Development Assistance Committee Countries Research Articles

Insights from the COVID-19 pandemic: trends in development assistance committee countries’ aid allocation, 2011–2021

ABSTRACT Background Official Development Assistance (ODA) significantly aids sustainable development in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). However, the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted aid allocation, posing challenges for attaining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Objective This study explores and underscores the profound implications of shifts in ODA allocation by Development Assistance Committee (DAC) member countries, resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, offering a unique perspective on the evolving landscape of international aid. Methods Drawing from the gross ODA disbursement data for LMICs by DAC member countries from 2011 to 2021, a linear regression analysis assessed the changes in ODA amount, ODA-to-gross national income (GNI) ratio, sectoral aid allocation, and the balance between bilateral and multilateral aid, primarily focusing on the differences pre- and post-COVID-19. For non-specialised multilateral agencies’ core funding, the OECD’s methodology for calculating imputed multilateral ODA was employed to estimate ODA flows. Results The study found an increasing trend in the total ODA provided by DAC member countries from 2011 to 2021. However, the average ODA/GNI ratio showed a slight but significant decrease before the pandemic, followed by an increase after the COVID-19 pandemic. The health sector received the highest percentage of aid after the pandemic, with a marked increase in both bilateral and multilateral aid. However, other sectors such as humanitarian aid, water and sanitation, and energy experienced a significant decrease in sectoral aid share. Conclusions Emerging from this analysis is a strong recommendation for DAC members to re-evaluate aid objectives and escalate their financial commitments to reinforce SDGs and sustainable development efforts. While the rise in health aid is essential, other sectors also require equal focus to offset the ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic. Understanding the intricacies of aid allocation can improve aid efficacy, culminating in greater, transformative results for recipient countries.

Tracking Development Assistance for Health: A Comparative Study of the 29 Development Assistance Committee Countries, 2011-2019.

Development assistance for health (DAH) is an important part of financing healthcare in low- and middle-income countries. We estimated the gross disbursement of DAH of the 29 Development Assistance Committee (DAC) member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2011–2019; and clarified its flows, including aid type, channel, target region, and target health focus area. Data from the OECD iLibrary were used. The DAH definition was based on the OECD sector classification. For core funding to non-health-specific multilateral agencies, we estimated DAH and its flows based on the OECD methodology for calculating imputed multilateral official development assistance (ODA). The total amount of DAH for all countries combined was 18.5 billion USD in 2019, at 17.4 USD per capita, with the 2011–2019 average of 19.7 billion USD. The average share of DAH in ODA for the 29 countries was about 7.9% in 2019. Between 2011 and 2019, most DAC countries allocated approximately 60% of their DAH to primary health care, with the remaining 40% allocated to health system strengthening. We expect that the estimates of this study will help DAC member countries strategize future DAH wisely, efficiently, and effectively while ensuring transparency.

India’s Engagement in Development and Peacebuilding Assistance in the Post-Conflict States: An Assessment

The emotional and ideological factor to express solidarity with the other developing countries is the main driving factor for India to engage in development assistance. In the changed geopolitical and geo-economic context in the globalized world, the economic factor of access to the market for Indian products and natural resources for its growing industrial sector became the additional motivation. As India does not subscribe to peacebuilding, it has no separate category of peacebuilding assistance. This study’s central focus is on why India’s way of providing development and peacebuilding assistance captured the world’s attention in the 21st century and how India’s ways are different from that of the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) countries. It highlights India’s unique guiding principles, approaches, and modalities for development and peacebuilding assistance. It focuses on why the developing countries appreciated India’s development and peacebuilding assistance, although it is not much in terms of volume compared to the Development Assistance Committee countries. It emphasizes the advantages of accepting diversity instead of an attempt for uniformity in peacebuilding assistance.

Tracking sectoral allocation of official development assistance: a comparative study of the 29 Development Assistance Committee countries, 2011–2018

