Ilass Ouedraogo et Bakary Johnson Rouamba (CERDI, UCA)

12h15 : The Long Shadow of Conflict: Subnational Evidence on Foreign Aid Allocation in Africa

Ilass Ouedraogo
CERDI, Université Clermont Auvergne
Le suivre sur LinkedIn

Ilass Ouedraogo est doctorant en sciences économiques. Ses thèmes de recherches sont principalement centrés sur le financement du développement, les conflits et la vulnérabilité des Etats. 

Résumé : This paper examines the effect of violent conflict on foreign aid flows in Africa over 2000-2020. We construct a comprehensive ADM2-level panel of 5,338 administrative units across 54 countries by combining georeferenced conflict data from ACLED with geolocated aid project data from GODAD. Using the dynamic heterogeneity-robust difference-in-differences estimator of De Chaisemartin and D'Haultfoeuille (2024), we find that violent conflict generates no significant short-run effect on aid flows but produces large and persistent positive effects from approximately ten years after conflict onset, with average cumulative effects of 1.06 log points for commitments and 1.15 log points for disbursements. These results are robust to alternative samples, conflict measures, spatial units, spillover contamination, clustering choices, and identification strategies, including a re-centered instrumental variable approach of Borusyak and Hull (2023). Decomposing the aggregate effect reveals that the long-run response is driven by bilateral donors, both OECD members and China, channeling grants toward governance and multisectoral programs in ADM2 experiencing sustained and visible conflict. These patterns are inconsistent with needs-based aid allocation and support a strategic engagement interpretation: donors use development aid as a tool of political investment in fragile, conflict-affected environments, with engagement intensifying as conflicts prove persistent and strategically salient.

https://theses.fr/s401895

12h45 : Economic sanctions: A hidden driver of deforestation in developing countries?

Bakary Johnson Rouamba 
CERDI, Université Clermont Auvergne
Le suivre sur LinkedIn

Ilass Ouedraogo est doctorant en sciences économiques. Ses thèmes de recherches portent sur les questions de fiscalité, la gouvernance des ressources naturelles et de politique internationale. 

Résumé : This paper examines whether economic sanctions are associated with deforestation in developing countries. While the existing literature has extensively documented traditional determinants of forest loss such as agricultural expansion, logging, extractive resources, and infrastructure development, the environmental implications of geopolitical instruments remain underexplored. Using a panel dataset of 130 developing countries over the period 2001–2022, this study combines satellite-based deforestation data from the Global Forest Change dataset with information on economic sanctions from the Global Sanctions Database. The empirical analysis relies on an entropy balancing approach and a panel data framework with fixed effects to improve the comparability of sanctioned and non-sanctioned countries. The results indicate that economic sanctions are positively associated with deforestation rates. This relationship remains robust across multiple specifications, alternative estimation methods, and placebo tests. Further analyses suggest that the association is stronger in low-income and resource-dependent countries, and more pronounced for trade-related sanctions. Exploring the underlying mechanisms, the paper finds that sanctions reduce income levels and agricultural productivity, thereby encouraging the expansion of agricultural land, which ultimately leads to increased forest loss. These findings highlight the unintended environmental consequences of economic sanctions and suggest that policymakers should integrate environmental considerations into the design of such measures, particularly when targeting vulnerable economies.

https://theses.fr/s421337