countries. Methods: We conducted a retrospective analysis of domestic and external funding for 134 countries that received UK aid for the 2019-2020 budget year. We grouped countries into two cohorts: those that continued to receive aid in 2020-2021 ("budget") and those that did not ("no budget"). Data was collected from publicly available datasets and we compared UK's ODA, UK's health ODA with total ODA, general government expenditures and domestic general government health expenditure to assess the donor dependency and donor concentration of budget and no budget countries. Findings: Budget countries are more reliant on external aid to finance their governments and health systems than no budget countries, with a handful of exceptions. While the UK does not appear to be a major ODA contributor among most no budget countries, it is in many budget countries. Two no budget countries in particular may be faced with health systems financing challenges given their high ratios of UK health aid to domestic government health expenditures: the Gambia (1.24:1) and Eritrea (0.33:1). Although "safe" for this budget cycle, a number of low-income countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have very high ratios of UK health aid to domestic government health expenditures, including South Sudan (3.15:1), Sierra Leone (0.48:1), and the Democratic Republic of Congo (0.34:1). Interpretation: The 2021-2022 UK aid cuts could have negative impacts in a few countries highly dependent on UK health aid. Its departure could leave these countries with rather large funding gaps to fill and create a more concentrated donor climate.

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BACKGROUND: The 11 years of the devastating conflict in Syria resulted in more than 874,000 deaths, and in more than thirteen million refugees and internally displaced people (UNHCR, Syrian refugee crisis: aid, statistics and news, USA for UNHCR, Washington, 2020; Alhiraki et al. in BMJ Glob Health 7:e008624, 2022). The health system was severely affected and has become aid dependent. This study examines aid alignment over a decade of the Syrian crisis from 2011 to 2019. METHODS: Aid alignment involves donors using national systems and institutional structures to manage their aid to recipient governments and aligning their aid policies with development priorities and strategies defined by the partner countries (ROSA Newsletter, Moving towards increased aid alignment in the food and nutrition security sector, 2013. Available from: http://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/oxfam/bitstream/10546/141974/1/ ). Aid alignment was explored as part of the 2005 Paris Declaration Framework on aid effectiveness. Based on OECD's survey on monitoring the Paris Declaration (OECD, Harmonisation, alignment, results: report on progress, challenges and opportunities, OECD, Paris, 2005; OECD, Survey on harmonisation and alignment of donor practices, OECD, 2006. Available from: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/development/survey-on-harmonisation-and-alignment-of-donor-practices_journal_dev-v6-sup1-en ) and based on a proposed methodology to assess aid effectiveness by Burall and Roodman (Developing a methodology for assessing aid effectiveness: an options paper, Overseas Development Institute, 2007. Available from: www.odi.org.ukhttp://www.cgdev.org ), we designed a sequential mixed methodology to address two main indicators: alignment with national strategies and local procedures, and aid delivery through local systems. The quantitative part investigated the financial alignment of aid using financial data trackers, such as creditor reporting system and the UN-OCHA financial tracking system, and the relevant humanitarian needs estimations by the humanitarian assistance response plans, humanitarian response plans, and humanitarian needs overviews. The qualitative part relied on four focus groups discussions and four key informants interviews with key policy makers, experts and practitioners involved in the humanitarian and health response in Syria, with the aim of interpreting the quantitative findings. RESULTS: While the study found an improvement in aid budget alignment with local procedures in Syria from 34% in 2012 to 86% in 2019, we found limited alignment with local strategies. Our qualitative findings pose doubts in the ability of the various data sources of humanitarian needs in Syria to reflect the actual realities, especially before 2014, due to lack of comprehensive local engagement and data systems by then. Therefore, even if the humanitarian budgets seemed to be aligned with the national procedures, the national plans did not seem to align with the actual realities, let alone the increase in the financing deficit over the years of the conflict. The reliance of humanitarian and health aid on governmental structures, as a main recipient, in Syria was much lower than other developing and fragile countries. This is mainly due to the nature of the Syrian conflict where the government is a party to the conflict. Donors were found to have invested poorly in advancing national and sub-national planning in Syria due to donors' over reliance on the UN-led humanitarian system which struggles in armed conflict settings. As a result, we found a disconnection between field realities, national planning, and humanitarian aid. CONCLUSION: In light of the dreadful humanitarian crisis in Syria, there has been an adverse aid alignment. Considering the chronicity of the conflict, there is an urgent need to improve aid alignment through more investment in local planning at district or governorate levels. This is especially important to navigate through conflict sensitivities while responding to local needs and initiating local developments. These approaches, combined with adopting health sector-wide approach, could contribute to the humanitarian-development-peace nexus in Syria, which in turn can contribute to a better aid alignment and aid effectiveness.

