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Official development
assistance in 2010: How do countries stack up?
Today the world’s major providers of
development finance include a number of countries from beyond the DAC’s
membership. The figure below shows 2010 gross flows of official development
assistance (ODA) of DAC countries (blue) and selected other countries
(orange). Saudi Arabia is the largest donor outside the DAC, with
development co-operation expenditure that surpasses that of 12 DAC
countries. China also delivers a large amount of concessional financing for
development, with estimated development co-operation flows reaching USD 2
billion in 2010. Third in non-DAC levels of ODA is Turkey, which despite the
financial crisis increased its 2010 development assistance by 24% in real
terms over 2009 flows, reaching USD 967 million. Other countries, including
India, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Russia, deliver development
co-operation flows that are roughly in line with those of the DAC’s smaller
donors, in volume terms.
Source: OECD DAC statistics 2012 (plus
estimates for China and India).
Statistics have always been at the core of
the DAC’s work and statistical collaboration with – and support to –
countries outside of the DAC’s membership is a key element of the DAC’s
global relations strategy. In addition to the 24 DAC members, most major
multilateral organisations, plus the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, report
their ODA flows to the DAC, as do 21 more countries (access the full list
here).
In 2011 , after many years of reporting at
the aggregate level, Kuwait began reporting more detailed activity-level
figures and Russia became the first of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India,
China, and South Africa) to report its ODA flows to the DAC.
These reporting efforts help the DAC
provide more detailed and comprehensive information on development
co-operation flows – a key to helping providers and recipients alike make
more informed decisions on allocations. The DAC stands ready to collaborate
with others to improve the tracking of development co-operation flows at the
global level.
For more detailed information, consult our
online databases or
the
annual statistics on resource flows to developing countries (in
particular, Table 33 which details ODA flows from the 21 countries outside
of the DAC’s membership, and the new Table 33a, which includes estimates of
development co-operation flows from the BRICS).
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The Asian Development
Bank joins AidFlows
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has
joined the AidFlows partnership
(www.aidflows.org), a joint OECD-World Bank initiative whose site is designed to make global data on development
co-operation funding more easily accessible and transparent. The ADB data is presented in
the same country-by-country visual format as OECD-DAC and World Bank Group
data, and provides more comprehensive data and analytical content to the site.
AidFlows was launched in October 2010 to
feature sources and uses of development finance and its content and
functionalities have been growing since. The one-of-a-kind clarity and
simplicity of the visual format is designed to support increased
transparency on flows of development funds from donor to beneficiary
countries.
AidFlows features:
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a “donor view” based on OECD statistics,
which presents key data by theme on aid provided by DAC members and
other sovereign donors reporting to the DAC
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a “donor view” based on World Bank and ADB
data, which provides a comprehensive picture of a given donor’s
contributions to each multilateral development banks (MDB) concessional
window
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a “beneficiary view”, which presents each
recipient country with an analysis of global development assistance
received from DAC member countries and from each MDB.
Access
AidFlows
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A “New Deal” for fragile states: What’s next?
 More
than 1.5 billion people live in fragile and conflict-affected
countries. Caught in cycles of poverty and violence, few of these
countries will achieve a single Millennium Development Goal (MDG) by
2015. The
New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States sets out five goals
built around legitimate politics, justice, security, economic
foundations, and revenues and services. These targets are intended
to focus priorities and set the course for a new global approach to
engaging with fragile states – one that is country-owned,
context-specific, focused, practical and responsive to urgency.
Over 40 countries and international organisations endorsed the New
Deal at the
Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, Korea. By
focusing efforts and channelling funds to support an agreed set of
peacebuilding and statebuilding priorities, increasing the
accountability of national and international actors vis-à-vis their
citizens, and ultimately increasing the rate of success of
transitions out of conflict and fragility, the potential for impact
at the national, regional and global levels is tremendous.
