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Members of the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) approved a new classification by type of aid in 2008 for implementation in their 2011 statistical reporting on 2010 flows.

Why the need for a new classification system? This was the outcome of two years of work to develop a new, more policy-relevant, typology of aid that would capture new aid modalities, better identify real transfers of funds, disaggregate data on technical co-operation, and improve comparability of the data between donors. The types of aid apply to the data collection on aid flows through the Creditor Reporting System (CRS – aid activities) and the DAC annual Questionnaire. 

How does it work in practice? The new type of aid classification contains the following broad categories: budget support; core contributions and pooled programmes and funds; project-type interventions; experts and other technical assistance; scholarships and student costs in donor countries; debt relief; administrative costs; and other in-donor expenditures. Each category is broken down to sub-types, the full list is available on the DAC statistics webpage.

For each project reported in CRS/DAC, donors assign a type of aid. The typology complements the sector classification that captures the purpose of aid flows, and the policy objectives that identify different themes across sectors (e.g. gender equality or climate change).

What are the basic concepts? The typology classifies transfers from the donor to the first recipient of funds (recipient country, multilateral organisation, basket fund,…).  It does not track the end uses of the funds which is addressed in the sector classification and to some extent through the policy objective markers.  The typology has been aligned with the concepts and definitions used in the Paris Declaration. The IMF was also consulted during its elaboration: the new typology will enable fulfilment of the main information requirements for Balance of Payment statistics, and will be a major improvement for identifying transfers of real resources.

Full list - classification by type of aid (PDF, 670 KB)

Further guidance is available in a "Frequently Asked Questions" document (PDF, 651 KB).