SID 2011 Section 5: What is the purpose of UK Expenditure on International Development?

1. This section considers what sectors UK aid supports within developing countries. DFID uses input sector codes to track its expenditure to sectors. An explanation on input sector codes is provided in Section 2. It is important that readers be aware that demonstrating the exact areas on which aid is being spent is not a simple and exact exercise and a certain amount of judgement is involved. Increasingly projects are multi-dimensional and address interrelated policy areas. In addition more innovative types of aid instruments are being introduced. Together these make attributing expenditure to specific topics difficult.

The DFID Programme

2. Figure 11 shows the split of DFID’s bilateral programme between sectors for 2006/07 to 2010/11. In 2010/11, 20 per cent of DFID’s bilateral programme was classified under the ‘Health’ sector (£830m). This was followed by the ‘Government & Civil Society’ (19% or £787m) and the ‘Economic’ (18% or £750m) sectors. ‘Education’ received the next largest amount with 13 per cent (£561m), followed by ‘Humanitarian Assistance’ with 8 per cent (£357m).

Figure 11 DFID Bilateral Programme by Sector, 2006/07 – 2010/11

3. The sector seeing the greatest increase in support in 2010/11 was ‘Education’, which increased by £166m (or 42%). There was also a large increase in the amount of DFID bilateral assistance to ‘Health’, which increased by £147m (or 21%).

4. Figure 12 shows how the DFID bilateral programme is broken down by sector and region. From this figure we can see that compared to the rest of the world, a higher percentage of funding was allocated to the basic services sectors in Africa and Asia (i.e. Health, Education, Water & Sanitation and Social services).

5. In 2010/11, ‘Health’ was the largest sector in Africa (£363m), accounting for 19% of DFID bilateral assistance in Africa. The largest sector in Asia was ‘Government and Civil Society’, accounting for £214m or 20% of the Asia total. In Europe, the Americas and Pacific, ‘Government & Civil Society’ was the largest sector, accounting for £35m (or 42%) of the DFID bilateral assistance in that region.

6. In Africa, support to basic services increased by a total of £181m (or 26 per cent) between 2009/010 and 2010/11: ‘Education’ increased by £100m; ‘Social Services by £42m, ‘Health’ by £36m and ‘Water & Sanitation by £2m.