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Externality exists in healthcare when an individual benefits from others being healthy as it reduces the probability of getting sick from illness. Healthy workers are considered to be the more productive labourers leading to a country's positive economic growth over time. Several research studies have modelled disease transmission and its economic impact on a single country in isolation. We developed a two-country disease-economy model that explores disease transmission and cross-border infection of disease for its impacts. The model includes aspects of a worsening and rapid transmission of disease juxtaposed by positive impacts to the economy from tourism. We found that high friction affects the gross domestic product (GDP) of the lower-income country more than the higher-income country. Health aid from one country to another can substantially help grow the GDP of both countries due to the positive externality of disease reduction. Disease has less impact to both economies if the relative cost of treatment over an alternative (e.g. vaccination) is lower than the baseline value. Providing medical supplies to another country, adopting moderate friction between the countries, and finding treatments with lower costs result in the best scenario to preserve the GDP of both countries.

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Foreign health aid forms a substantial portion of health spending in many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). It can be either vertical (funds earmarked for specific diseases) or horizontal (funds used for broad health sector strengthening). Historically, most health aid has been disbursed vertically toward key infectious diseases, with minimal allocations to noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). High NCD burden in LMICs underscores a need for increased assistance toward NCD objectives, but evidence on the outcomes of health aid for NCDs is sparse. We obtained annual data on cause-specific deaths and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) for four leading NCDs across 116 countries, 2000-2016, and evaluated the relationship between these indicators and vertical and horizontal health aid using country fixed-effects models with 1-to-5-year lagged effects. After adjusting for fixed and time-variant country heterogeneity, vertical assistance for NCDs was significantly associated with subsequent reductions in NCD morbidity and mortality, particularly for persons under age 70 and for cardiovascular and chronic respiratory diseases. An additional dollar in per-capita NCD vertical assistance corresponded to reductions in the average annual NCD burden of 7,459 DALYs/281 deaths after one year, 7,728 DALYs/319 deaths after two years, and 8,957 DALYs/346 deaths after three years. The findings suggest that vertical assistance for NCD programs may be an appropriate mechanism for addressing short-term NCD needs in LMICs, where it may help to fill health sector gaps in NCD care, but longer-term evaluation is needed for assessing the role of horizontal assistance.

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BACKGROUND: China has played an increasing role in development aid across Africa. Most recently, China has increased its external investments through the Belt and Road Initiative, China's signature infrastructure and trade drive to link China to Asia and Africa. This is likely to result in continuing growth of China's investment in health in sub Saharan Africa. While conflicting opinions have been raised regarding the motivation and value of these investments, few data have been solicited from those directly involved in China-Africa health aid. We conducted a qualitative study to collect information on perceptions and opinions regarding Chinese-supported health related activities in Africa through in-depth interviews among local African and Chinese participants in Malawi and Tanzania. RESULTS: Our findings reveal shared experiences and views related to challenges in communication; cultural perspectives and historical context; divergence between political and business agendas; organization of aid implementation; management and leadership; and sustainability. Participants were broadly supportive and highly valued Chinese health aid. However, they also shared common insights that relate to challenging coordination between China and recipient countries; impediments to communication between health teams; and limited understanding of priorities and expectations. Further, they share perspectives about the need for shaping the assistance based on needs assessments as well as the importance of rigorous reporting, and monitoring and evaluation systems. Our findings suggest that China faces similar challenges to those experienced by other longstanding development aid and global health donors. As it continues to expand cooperation across Africa and other regions, it will be important for China to consider the issues identified through our study to help inform collaborative and effective global health assistance programs. The insights garnered from this research are not only relevant to China's engagement in Africa but for other global health assistance donors as well.

