1. This section summarises the level of UK expenditure on international development in recent years and then presents comparisons between the UK and other donors.
Gross Public Expenditure on Development (GPEX)
2. In 2011/12 total GPEX was £8,950m (see Table 1). This represents a decrease of £57m (0.6%) on 2010/11 and a 48% increase on 2007/08.
3. In 2011/12 the DFID programme made up £7,682m or 86 per cent of total GPEX. Non-DFID aid (£1,267m or 14%) made up the remainder.
Figure 1 Gross Public Expenditure on Development, 2007/08 – 2011/12
4. Total GPEX in 2011/12 remained at a similar level to 2010/11. Total administration has increased as a result of the introduction of an improved method for tracking development-related expenditure by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). Total bilateral GPEX fell by £133m in 2011/12 mainly due to decreases in CDC gross investments, Department for Energy and Climate Change expenditure on development and DFID bilateral expenditure.
5. The value of the DFID programme grew steadily between 2007/08 and 2010/11 and remained level in 2011/12. In 2011/12, the total DFID programme was £7,682m (see Table 3). This is a very similar level to 2010/11 (£7,689m). Since 2007/08 DFID’s programme has grown by 48 per cent. This represents an average annual increase of 8 per cent.
6. Figure 3 shows changes in the level and composition of DFID’s programme over the last five years. In 2011/12 over half of DFID’s total programme (55%) was bilateral assistance (£4,204m) and £3,258m (42%) was multilateral assistance. This composition is very similar to 2010/11.
Figure 2 DFID Programme, 2007/08 – 2011/12
Figure 3: Flow of DFID funds to developing countries, 2011/12, £millions
7. DFID’s bilateral programme was £4,204m in 2011/12, a small decrease of £44m compared to 2010/11 (1%). Overall, DFID’s bilateral programme has increased over the last five years, with bilateral expenditure 42 per cent higher in 2011/12 than 2007/08.
1. The chart below shows that the majority of DFID bilateral assistance in 2011/12 was delivered by Country Programmes (£3,050m or 73%). However, about a quarter of DFID bilateral assistance was funded through the budgets of International/ Policy Programmes. It is not possible to allocate the majority of the International/ Policy Programmes expenditure to a single benefiting country or region. There are a few reasons for this:
Figure 4 DFID Bilateral Expenditure by Country Programme or Policy/International Programme 2011/12
8. Figure 5 provides a summary breakdown of DFID’s bilateral programme. In 2011/12, over a third was delivered through a multilateral organisation (£1,405m or 33.4%). Just over a quarter (£1,081m or 26%) was provided as financial aid in 2011/12. Almost half of this (£537m) or 13 per cent of all DFID’s bilateral assistance was Poverty Reduction Budget Support, with ‘other financial aid’ contributing £545m (13%). £740m (18%) of bilateral assistance was delivered though NGOs, £528m (13%) as technical cooperation; and £354m (8%) as humanitarian assistance.
Figure 5 DFID Bilateral Assistance, 2007/08 – 2011/12
9. Bilateral assistance delivered through a multilateral organisation remained fairly level in 2011/12, decreasing by 4% (£61m) compared to 2010/11. This followed a sharp increase in 2009/10. This rise to £1,265m in 2009/10 from £656m in 2008/09 was due to a number of new bilateral contributions to multi donor pooled funds that are managed by a multilateral organisation such as the Environmental Transformation Fund and the IDA Social Protection & Crisis Response fund.
10. DFID’s multilateral assistance was £3,258m in 2011/12. This is a similar level to the 2010/11 figure of £3,222m. Figure 6 provides a summary of DFID’s multilateral assistance over the last five years. In 2011/12 DFID’s multilateral assistance went primarily the EC (£1,220m or 37% of total), World Bank Group (£1,039m or 32%) and the United Nations (£377m or 12%). Other recipients, including Regional Development Banks, received a total of £622m (19%). [Table 18 provides a detailed breakdown.]
Figure 6 DFID Multilateral Assistance, 2007/08 – 2011/12
11. DFID channelled £1,405m of its bilateral assistance through the bilateral aid type ‘Bilateral through a Multilateral Organisation’ in 2011/12. (See Figure 6 above). Some other bilateral aid types (such as Humanitarian Assistance or Debt Relief) also channel funding through multilateral organisations. £244m was channelled through multilaterals in this way in 2011/12. This means that in total, £1,649m (39%) of DFID’s bilateral programme and £4,907m (64%) of DFID’s total programme was channelled through multilateral organisations.
12. The UK, in line with other donors, reports cancellation of aid loans on a lump sum basis to the OECD-DAC. This means that the total outstanding debt is reported as ODA in the year in which a bilateral deal is signed between the UK and a debtor country, except for countries reaching Completion Point under HIPC where the date of the multilateral agreement is used as the date for DAC reporting.
13. The various components of UK debt relief are summarised in Table 4. In 2011/12, DFID debt relief of £91m represented 1 per cent of the DFID programme. Total UK debt relief of £182m represents 2 per cent of total GPEX. Countries receiving DFID and non-DFID debt relief are shown in Tables 14 and 5 respectively.
14. Table 6 shows the volume of UK ODA reported to the DAC in each of the last three years alongside information on Other Official and Private Flows. In 2011, total net ODA amounted to £8,629m. This represented 0.56 per cent of the UK’s gross national income in that year. More detail on ODA by destination country is shown in Section 4 in Tables 16.1 to 16.6.
15. In 1970 the UN General Assembly endorsed a target that 0.7 per cent of the gross national income of developing countries should be given as ODA. The UK Government is committed to reaching the UN target of 0.7 per cent by 2013. Figure 7 shows that since 1999 the UK ODA/GNI ratio has been on a broadly upward trajectory. In 2010 it reached its highest level since the target was set of 0.57 per cent. In 2011, it fell slightly to 0.56 per cent, the UK’s target for that year. The high levels of ODA in 2005 and 2006 reflect high levels of debt relief, particularly for Nigeria, in line with commitments made by the UK and other donors at the 2005 G8 Summit in Gleneagles. A full time-series of the level of UK ODA and the ODA/GNI ratio since 1970 is shown in Table 7.
Figure 7 Net ODA/GNI ratios for the UK 1998-2011
16. Table 8 and Figures 8 and 9 compare UK ODA figures and ODA/GNI ratios with those of other DAC countries. Some countries have already reached the 0.7 per cent ODA/GNI target (Norway, Sweden, Luxembourg, Denmark and the Netherlands), while other are some way off (Greece, Italy, Japan and Korea). Sweden has the highest ODA/GNI ratio (1.02 per cent) followed by Norway (1.00 per cent) and Luxembourg (0.99 per cent). The UK had the 6th highest ODA/GNI ratio in 2011.
17. Despite its realtively low ODA/GNI ratio, the USA was the largest donor in terms of total expenditure in 2011 followed by Germany and then the UK.
Figure 8 Provisional Net ODA from DAC Donors to Developing Countries 2011
Figure 9 Provisional Net ODA/GNI ratios for DAC donors 2011
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