Surprise! Aid flows are at a new all time high

by | May 7, 2014


So here’s a big surprise. Until last year, global aid flows were declining in the wake of the financial crisis – a trend that was widely expected to continue. But here’s what emerged when the OECD’s 2013 aid statistics came out last month:

Development aid rose by 6.1% in real terms in 2013 to reach the highest level ever recorded, despite continued pressure on budgets in OECD countries since the global economic crisis. Donors provided a total of USD 134.8 billion in net official development assistance (ODA), marking a rebound after two years of falling volumes, as a number of governments stepped up their spending on foreign aid.

An annual survey of donor spending plans by the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) indicated that aid levels could increase again in 2014 and stabilise thereafter.

Admittedly, there are two important qualifiers here. One is that while aid may be at an all-time high in absolute terms, that’s not true for the arguably more important measure of aid as a proportion of donor countries’ gross national income: in 2013 they gave 0.30% of GNI, as compared to 0.32% in 2010 (and way lower, of course, than the 0.7% target).

The other point, flagged up by OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria in his comments on this year’s statistics, is that the trend of falling aid to the neediest countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa (which saw a 4% real terms decrease against 2012), is still happening and appears likely to continue in the future. The new aid stats also show that donor countries only gave 0.09% of their GNI to least developed countries in 2012 – as compared to 0.10% the year before.

Donor countries have got to sort this out. While middle income countries now have access to a huge range of sources of finance for development – foreign direct investment, remittances, commercial debt, portfolio equity, and a vast increase in domestic resources from tax revenue and savings – that doesn’t hold true for low income countries, who are still highly reliant on aid. With the post-2015 agenda now about to move into the home straight, this is the year when donors need to set out a clear timetable for making good on their long-standing promise to give at least 0.15% of their GNI to least developed countries – and ideally go beyond it to 0.20%. And the OECD DAC’s High Level Meeting this December is the right moment to do it.

Author

  • Alex Evans

    Alex Evans is founder of Larger Us, which explores how we can use psychology to reduce political tribalism and polarisation, a senior fellow at New York University, and author of The Myth Gap: What Happens When Evidence and Arguments Aren’t Enough? (Penguin, 2017). He is a former Campaign Director of the 50 million member global citizen’s movement Avaaz, special adviser to two UK Cabinet Ministers, climate expert in the UN Secretary-General’s office, and was Research Director for the Business Commission on Sustainable Development. Alex lives with his wife and two children in Yorkshire.

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