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OBJECTIVE: This article examines the potential pathways health aid may use to influence the availability of malaria services at a facility level and the utilisation of malaria services for children under five in Malawi. METHODS: This work is grounded in a health services research theoretical model and combines a subnational census of health services available at Malawi health facilities with individual-level data on health service utilisation and the Government of Malawi's official source of data about health aid allocation at a child-level (n=2171). Logistic and multinomial logistic models were used to assess the relationship between health aid, malaria service readiness and malaria service utilisation. Models were adjusted for predisposing, enabling and need factors and accounted for the complex relationship using a mediation approach. RESULTS: The evidence presented suggests that health aid translates into increased diagnostic capacity, but not overall or training readiness. Results indicate that increasing aid projects in a region boost its facilities' diagnostic readiness, increasing each facility's relative likelihood of having a medium level of diagnostic readiness by 12% (relative risk (RR)=1.118; 95% CI 1.060 to 1.179) and its likelihood of having a high level of readiness by 23% (RR=1.230; 95% CI 1.161 to 1.303), but decreasing its readiness to provide training by 8% (RR=0.925; 95% CI 0.879 to 0.974). CONCLUSION: The results of this research highlight the fact that health aid is working to increase malaria diagnostic capacity at a facility level, but that increasing facility readiness to implement the diagnostic tests has been neglected.

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The United Nations has declared the Syrian conflict, with more than 50% of Syria's population currently displaced, as the worst humanitarian crisis of the twenty-first century. The Syrian conflict has led to a collapse of infrastructure, including access to critical and lifesaving healthcare services. Women and children account for approximately 75% of internally displaced Syrians and refugees. This population is also particularly vulnerable to poor health outcomes, a condition worsened by lack of access to maternal and child health services. In response to this crisis, a partnership of Saudi and Syrian physicians established a non-profit healthcare facility named the Brotherhood Medical Center (BMC) to serve women and children within a safe area near the Syrian-Turkish border. The project began in September 2014 and was implemented in three phases of establishment, phased construction and formal launch and operation. Currently, the BMC is working at about 70% of its capacity and is run in partnership with the Syrian Expatriate Medical Association. Although there was strong initial support from donors, the BMC continues to face many financial and operational challenges, including difficulties in transferring money to Syria, shortage of medical supplies, and lack of qualified medical personnel. Despite these challenges, the BMC represents a critical model and an important case study of the challenges of delivering healthcare services to underserved populations during an ongoing conflict. However, more robust support from the international community is needed to ensure it continues its important health and humanitarian mission.

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BACKGROUND: After 7 years of increasing conflict and violence, the Syrian civil war now constitutes the largest displacement crisis in the world, with more than 6 million people who have been internally displaced. Among this already-vulnerable population group, women and children face significant challenges associated with lack of adequate access to maternal and child health (MCH) services, threatening their lives along with their immediate and long-term health outcomes. DISCUSSION: While several health and humanitarian aid organizations are working to improve the health and welfare of internally displaced Syrian women and children, there is an immediate need for local medical humanitarian interventions. Responding to this need, we describe the case study of the Brotherhood Medical Center (the "Center"), a local clinic that was initially established by private donors and later partnered with the Syrian Expatriate Medical Association to provide free MCH services to internally displaced Syrian women and children in the small Syrian border town of Atimah. CONCLUSIONS: The Center provides a unique contribution to the Syrian health and humanitarian crisis by focusing on providing MCH services to a targeted vulnerable population locally and through an established clinic. Hence, the Center complements efforts by larger international, regional, and local organizations that also are attempting to alleviate the suffering of Syrians victimized by this ongoing civil war. However, the long-term success of organizations like the Center relies on many factors including strategic partnership building, adjusting to logistical difficulties, and seeking sustainable sources of funding. Importantly, the lessons learned by the Center should serve as important principles in the design of future medical humanitarian interventions working directly in conflict zones, and should emphasize the need for better international cooperation and coordination to support local initiatives that serve victims where and when they need it the most.