The New
Deal is a collaborative effort led by the
International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding, whose
Secretariat is hosted by the OECD-DAC. The International Dialogue brings
together DAC members, international organisations and the
g7+ group of fragile states to address
specific issues related to conflict and fragility, and to develop creative
responses. In 2012, the International Dialogue will promote recognition of
the New Deal’s goals at the United Nations; in this way, it seeks to broaden
international recognition of these goals and ensure that they inform the
post-MDG development framework. Meanwhile, these goals are used by countries
like Afghanistan and South Sudan to reframe their transition strategies, and
by major donors to revise their programmatic and financing policies.
For more
information, visit
www.pbsbdialogue.org or contact: Donata Garrasi at
donata.garrasi@oecd.org.
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Donor engagement in Myanmar: Sending the right signals
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Whether current events in Myanmar are "flickers of progress" (United States
President Barack Obama), "tentative, but real signs of progress" (United
Kingdom International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell), or "quite
extraordinary changes" (European Union High Representative for Foreign
Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton), there are three things the
donor community will have to consider.
First, everything donors do from now on sends a strong message −
whether they scale up, engage differently or change nothing. Since
2003, official development assistance (ODA) to Myanmar has been stagnating
at around USD 5 per capita in real terms, except for 2008, when Cyclone Nargis struck. This is the lowest aid
per capita among least developed
countries and reflects the country's isolation on the international stage so
far. Donors may wish to send a positive signal to acknowledge some recent
development results (e.g. the poverty headcount has dropped from 32% to 26%
between 2005 and 2010) and the fact that some policy and institutional
benchmarks are gradually being met. Or they may choose to scale up only as
further progress is achieved. Beyond aid volumes, how aid is channelled will
also send signals. A European Union Common Position requires implementation
through local administrations or through United Nations agencies and
non-governmental organisations (NGOs) rather than through central
government. But some donors are considering revisiting how they deliver in
case of significant improvements in governance.
Second, donors will have to co-ordinate their response to make sure
they strengthen the hand of the reformers, not the spoilers.
Experience from other countries shows that while scaling up or changing
delivery channels may make sense from a technical or a particular donor's
point of view, it may also have a damaging impact if not well thought
through. For example, the suspension of budget support in response to Sierra
Leone’s failure to meet agreed benchmarks just before elections has been
wrongly interpreted as political support for the opposition over the
incumbent. Similarly, the regime in Myanmar rests on constant negotiations
between both reformers and spoilers, and each camp stands to win or lose
from virtually everything the international community does.
Third, donors have to build capacity to respond to opportunity.
For the first time in the history of its presence in Myanmar, the United
Nations have engaged with the government and donors in a joint analysis of
strategic priorities so as to be ready to engage with the regime effectively
and constructively. If Myanmar is on the threshold of significant change, do
donors and the United Nations have the standing financial and/or operational
rapid response capacity required to implement this joint vision? In
particular, will the shareholders of the Bretton Woods institutions
authorise their re-engagement?
While signing a blank cheque is not an option, neither is failing to respond
to the positive changes in Myanmar. What signals donors decide to send out
in the next weeks will, as much as government's own reforms, set the
direction and pace of a constructive return to the fold of international
relations.
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Feature Article: DAC Chair J. Brian Atwood
Creating a New Global Partnership for Development Co-operation
The Busan Partnership, endorsed at the Fourth High Level
Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, Korea, sets the foundations for
the most inclusive and collaborative international partnership for
development to date. DAC Chair J. Brian Atwood shares his insights
on the efforts that went into gathering the evidence that informed
the Busan process, as well as the diplomacy and whole-of-government
buy-in that helped bring about this landmark agreement.
On 1 December 2011 – at the
Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, Korea – 160
nations, civil society and the private sector endorsed an
11-page statement creating a new Partnership for Effective Development
Co-operation. A fundamental feature of this endorsement was that it included
emerging economies such as China, India and Brazil – nations that, while
still battling with poverty, have become important “providers” of
development co-operation.
How did the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) create such
buy-in out of polarised and highly ideological debates so characteristic of
global politics? How did a series of rather technical meetings on aid
effectiveness turn into a forum for agreement on “the interdependence and
coherence of all public policies”, engaging governments at all levels?
