Statistics on International Development 2007

Section 3

Contents | Section 1 | Section 2 | Section 3 | Section 4 | Table Index


Major recipients of UK aid | Bilateral Aid by Region | Aid in low income countries | Aid to Multilateral Organisations | DFID Aid through Civil Society

Where does the UK expenditure on International Development go?

1. This section shows the destination countries of bilateral aid, and for multilateral aid, the organisations to which flows are directed. It also reports on flows from the UK’s aid budget to Civil Society Organisations1 (CSOs). The rationale for classifying assistance as bilateral or multilateral is explained in Section 1

2. In this section, Tables 9excel (30 kb) to 19excel (30 kb) show aid flows to individual countries, regions and country groupings (e.g. Commonwealth countries, Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) and low, middle and high income countries). Tables 17excel (27 kb) and 18excel (32 kb) give details of multilateral expenditure. Table 19excel (30 kb) shows UK flows to Civil Society Organisations. Some tables report DFID/ GPEX data and others ODA, as indicated by the table titles.

Major recipients of UK Aid

3. Tables 9excel (30 kb) to 11excel (24 kb) highlight the top twenty recipient countries of DFID bilateral aid and UK ODA (the former is shown including and excluding humanitarian assistance2 ) and Table 12excel ( 23 kb) shows the top ten recipients of DFID humanitarian assistance.

4. Despite a reduction in volume this year, India continues to receive by far the greatest amount of DFID bilateral aid to an individual country (£234m in 2006/07), with Tanzania in second place (£112m) and Sudan third (£110m). In total, the top twenty recipients of DFID’s bilateral aid received 64 per cent of the total bilateral programme (Table 9excel).

5. Of UK bilateral ODA, Nigeria, India and Afghanistan were the top three recipients in 2006. The Nigeria figure reflects substantial sums of debt relief in this year,  (Table 10excel).

6. Sudan received the largest amount of DFID humanitarian assistance in 2006/07, £84m (Table 12excel). Sudan ranked third in terms of its overall receipt of DFID bilateral aid, however excluding humanitarian assistance, it was ranked twentieth (Table 11excel).

7. Some changes to country rankings in 2005/06 and 2006/07 can be attributed to humanitarian assistance allocated in order to meet immediate relief needs following recent natural disasters.

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Bilateral Aid by Region

8. Table 13excel (32 kb) summarises data on DFID bilateral expenditure and GPEX for regions and a range of country groupings (e.g. Commonwealth countries, HIPC countries and low, middle and high income countries). Table 14.1excel (60 kb) expands on Table 13excel (32 kb) and reports on the destination countries.

Figure 8
DFID Bilateral Aid by Region 2002/03 – 2006/07

Stacked bar chart showing distribution of DFID bilateral spend by region

9. In 2006/07 44 per cent of DFID’s bilateral programme was spent in Africa, 34 per cent in Asia, 2 per cent in each of Europe and the Americas and less than 1 per cent in the Pacific. The remaining 17 per cent was not allocated to a particular region as it benefited all partner countries.

10. UK expenditure to multilateral organisations cannot be directly allocated to any one country.  However, Table 16.1excel (22 kb) contains estimates of the UK's imputed share of multilateral ODA by country. Of the UK's contributions to multilateral institutions in 2005, £642m was spent as ODA in Africa, £416m in Asia, £90m in the Americas, £136m in Europe and £10m in the Pacific.

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Aid in Low Income Countries

 11. Table 15excel (25 kb) breaks down the DFID programme by the income group3 of the recipient countries. In 2006/07, 84 per cent of country specific bilateral aid excluding humanitarian assistance was spent in low income countries.

12. Table 16.1 - 16.6 shows how bilateral ODA from the UK and all DAC donors was split among different countries and regions in 2005 (the last year for which data are available for all columns in the table). This table also shows the total amount of multilateral ODA provided to each country and an estimated value for the UK’s share of this multilateral ODA.

13. Table 17excel ( 27 kb) compares the percentages of bilateral ODA given to low, middle and high income countries for all DAC donors and for multilateral agencies in 2005. It can be seen that the UK gave a higher proportion of ODA (73 per cent) to low income countries than all DAC donors, with the exception of Ireland who gave 81 per cent and Denmark who gave 78 per cent. Eleven countries gave less than 50 per cent of their ODA to low income countries; Austria, Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and the United States.

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Aid to Multilateral Organisations

14. Table 18excel (32 kb) shows DFID contributions to different multilateral organisations alongside contributions from other UK Government Departments. In 2006/07 DFID spent £2,126m through multilateral agencies with the greatest amounts being channelled through the EC, World Bank Group and UN agencies. DFID increased payments through the World Bank Group by £319m to £592m in 2006/2007. This increase can be attributed to the UK’s contribution to the International Development Association (the World Bank’s concessional lending department).

 In 2006/07, there was a large increase in DFID contributions to the Regional Development Banks as a group of £46m (59 per cent) over the previous year. This includes particularly large increases to the African and Asian Development Funds (£30m and £12m respectively). DFID flows to the ‘Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria’ increased by £30m and to Commonwealth agencies grew by £3m.

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DFID Aid through Civil Society Organisations

15. CSOs are non-governmental organisations which play a vital role in building global alliances in support of eliminating world poverty. Table 19excel (30 kb) sets out allocations in the last financial year to these agencies and the types of arrangements through which funds were given (terms are explained in the glossary).

16.. In total funds disbursed through this channel increased slightly in 2006/07 (£274m) compared with 2005/06 (£261m). The British Red Cross was the single largest recipient of DFID funding (£52m), followed by VSO (£29m) and Oxfam (£20m). It should be noted that these funds appear as ‘other bilateral aid’ in Tables 3excel, 13 excel and 14.1excel 4.

1. See glossary for definition.
2. Humanitarian assistance can generate particularly large flows in certain years in response to emergency situations, meaning that countries that are not usually major recipients of UK aid appear in the top twenty rankings. This explains the convention of reporting the lists both including and excluding humanitarian assistance.
3. Income groups are classified using 2004 GNI per capita thresholds. This differs from those used in calculating progress towards DFID's 2005-2008 target.
4. Table 3excel (23 kb) includes only expenditure for UK CSOs hence the figures are smaller than those shown in Table 1excel (19 kb) which include expenditure through non-UK CSOs.