ABSTRACT Background: Official development assistance (ODA) is one of the most important means for donor countries to foster diplomatic relations with low- and middle-income countries and contribute to the welfare of the international community. Objective: This study estimated the sectoral allocation of gross disbursements of ODA of the 29 Development Assistance Committee (DAC) member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for the duration of 2011 to 2018, by aid type (bilateral, multilateral, and both aids). Methods: Data from the OECD iLibrary were used. The sector definition was based on the OECD sector classification. For core funding to multilateral agencies that do not specialize in each aid sector, we estimated ODA and its flows based on the OECD methodology for calculating imputed multilateral ODA. Results: For all 29 countries, during the period of 2014–2018 where data were available for all the countries, the sector with the highest average annual ODA contribution was health at 20.34 billion USD (13.21%), followed by humanitarian aid at 18.04 billion (11.72%). Humanitarian aid has increased in the sectoral share rankings in both bilateral and multilateral aid, and the sectoral share for refugees in donor countries has increased in bilateral aid. While the 29 countries show relatively similar trends for sectoral shares, some countries and sectors display unique trends. For instance, infrastructure and energy sectors in bilateral aid of Japan are particularly high accounts for 48.48% of the total bilateral ODA of the country in 2018. Conclusions: This paper evaluated ODA trends by major donors of DAC countries in the pre-COVID-19 pandemic periods. We hope that our estimates will contribute to the review of the strategic decision-making and the effective implementation of future ODA policy discussions in the DAC countries while ensuring transparency.

Digitisation at Three UK Herbaria Contributes Towards Food Security and Sustainable Timber Use

The digitisation of herbarium collections has shown to provide a growing resource in conservation science. Mobilising the data on portals such as GBIF allows researchers to access key taxonomic, habitat and geographical data that would otherwise be unavailable unless institutions are physically visited. These data are used notably in conservation assessments, distribution studies and publication of new species (Canteiro et al. 2019). The herbarium specimens held in Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, Natural History Museum, London, and the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh are an unparalleled resource, estimated to hold representatives of around 85% of known plant species. By working collectively for the first time on a non-type material digitisation project, the three institutions collaborated to generate data for the subtribe Phaseolinae and rosewoods totalling 37,000 legume specimens. This pilot project was made possible through Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA)-allocated, Official Development Assistance (ODA) funding. This aid money is distributed by the UK government in its “global efforts to defeat poverty, tackle instability and create prosperity in developing countries”. This project focused on two case-studies: Study i. Supporting development of dry beans as a sustainable and resilient crop. Beans from the subtribe Phaseolinae, including cowpeas, lablab and wild beans, are extremely tolerant of poor-quality soils and drought. As a consequence they are particularly suitable for the low-input agricultural production systems. An estimated 14.5 million hectares of land is used for planting of cowpea each year with around 80% of that in Development Assistance Committee countries in sub Saharan Africa. Study ii. Aiding conservation and sustainable use of rosewoods and padauk (Dalbergia L.f. and Pterocarpus Jacq.). Dalbergia is distributed throughout tropical Asia, Africa and the Americas with many species being regionally endemic. Species also vary in habit from shrubs and trees to robust lianas. Pterocarpus is also pantropically distributed in a wide variety of habitats. However, suitable habitat across the natural range of these genera is now limited for many species due to a range of threats, namely deforestation, forest conversion for agriculture/human development, and logging. The timber from many species of Dalbergia and Pterocarpus has long been prized for its high-quality wood used for construction, fine furniture, cabinet work, marquetry and inlay, ethnic carvings, pianos, guitars and other musical instruments. All Dalbergia and most of the timber species of Pterocarpus are now listed on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) Appendix II and the Brazilian D. nigra is listed on Appendix I. There is a huge illegal trade in these genera and serial depletion across the globe is a real and substantial risk to their survival (Winfield et al. 2016). This project used novel high-throughput methodologies and acted as a pilot study for future collaborative mass digitisation efforts. Specimens were taken from the collections, barcoded and minimal data fields captured, before high resolution images were created and the specimens returned. A subset of these was further subjected to full or partial label transcription via the use of the Atlas of Living Australia's DigiVol crowdsourcing platform or via in-house data capture. The resulting datasets will be made available via GBIF and partner sites and will be used to perform gap analyses on the collections across the institutions. We will examine the benefits of combined institutional data for these groups, assess how many species are represented in total and the geographic coverage of these collections. Use of the data will be measured by the number of downloads from GBIF and observing in-house use cases. Two research projects have just begun within Kew, using the data gathered for Pterocarpus and Lablab Adans., georeferencing for which is already underway and will contribute to conservation assessments and other measurable outputs. A data paper is planned which will also assist with tracking future use of the data set and help demonstrate the impact of the digitisation.

Media development, DAC, and China: different approaches, same public diplomacy

ABSTRACTMore than US $441 million was spent on media development worldwide in 2012, with African countries receiving 28%of that amount. This funding came from a variety of sources, including both established Development Assistance Committee (DAC) countries and emerging donors such as China. These countries and their funds represent a plethora of diverse governmental systems as well as media systems, such as public service broadcasting, privatised media, community media and, in the case of China, state-run media. This paper looks at the divergent approaches to media and development promoted by both DAC countries and China, and how ideologies have led these actors to pursue similar styles of public diplomacy and political intervention through the front of media development aid.