Preparation and participation
The Busan Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation is the
product of an eight-year effort, founded on the engagement of developing
countries and evidence of “best practice”. Its origins can be traced to the
International Conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey, Mexico,
in 2002, which mandated a focus on the quality of development programmes and
reinforced a movement toward increased effectiveness. In Rome in 2003, DAC
donors followed up by meeting with their partners to find ways to harmonise
their efforts. This was followed by a Second High Level Forum in Paris
(2005), which produced the Paris Declaration and established
five effectiveness principles centred on local ownership, alignment of
donor resources with country strategies, harmonisation of activities among
donors, and mutual accountability for results. The Third High Level Forum in
Accra (2008) took things forward, establishing the Accra Agenda for Action
to speed up implementation of agreed commitments. At each of these stages,
participation was widened to ensure inclusiveness.
But perhaps the most innovative device employed in this process was a
DAC-hosted body – the
Working Party on Aid Effectiveness − which evolved into a highly
representative group of some 80 members, with one co-chair from the
developing countries and another from the donor countries. While DAC members
were represented in the group, their position was not dominant, but rather
one of shared ownership.
Evidence for action
Then, just before the Busan summit, an
independent study
provided empirical evidence that, when applied, the Paris Declaration
principles produced tangible results. Nonetheless, another study – a
survey
of 78 developing countries – showed that of the thirteen targets
established in Paris, only one had been met by donor nations. On the other
hand, it evidenced the important progress made by developing countries in
improving their own national systems; these systems, nonetheless, remain
largely ignored by donors.
With this evidence in hand, developing world partners were anxious to
pressure donors to comply with their commitments. Civil society had come on
board, recognising the wisdom of embracing the effectiveness agenda. Human
rights organisations, unions, women’s equality organisations, youth groups,
environmental advocates and other non-governmental organisations (NGOs) had
formed a single umbrella group around the effectiveness principles. The more
amorphous private sector also made moves to participate; they recognised
that this could lead to innovative financing investment tools as well as new
methods for reducing risk in developing countries.
Diplomacy
The biggest challenge to reaching consensus at Busan was bringing
countries like China, India and Brazil on board in their capacity as
providers of South-South co-operation. They were not deeply engaged in
previous High Level Forums and a few had even questioned the legitimacy of
the agreements reached. It was clear that the DAC would have to employ
creative diplomacy if was to overcome traditional and highly ideological
opposition.
Yet conducting diplomacy by committee is no easy feat. It meant
creating consensus on ways of welcoming dialogue and engaging other
providers of assistance. It meant reaching out to create new and more
effective partnerships. It meant building mutual respect, for example
through initiatives such as the China-DAC Study Group, which examined
China’s domestic poverty reduction efforts and their applicability in
Africa. South Africa, Indonesia and Vietnam were already active members of
the Working Party, and the secretariat visited Brazil and India to share
experiences.
Whole-of-government buy-in
Before Busan, engagement in the aid effectiveness forums had been
limited to ministries and agencies directly involved with development. The
result: while commitments to implement the Paris Declaration and the
subsequent Accra Agenda for Action were made in good faith, they lacked
whole-of-government buy-in. Lack of progress in fulfilling these
commitments, at least in part, resulted from constraints imposed by other
parts of government, including executive and parliamentary bodies. Thus, it
was necessary to elevate participation in Busan, directly engaging
representative governmental bodies in the negotiations on the outcome
document. This goal was made more achievable when United States Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon
announced their intention to participate.
Conclusions
Progress on major international issues in a world of dispersed power
requires ongoing efforts by diverse bodies with a stake in the achievement
of a common goal or goals. In Busan, the Millennium Development Goals –
built around the common desire to reduce poverty – provided the unifying
framework for the outcome agreement, founded on “common principles and
differential commitments”.
As we prepare structures to enable the implementation of the Busan
agreement, we will actively explore appropriate working mechanisms for this
differential approach. But whatever the result, the great expenditure of
effort this agreement represents offers a model and a way forward in a
multi-stakeholder world.
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Also in this issue...
News in brief
Shaping the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation.
The
Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness
(HLF-4) in
Busan, Korea, set the stage for a new Global Partnership for Effective
Development Co-operation. Among the first tasks of this partnership will be,
by June 2012, to establish a framework for the implementation of the
commitments agreed in Busan and to agree on a set of indicators and targets
to monitor progress. On 13-14 February 2012, under the aegis of the
Working Party on Aid Effectiveness, the Post-Busan Interim Group (PBIG)
held its first meeting in Paris to begin work on these objectives.
