Trends and Issues in Development Aid

Last month Brookings issued a report on worldwide development assistance. Some highlights:

• Net official development assistance (ODA) from the 22 DAC member countries has increased to over $100 billion over the last two years, with a promise of increases of 30 percent over the next three years.
• Non-DAC bilateral assistance (NDBA) is growing rapidly and amounts to more than $8 billion in ODA and $5 billion annually in CPA.
• Private aid (PrA) from DAC member countries might already contribute between $58-68 billion per year, although aggregate data is sketchy.
• Total aid flows to developing countries therefore currently amount to around $180 billion annually.
• Multilateral aid agencies (around 230) outnumber donors and recipients combined.
• Multilaterals only disburse 12 percent of total aid (offi cial plus private), and about one-quarter of total net CPA.

One worrisome item is that only $12.1 billion was available for country programmable assistance in Africa.