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Growing evidence suggests that health aid can serve humanitarian and diplomatic ends. This study utilised the Fragile States Index (FSI) for the 47 nations of the World Health Organizations' Africa region for the years 2005-2014 and data on health and non-health development aid spending from the United States (US) for those same years. Absolute amounts of health and non-health aid flows from the US were used as predictors of state fragility. We used time-lagged, fixed-effects multivariable regression modelling with change in FSI as the outcome of interest. The highest quartile of US health aid per capita spending (≥$4.00 per capita) was associated with a large and immediate decline in level of state fragility (b = -7.57; 95% CI, -14.6 to -0.51, P = 0.04). A dose-response effect was observed in the primary analysis, with increasing levels of spending associated with greater declines in fragility. Health per-capita expenditures were correlated with improved fragility scores across all lagged intervals and spending quartiles. The association of US health aid with immediate improvements in metrics of state stability across sub-Saharan Africa is a novel finding. This effect is possibly explained by our observations that relative to non-health aid, US health expenditures were larger and more targeted.

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The health sector has attracted significant foreign aid; however, evidence on the effectiveness of this support is mixed. This paper combines household panel data with geographically referenced subnational foreign aid data to investigate the contribution of health aid to health outcomes in Uganda. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we find that aid had a strong effect on reducing the productivity burden of disease indicated by days of productivity lost due to illness but was less effective in reducing disease prevalence. Consequently, health aid appeared to primarily quicken recovery times rather than prevent disease. In addition, we find that health aid was most beneficial to individuals who lived closest to aid projects. Apart from the impact of aid, we find that aid tended to not be targeted to localities with the worse socioeconomic conditions. Overall, the results highlight the importance of allocating aid close to subnational areas with greater need to enhance aid effectiveness.

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BACKGROUND: Rural healthcare facilities in low-income countries play a major role in providing primary care to rural populations. We examined the link of foreign aid with government investments and medical service provision in rural health centres in Rwanda. METHODS: Using the District Health System Strengthening Tool, a web-based database built by the Ministry of Health in Rwanda, we constructed two composite indices representing provision of (1) child and maternal care and (2) HIV, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria services in 330 rural health centres between 2009 and 2011. Financing variables in a healthcare centre included received funds from various sources, including foreign donors and government. We used multilevel random-effects model in regression analyses and examined the robustness of results to a range of alternative specification, including scale of dependent variables, estimation methods and timing of aid effects. FINDINGS: Both government and foreign donors increased their direct investments in the 330 rural healthcare centres during the period. Foreign aid was positively associated with government investments (0.13, 95% CI 0.06 to 0.19) in rural health centres. Aid in the previous year was positively associated with service provision for child and maternal health (0.008, 95% CI 0.002 to 0.014) and service provision for HIV, TB and malaria (0.014, 95% CI 0.004 to 0.022) in the current year. The results are robust when using fixed-effects models. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that foreign aid did not crowd out government investments in the rural healthcare centres. Foreign aid programmes, conducted in addition to government investments, could benefit rural residents in low-income countries through increased service provision in rural healthcare facilities.