La crise économique et financière de 2008 et l’aide à la santé : les effets de la crise sur la mobilisation des bailleurs

La crise économique et financière entamée en 2008 s’est accompagnée d’une inquiétude grandissante des acteurs de la santé dans les pays en développement : l’aide à la santé allait-t-elle baisser ? Cet article, basé sur une analyse des flux d’aide à la santé fournie par les membres du Comité d’aide au développement (CAD), montre que la crise économique et financière n’a pas conduit à une baisse des engagements des bailleurs. En particulier, le niveau d’engagement des pays du CAD en matière d’aide à la santé est resté globalement supérieur à celui de 2007, une année avant la crise. La répartition entre secteurs est, elle aussi, restée quasiment stable depuis 2007. Toutefois, l’article montre un essoufflement de l’aide.

Is foreign aid a pure public good for donor country citizens?

If donor country citizens are altruistic, their support for foreign aid will be instrumental and the (perceived) effects of a donor’s aid can be enjoyed non-rivalrously by citizens of all countries. Alternatively, donor country citizens may achieve a “warm-glow” from their own contributions to the poor, in which case “own” or “own country” level donations, rather than world donations are the relevant measure. If this is true then, all else equal, we expect smaller countries to have higher per capita aid provisions. This could account for why the small Nordic countries are more generous with foreign aid than a large country like the US. Based on a panel of 27 development assistance committee countries covering the 1985–2005 period. We provide evidence that in large part supports the latter representation of voter interests.

Emergency Aid 2.0

Does the proliferation of aid donors lead to visible changes in the world of foreign assistance? Aid provided by low- and middle-income countries, autocratic regimes and donors operating outside the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the OECD is gaining in importance. This article uses data on emergency aid supplied by 105 donor countries to explore the determinants of aid and the differences in allocation patterns between donor groups. Our results show that both the so-called “new” and “traditional” donors provide emergency aid based on humanitarian need and their self-interests, but we find evidence that non-DAC donors attach relatively more importance to political motives. Additionally, autocratic donors seem to favor countries rich in natural resources and to disfavor democracies. Since the timeliness of the aid delivery is crucial for aid effectiveness, we furthermore analyze which factors influence the number of days that pass after a natural disaster before a donor commits herself to provide emergency relief. With regard to aid promptness, we find DAC, developed and democratic countries to be significantly faster than non-DAC, developing and autocratic countries.

China's Foreign Aid at a Transitional Stage

By estimating China's foreign aid as a proxy for China's bilateral Official Development Assistance and by analyzing its implementation structure and policy, this paper sheds some light on China's foreign aid activities, which have been at a transitional stage. Based on our estimates, the level of foreign aid in terms of net disbursement has increased sharply since 2004, reaching around US$7.1 billion in 2013. Some measures to strengthen the implementation structure to deal with this expansion have been introduced by the central government; however, this transition process needs more time. To facilitate this process, China is attempting to absorb knowhow on development assistance from multilateral institutions and Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's Development Assistance Committee countries that are eager to share their knowledge, with the expectation that China will eventually play a major role in international development.

The Questionable Economics of Development Assistance in Africa: Hot-Fresh Evidence, 1996–2010

This paper assesses the aid-development nexus in 52 African countries using updated data (1996–2010) and a new indicator of human development (adjusted for inequality). The effects of Total Net Official Development Assistance (NODA), NODA from the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) and NODA from Multilateral donors on economic prosperity (at national and per capita levels) are also examined. The findings broadly indicate that development assistance is detrimental to GDP growth, GDP per capita growth and inequality adjusted human development. The magnitude of negativity (which is consistent across specifications and development dynamics) is highest for NODA from Multilateral donors, followed by NODA from DAC countries. Given concerns on the achievement of the MDGs, the relevance of these results point to the deficiency of foreign aid as a sustainable cure to poverty in Africa. Though the stated intents or purposes of aid are socio-economic, the actual impact from the findings negates this. It is a momentous epoque to solve the second tragedy of foreign aid; it is high time economists and policy makers start rethinking the models and theories on which foreign aid is based. In the meantime, it is up to people who care about the poor to hold aid agencies accountable for piecemeal results. Policy implications and caveats are discussed.

