Paper short abstract:

Previously involved in multilateral giving only (via multilateral Arab funds and the World Bank), Qatar has recently founded several organizations to bilaterally engage in development cooperation. The paper takes a close look at the innovative instruments used to interact with the partners.

Paper long abstract:

Several Arab Gulf states have been active as donors in development for many decades, little however is known about practices of Arab aid because the existing literature has been focusing on donors interests and the size of budgets disbursed. With regard to Qatar, however, the category fits particularly well as the state and its leadership have only recently embarked on a journey to establish Qatar as bilateral donor in development cooperation.

The paper highlights several newly founded Qatari organizations in order to analyze discourses and practices of development prevalent in Qatar. It takes a non-normative and explorative approach: Instead of judging Qatar's activities by pre-existing definitions and theories of development, the paper wants to derive the understanding of development in Qatar from talk and actions by Qatari officials as well Qatari and expatriate experts working for Qatari organizations. Interviews with them plus participant observation of their activities both in Qatar and in recipient countries form the basis for this paper. Both have been conducted in 2010 and 2011.

One particularly interesting issue to be discussed is the need to justify international development activities domestically to Qatari citizens by including them into development endeavors. Another issue to be raised in the paper is representation of Qatari aid by mainly non-Qatari experts and their realm of influence on the projects and general strategies of development followed by Qatar. A third issue is the role that Islamic traditions of giving play in shaping the Qatari discourse on aid and development.