Go directly to: Official development assistance - Resource flows beyond ODA - Country programmable aid - Modernisation of the DAC statistical system - Total official support for sustainable development - Untied aid
The concept of ODA, or aid, was defined over 50 years ago. It refers to financial support - either grants or "concessional" loans from OECD-DAC member countries to developing countries. These funds are provided to advance development in areas such as health, sanitation, education, infrastructure, and strengthening tax systems and administrative capacity, among others.
The tracking of ODA is crucial for informed decision-making to ensure aid goes where it is most needed.
ODA is tracked and monitored by the OECD DAC so that individual donor efforts are measured alongside the wider array of resources that are available to developing countries. We inform donors about where aid should be targeted, and provide a clearer picture of the resource flows available to developing countries.
More about Official development assistance (ODA)
See also ODA 2015 figures (news release)
Since the Monterrey Consensus in 2002, questions about broader development finance, including how to best mobilise private resources for development, have been at the heart of the political debate on development finance. To respond to the increasing analytical needs in this area, the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) Secretariat is working to improve the quality and policy-relevance of its statistics on resource flows to developing countries beyond Official Development Assistance (ODA).
Resource flows beyond ODA include:
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Country programmable aid (CPA) is a subset of official development assistance (ODA).
CPA gives a more accurate picture of how much of ODA - which includes grants, concessional loans, debt relief, humanitarian aid, development research, and administration costs within donor countries - is actually transferred to the partner countries.
Data on CPA is available from 2000 and is derived annually.
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The DAC statistical system is being modernised to better reflect the new global development landscape. The modernisation, which includes the new measurement of ODA, TOSSD and cross-cutting issues, can incentivise development spending and improve its targeting.
The modernisation of the DAC statistical system contributes to broader global efforts to monitor international resource mobilisation for implementing the post-2015/2030 agenda. The DAC has embarked on a process of modernising its system for measuring official development assistance (ODA) and agreed to capture in OECD DAC statistics, the wide array of support provided beyond concessional finance through a measure of Total Official Support for Sustainable Development, TOSSD.
More about the The modernisation of official development assistance (ODA)
The Addis Ababa Action Agenda clearly reaffirms the need to mobilise all available funding – public and private – to achieve the ambitious 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The scale of required financing to realise these major international endeavours is unprecedented.
The OECD is:
A new measure has been proposed and is provisionally entitled: total official support for sustainable development (TOSSD).
Going forward, the OECD will do its part to support international collaboration to shape and operationalise the TOSSD measurement framework.
More about Total official support for sustainable development (TOSSD)
See also the OECD pilot exercise with the United Arab Emirates on broadening development finance
Evidence has shown that "tied" aid - offering aid on the condition that it be used to procure goods or services from the provider of the aid - can increase the costs of a development project by as much as 15-30%. Untying aid, on the other hand, avoids unnecessary costs and gives the recipient the freedom to procure goods and services from virtually any country. Annual reviews monitor progress of member governments' untying efforts with respect to the Untying Recommendation and other international agreements. We also offer a global portal of ODA contract opportunities for the benefit of the international business community.
More about United aid
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