Can international aid contribute to resilience? Perceptions of aid effectiveness following the 2007 Nahr el Bared crisis

As the final empirical contribution to this book, this Chapter 11 adds to the insights developed in Chapter 10 on how international policy and politics shape, either positively or negatively, resilience to the environmental dangers posed by armed conflict. Building on the preceding chapter, we further scrutinize the assumption that development aid depends on socioeconomic, rather than political, considerations. We find that overseas development aid per capita in Lebanon is positively linked to not merely GDP, but also to the occurrence of armed conflict. This highlights the importance of political factors in aid allocation. Thus, it could be suggested, conflict itself generates the aid that can contribute to the resilience that is needed to minimize the effects of the conflict. Exploring this thesis, the chapter offers an in-depth examination of the motivations that drive aid allocation and absorption and, as such, impact resilience. In particular, we explore how the idea, and the practical interpretation and implementation, of a social contract determine the effect of international aid and hence the contribution such aid might make to a country’s resilience to conflict-generated environmental hazards.