The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.

The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.

Nothing herein shall constitute or be considered to be a limitation upon or waiver of the privileges and immunities of The World Bank, all of which are specifically reserved.

The Accra Agenda for Action contains a commitment to increase aid effectiveness by "addressing the issue of countries with insufficient aid." This paper highlights the difficulties in identifying such countries unequivocally, given the limited theoretical and empirical knowledge on optimal aid allocations. Actual aid receipts by low income countries are compared to several benchmarks derived from different aid allocation models. These models differ primarily with regard to the weights assigned to country needs and performance. The analysis shows that different aid allocation models identify different sets of countries as receiving insufficient aid. The paper does not find a greater tendency for fragile states to receive insufficient aid compared to non-fragile states. However, there appears a greater tendency for bilateral aid to leave countries with insufficient aid compared to multilateral aid, which in fact in many cases partly compensates for under-funding from bilateral donors. The potential aggregate cost of increasing aid to countries with insufficient aid varies significantly depending on which aid allocation model is used, but could be as high as US$ 7 billion annually. Enhanced coordination of donors' aid allocation decisions to ensure that no low income country ends up inadvertently as an aid orphan would be an important step in addressing "the issue of countries with insufficient aid."

This paper examines the macro-financial implications of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic represents a massive macroeconomic demand and supply shock with significant adverse ramifications for global economic growth, employment, and poverty and demands an unprecedented response by national policy makers and international organizations. Prior to the outbreak of the pandemic, many economies already displayed increased macro-financial vulnerabilities in the form of high levels of debt of households, businesses, and the public sector, secular stagnation of economic growth, and an extended period of quantitative easing and low interest rates. The economic impact of the pandemic in the form of a global recession due to social distancing measures, losses of revenue and income for households, businesses, and the public sector, increased public spending to manage the health impacts, contain the pandemic, and protect vulnerable businesses, households, state-owned enterprises, and public entities adds significantly to pre-existing macro-financial vulnerabilities. Managing these vulnerabilities will be critical for a resilient recovery from the COVIC-19 pandemic, requiring a range of short-and medium term macro-financial policy measures.