Read more
Empowering rural women. On 31 January and 1 February 2012, members
of the
DAC Network on Gender Equality and the United Nations Inter-Agency
Network on Women and Gender Equality joined forces at a workshop in Addis
Ababa to identify how to strengthen support for rural women. Participants
called for bilateral and multilateral donors to:
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recognise rural women as leaders and agents of change
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strengthen rural women’s property and user rights, including land rights
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ensure
better results and impacts for rural women by building the evidence-base
of what works
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improve practices and behaviours in support of rural women, in line with
the aid effectiveness principles
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use
traditional practices and indigenous knowledge to support rural women
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ensure
that negative impacts of climate change on rural women are mitigated and
that the benefits of green growth flow to women
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invest
in and for rural women.
Workshop
participants will use these messages to make rural women and gender equality
count at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20)
later this year.
Read more
Evaluating budget support. Developing countries and their
international partners are testing ways of working together to produce
better development results. Over the past two decades, some donor countries
have contributed part of their assistance as “budget support”, channelling
it directly through national systems. By aligning with a country’s policies
and priorities, and using country financial and management systems, budget
support aims to reduce the burden of fragmented aid projects and also
strengthen the national systems. But in recent years policy makers have
begun to ask: How do we know if this actually works to reduce poverty and
strengthen country systems? Using a new methodology developed by the
DAC Evaluation Network, independent teams have evaluated the impact of
budget support in Mali, Tunisia and Zambia.
Read more
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The DAC in recent blogs and articles
"What
Makes International Philanthropy Work?", Philanthropy Roundtable, 14
February 2012.
"G20
Priorities: Advance Sustainable Development, Bolster Fragile States",
The Internationalist, 14 February 2012.
[For subscribers of
Development Today] "Busan,
the new global partnership", Development Today, 14 February
2012.
"A
'New Deal' for Fragile States? Promises and Pitfalls", The
Internationalist, 1 February 2012.
"From
emergency aid to development aid: agencies are failing to connect",
Poverty Matters blog, The Guardian, 19 January 2012.
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Peer reviews
Spain. Spain’s Third Master Plan – the country’s development policy for
2009-2012 – has raised development co-operation to the level of a key
foreign policy pillar. The breadth of Spain’s programme, however – including
the high number of partner countries, themes and cross-cutting issues – is
overly ambitious, causing Spain’s aid to be spread too thinly.
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Publications
Greening Development: Enhancing Capacity for Environmental Management and
Governance. This report outlines a number of steps to be considered
when building capacity for greening national development planning, national
budgetary processes and key economic sector strategies. It identifies the
key actors to be engaged in the decision-making processes, outlines possible
capacity needs and suggests how these can be addressed.
DAC Quality Standards for Development Evaluation − trilingual
version in Arabic/French/English. The DAC Quality Standards for
Development Evaluation provide a guide to good practice in development
evaluation. Designed to help improve the quality of evaluation processes and
products in Arabic-speaking countries, this edition is the result of a
collaboration between the United Arab Emirates Office for the Coordination
of Foreign Aid, the African Development Bank, the Islamic Development Bank
and the DAC Evaluation Network.
Other releases
The Busan
High-Level Forum: Five reasons why it was a success. The Fourth High
Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (Busan, Korea, 29 November to 1 December
2011) marked a turning point in international discussions on aid and
development. While the conference had a number of important outcomes, this
leaflet singles out five particularly clear measures of achievement.
DAC List of ODA Recipients. Every three years, the DAC updates its list
of ODA-eligible countries; the accompanying
factsheet
includes useful background information on the list.
Findings of the
DAC Special Review: Slovak Republic. The Slovak Republic has taken
numerous legislative, strategic and institutional measures to strengthen its
development co-operation and achieve its development objectives more
efficiently, effectively and transparently. The review finds that to respond
to remaining challenges, Slovakia should strengthen the leadership of its
development co-operation, increase its visibility and improve ODA delivery.
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