Building Quality of Government? International Organizations and Educational Performance in Africa

Abstract

Although international organizations are often seen as an important transformative power on the international arena, we know less about how and when they promote better domestic institutions. Using data on education outcomes in 53 African countries from 1994-2008, we show that IOs use several empirically distinct channels through which they influence domestic outcomes: conditionality, rankings and international integration. We find that integration and high international rankings have a positive impact on education outputs, while IOs have a negative influence when they use conditional aid. Our findings have implications both for the diffusion of the quality of government agenda, and for advancing our knowledge of IO power.