The OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) collects data on donor countries aid flows to developing countries and multilateral organisations. This is a useful source of data to conduct comparisons between donors.
The main statistic used from DAC data is Official Development Assistance (ODA), which is defined as:
"Grants and concessional loans for development and welfare purposes from the government sector of a donor country to a developing country or multilateral agency active in development. ODA includes the costs to the donor of project or programme aid, technical cooperation, debt forgiveness, food and emergency aid, and associated administration costs."
According to the United Nations target established in 1970, each donor should aim to spend 0.7% of its Gross National Income (GNI) as ODA. DFID reports on progress against this target twice a year; using provisional data in March and finalised data later in the year published in Statistics on International Development.
In March provisional data on the previous calendar year is reported to the DAC in the ‘Advanced Questionnaire’. This information is also published on the DFID website in National Statistics release ‘Provisional UK ODA as a proportion of GNI’. The latest release is available here:
Later in the year finalised data is reported in the ‘DAC Questionnaire’ and the ‘Creditor Reporting System’. Information on final ODA is published in the DFID National Statistics publication ‘Statistics on International Development’ which is available here:
More detailed breakdowns of ODA from the UK and from other donors is available from the DAC’s interactive Query Wizard on International Development (QWIDS).
More information on what is included in the ODA definition and how these are used by the DAC can be found on the DAC’s website.
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