Political Power and Aid-Tying Practices in the Development Assistance Committee Countries

This paper uses a panel of 22 OECD Development Assistance Committee countries to examine whether fragmentation of executive power and the degree of competition from the legislative branch of government increased the amount of tied aid over the period 1979–2009. Fragmentation is defined as the degree to which the costs of a dollar of aid expenditure are internalized by decision-makers and is measured as the number of decision-makers in government. Legislative competition is defined as the relative strength of the government in relation to the legislature. Three variables are used to capture this effect. The empirical results show tied aid, both in levels and as a percentage of total aid, increases as the number of decision-makers within the government increases, and decreases as the proportion of excess seats a governing coalition holds above a simple majority increases.

International norms and distinctive policy choices in global AIDS funding: Comparative case studies of Norway and Belgium

In response to urgent call for international cooperation against HIV/AIDS, all members of Development Assistance Committee (DAC) converged in foreign aid policy decision for the health crisis within a relatively short period of time frame. However, there also existed variations among the DAC with respect to developing pattern of global AIDS funding. The research attempts to explore both convergence and divergence in the policy choices of global AIDS funding of DAC countries. When it comes to the convergence, it is the mechanism of norms teaching that encouraged the DAC to make financial contribution for the global fight against HIV/AIDS based on the sense of obligation and urgency. With regard to the distinctive pattern of the policy choices, it depends on the different norms stage each country was embedded in. The norms stage was distinctively constituted by each country’s different historical background, political institutions and public opinion. I examine the cases of Norway and Belgium both of which converged in the decision of the foreign aid yet varied in the policy choices of funding increase. Institutional harmonization and policy coherence took place in Norway in the stage of norms internalization, while Belgium launched transformation of institutional structure at the stage of norms acceptance.

Consult Your Gods: The Questionable Economics of Development Assistance in Africa

This paper assesses the aid-development nexus in 52 African countries using updated data (1996-2010) and a new indicator of human development (adjusted for inequality). The effects of Total Net Official Development Assistance (NODA), NODA from the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) and NODA from Multilateral donors on economic prosperity (at national and per capita levels) are also examined. The findings broadly indicate that development assistance is detrimental to GDP growth, GDP per capita growth and inequality adjusted human development. The magnitude of negativity (which is consistent across specifications and development dynamics) is highest for NODA from Multilateral donors, followed by NODA from DAC countries. Given concerns on the achievement of the MDGs, the relevance of these results point to the deficiency of foreign aid as a sustainable cure to poverty in Africa. Though the stated intents or purposes of aid are socio-economic, the actual impact from the findings negates this. It is a momentous epoque to solve the second tragedy of foreign aid; it is high time economists and policy makers start rethinking the models and theories on which foreign aid is based. In the meantime, it is up to people who care about the poor to hold aid agencies accountable for piecemeal results. Policy implications and caveats are discussed.

Foreign Aid as Globalization: Does the Road to Aid Parallel Trade?

Studies of foreign aid have followed work in international political economy that explore and test the microfoundations of common political economy models. Nevertheless, they remain focused on determinants of aid in the “traditional” donors: members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC). Non-DAC donors and potential donors (that is, the states that do not give aid) are frequently ignored. I argue that a Stolper-Samuelson model of relative endowments of skilled and unskilled labor determine preferences for aid, just as they do for trade. Aid can alter factor endowments and their productivity in the recipient country. These changes, in turn, affect the returns to factors in potential donor countries and thus influence preferences among citizens. I test this approach using the 1995 World Values Survey. I contribute to the literature on individual preferences for aid by testing this argument without respect to a country’s donor status: both DAC, non-DAC, and non-donor countries are included in this sample. I then discuss “next steps” to connect individual level aid research to macro-level data.

How Concessional is Aid Lending?

The method used by Development Assistance Committee countries for measuring the concessionality of aid loans has remained unchanged for nearly 20 years. It was designed to measure the net cost of aid to donors not the net benefit to recipients. The discount rate used takes no account of changes in the value of the currency of the loan or of changes in prices for goods traded by recipient countries. Furthermore, it does not consider the implications of tying of aid or of policy conditionality. This paper suggests an alternative measure that shows the real net benefit of aid finance to recipients. It argues that the discount rate used by the Development Assistance Committee is too high and that changes in the value of the currency in which a loan is taken out can be important. Nevertheless, real rates of interest for developing countries remain surprisingly high despite low nominal rates due to falling prices of traded goods. This finding has implications for the future real cost of debt service to recipients.