1. This release reports on the deployment of official financial resources by the United Kingdom to support international development, and shows how this funding is broken down by destination country or organisation, type of assistance and purpose.
2. This report provides information on the UK’s Gross Public Expenditure on Development (GPEX) which includes both the Department for International Development (DFID) programme and the element of official UK aid that is delivered through other UK Government Departments. This report also provides information on the level of Official Development Assistance (ODA) provided by the UK.
3. The UK GPEX data presented in this report are produced on a mainly cash basis and are broadly consistent with the standards followed in the reporting of ODA.
4. This publication also covers detailed information on the DFID programme. The DFID programme includes bilateral and multilateral expenditure from DFID funds voted by parliament including activities funded from the Africa Conflict Pool and Global Conflict Pool. Beyond DFID voted funds, the DFID programme also includes an attribution of EC budgetary spending (the UK’s contribution to the EC is paid directly by the Treasury and then attributed to different departments with DFID receiving the attribution of the development budget (note 1). This report also excludes some DFID voted funds which are not counted as aid.
5. The UK is a member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) which is a forum for consultation among 22 donor countries and the European Commission. The DAC sets the definitions and classifications for reporting on aid financing internationally, including ODA, and produces a statistical report on international aid flows annually. As a DAC member, the UK is committed to transparent reporting of development assistance in a way that permits international comparisons.
6. As well as ODA, the DAC also requires international reporting of ‘Other Official Flows’ (OOF). These are official flows to developing countries that do not meet the ODA criteria.
7. To further improve the consistency of the statistics reported here with DAC definitions DFID has introduced the following three key changes in the method for the reporting of the DFID programme:
The first of these changes may alter annual totals but, in the long run, the effect of this will net to zero. The second and third of these changes affect classifications but not summary totals. More details on each change are below.
8. Promissory notes are a method of funding multilateral organisations where DFID ‘deposits’ funds with the Bank of England. Multilateral organisations then ‘encash’ these funds as they need them. When reporting internationally, DFID reports its promissory note deposits. However, in previous editions of SID, DFID has reported its promissory notes encashments. Within this publication, promissory note deposits are reported, consistent with DFID’s international reporting. The effect of this change is laid out in the table below.
9. DFID has introduced a stricter definition of multilateral aid to bring it fully in line with the DAC’s definition. Multilateral aid is now interpreted as core contributions to multilateral organisations as well as aid supporting the internal capacity building of multilateral organisations and aid supporting the administration and staffing costs of multilateral organisations. Any aid delivered through a multilateral organisation where the sector, theme, recipient country/region or specific project the aid will be used to support is known is defined as bilateral aid.
10. This new definition has been applied retrospectively, leading to the reclassification of some expenditure. Any expenditure that has changed classification has been presented in this release as either ‘humanitarian assistance’, ‘debt relief’ or ‘other bilateral aid’. The table below reconciles previously published data with the data presented in this release.
DFID Total Bilateral Programme as published September 2007 (£millions)
1 935
2 111
2 502
2 562
Expenditure previously defined as multilateral aid that meets new bilateral aid definition (£millions)
+75
+88
+153
+221
DFID Total Bilateral Programme as published July 2008 (£millions)
2 010
2 199
2 655
2 783
11. DFID tracks the sectors its aid supports through a group of input sector codes. DFID has introduced a new set of input sector codes this year, more closely aligned with the codes used internationally by the Development Assistance Committee (DAC). This means the sector analysis presented in Tables 5 and 6 are based on a new set of broad sectors and will differ from previously published data. General Budget Support has been notionally allocated to the new broad sectors based on partner government expenditure as previously.
12. The statistics presented in this release may also differ slightly from previously published data due to revisions to the coding of individual projects which have been applied retrospectively.
1. Prior to 2004/05 aid to the group of 10 countries that joined the EC in 2004 was attributed to DFID; since 2004/05 these sums have become part of the UK’s total contribution and cannot be attributed directly to DFID. Similarly in 2007/08 EC aid to Romania and Bulgaria previously attributed to DFID has become part of the UK’s total contribution.
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