Türkiye’nin İnsani Yardım Faaliyetleri ve Ekonomik Kazanımları İlişkisi
The Relationship Between Türkiye's Humanitarian Aid Activities and Economic Gains

Author(s): Azize Namdar
Subject(s): Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Welfare systems, Economic development
Published by: Oku Okut Yayınları
Keywords: Humanitarian Aid; Economic Gains; Official Development Assistance;
Summary/Abstract: This paper seeks to answer the question of whether Turkey has made gains in its economic relations with countries to which it provides humanitarian aid. In order to reach the effects of direct state aid, bilateral official development assistance (ODA) is taken as a reference. In this context, the independent variable of the research is Turkey’s bilateral ODA in 2021, and the dependent variable is the amount of economic gains (EG) obtained from the relevant ODA countries in 2022. With these variables, the research includes a cross-sectional time dimension and a model that envisages obtaining quantitative data in survey type and analyzing them with appropriate programs. The quantitative data obtained from official institutional documents were analyzed using the IBM SPSS v.29 program. Syria was excluded due to its military and political differentiation in the aid process, and the research universe includes 119 countries with 938.16 million USD. Sample selection was based on the countries that received the highest amount of ODA through purposive selection technique. In the random checks among the countries with less than 1 million USD aid, the amount was limited to 1 million USD since the EG data of the relevant countries - foreign trade, tourism income - could not be reached and statistical tests were applied for 36 countries. Altruistic behavior, geopolitical interests and domestic policy interests are considered as the main drivers of humanitarian aid. The findings suggest that there is no significant increase in Turkey’s economic gains in terms of foreign trade and tourism revenues in return for increasing ODA. Moreover, although there is a positive relationship between the independent variable ODA amounts and the dependent variable economic gains, there is a low correlation well below the medium level. Contrary to the literature, the results of the regression equation do not indicate that Turkey can achieve international economic gains as a result of its humanitarian aid, considering the sample limitation.

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