Mark T. Buntaine is Assistant Professor in the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Winner, 2017 Don K. Price Award, APSA Science, Technology & Environmental Section

"Buntaine uses such cases to illustrate the 'approval imperative' that stems from the interests of donor countries, citizen groups, and international aid organizations. As a result, countries that receive aid are rarely under serious pressure to undertake needed reforms and in fact use the funds to reward favored political constituencies." -S. Paul, Elizabethtown College

"Giving Aid Effectively is a carefully researched and lucidly written book examining how project evaluation, strategic planning, citizen complaint mechanisms, and administrative procedures influence the environmental performance of multilateral development banks. I strongly recommend it for scholars of environmental governance and international organizations." -Aseem Prakash, Walker Family Professor, University of Washington

"This pathbreaking book teaches us how member governments manage the discretion they delegate to international organizations through information and incentives. And it does this while providing a rich and systematic empirical exposition of policies at the multilateral development banks intended to avoid environmental risks, promote clean energy, and abate urban pollution. Either contribution alone would make the book noteworthy; both together make Buntaine's Giving Aid Effectively a major contribution to scholarship on international organizations." -Daniel Nielson, Professor, Brigham Young University

"Giving Aid Effectively is a major contribution to the vast literature on the political economy of aid, providing a novel theory of the conditions driving aid selectivity, as well as rich empirical evidence on environmental spending by multilateral development banks. This is a must-read for all who want to understand how aid is given, to whom, and why." -Catherine Weaver, Associate Professor, University of Texas at Austin

"What measures do international organizations take to improve the environmental performance of their aid programs? How do they determine which ones work and which ones don't? Mark T. Buntaine makes an important contribution to solving these puzzles with a sharply focused study of concessionary lending by multilateral development banks (MDBs). His purpose is both analytical and prescriptive, and his book is thought-provoking in both regards." - Global Environmental Politics