The Effectiveness of Foreign Aid on Corruption Eradication in Developing Countries’ Institutions. : A Qualitative Case Study Related to International Relations Studies with A Focus on A West African Country: Nigeria.

Abstract: Abstract. Foreign aid's effectiveness on eradicating corruption is a fragile yet complex topic to research in International Relations. Some scholars argue that economic aid should not be given without specific conditions, while some argue that aid should be given with strict or specific rules to recipient countries.  Par contra my research is aimed at examining one recipient country: Nigeria, as a case study which is considered amongst the most corrupt countries in the world yet are highly enriched in natural resources, such as being the major oil-producing country in Africa that boosts the country's GDP per capita through the export trade with foreign countries. And most foreign donor countries allocate economic aid to Nigeria because they are dependent on the country's trade on natural resources. In this research, I used two conceptualised variables of corruption; bribery and facilitate payment, which is considered the most common corruption trends in the Nigerian society, with the aim of analysing the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime's (UNODC) twelve-month survey report conducted in December 2019 in Nigeria. Alongside with the London 2016 Anti-Corruption Summit report, the current agenda agreed by forty countries with over six hundred commitments, which Nigeria participated in—hence creating the national anti-corruption programmes that the current President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari implemented as a commitment to the Summit. Consequently using legitimacy and governance perspectives to analyse the efficacy of aid in Nigeria's institution, and evaluating the country's alliance of economic aid in combating corruption, whilst identifying the state's level of governance towards anti-corruption policies to eradicate corruption. The findings show that the level of corruption in Nigeria is still very much high within the public sectors and shows that three in four citizens encounter a form of corruption such as bribery, daily with a civilian who demands a bribe in exchange for their services. And facilitation payment is considered a common activity of Nigerian citizens to speed up legal procedures with the governmental institutions. Even though the Nigerian government claims that the national anti-corruption policies are effective, the survey still shows that there less amount of reported official persons in the conduct of corruption and also the policies doesn't show a trend that the official persons do abide by the policies because the rate of transparency within the institutions is very much low. Yet these official persons intend to be in denial of collecting bribes or participating in any form of corruption.