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Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa are the five BRIC countries which have showed a rapid growth in economic development in recent years especially in international health assistance area, which has gradually become a force that cannot be ignored. This article compares and analyzes the current status and character-istics of the BRIC countries in the field of international health assistance and compares them with the Countries of the Economic Cooperation and Development Organization's Development Assistance Committee ( ECDO-DAC) . It will also summarize the new features, advantages and disadvantages of the health development assistance exerted by the BRICS countries;and ultimately provide suggestions for the future international health development aid policy of China.

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China has made substantial health commitments to Africa in the past several decades. However, while much has been written regarding China-Africa aid overall, relatively little attention has been given to China's health aid. To better understand these investments, we provide an overview of the current framework and characteristics of China's health aid to Africa. China's health assistance has been perceived by some as opportunistic, largely as a demonstration of China's engagement in "soft power" and an attempt to enhance its access to natural resources and political favors by African countries. Others have attributed altruistic intent, aiming to support the advancement of the health of populations in the African continent with a "no strings attached" approach. Our overview demonstrated that despite the magnitude of China's health assistance, many questions remain regarding the scope of this aid, its effectiveness and the governance mechanisms that guide the conceptualization and implementation of such efforts. We also identified the need for a systematic and rigorous evaluation of the various elements of China's health assistance to African countries in order to gain a deeper understanding of how priorities and allocations for health aid are determined, how such aid fits within the specific African country's health strategies and to assess the effectiveness of such aid. Insights garnered through such an assessment could help determine future priorities for investment as well as inform efforts to optimize the value of China's aid for the populations of the recipient countries.

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INTRODUCTION: Data on the effect of health aid on the health status in developing countries are inconclusive. Moreover, studies on this issue in sub-Saharan Africa are scarce. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the effect of health development aid in sub-Saharan Africa. METHODS: Using panel data analytic method, as well as infant mortality rate as a proxy for health status, this study examines the effect of health aid on infant mortality rate in sub-Saharan Africa. The panel was constructed from data on 43 countries for the period 1990-2010. Fixed effect, random effect, and first difference generalized method of moments estimator were used for estimation. RESULTS: Health development aid has a statistically significant positive effect. A 1% increase of health development assistance per capita saves the lives of two infants per 1,000 live births (P=0.000) in the region. CONCLUSION: Contrary to health aid pessimists' view, this study observes the fact that health development assistance has strong favorable effect in improving health status in sub-Saharan Africa.

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In the 2012 Global Vaccine Action Plan, development assistance partners committed to providing sustainable financing for vaccines and expanding vaccination coverage to all children in low- and middle-income countries by 2020. To assess progress toward these goals, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation produced estimates of development assistance for vaccinations. These estimates reveal major increases in the assistance provided since 2000. In 2014, $3.6 billion in development assistance for vaccinations was provided for low- and middle-income countries, up from $822 million in 2000. The funding increase was driven predominantly by the establishment of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the governments of the United States and United Kingdom. Despite stagnation in total development assistance for health from donors from 2010 onward, development assistance for vaccination has continued to grow.

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The Republic of Korea (ROK) has a remarkable development history, including its status as the first country to transition from aid recipient to member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Development Assistance Committee (DAC). However, since becoming a donor country, the ROK has struggled to achieve internationally accepted agreements related to aid effectiveness and several evaluations have identified the ROK as being one of the weakest DAC member countries at providing good aid. A survey was conducted to assess partner countries' perceptions of the ROK's governance of health official development assistance (ODA). The survey was administered to government officials based in partner countries' Ministries of Health and therefore presents the unique perspective of ODA recipients. The survey questions focused on governance principles established in the internationally-accepted Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness. The total response rate was 13 responses out of 26 individuals who received the email request (50%). The survey results indicate that progress has been made since earlier international evaluations but the ROK has not overcome all areas of concern. This confirms that the ROK is continuing to develop its capacity as a good donor but has yet to achieve all governance-related targets. The results of this survey can be used to inform a future aid strategy.

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