Q&A
Here are some frequently asked questions about aid statistics and aid information.
What are the main sources of data on aid resources and development assistance?
What is the DAC and why use its data?
Who supplies aid data and on what basis?
How timely is data on aid and development resources?
What is the Financial Tracking System (FTS)?
What do the terms "bilateral" and "multilateral" official development assistance (ODA) mean?
Why are there sometimes differences between a country's own data and the DAC data?
What is debt relief and how is it reported?
What's the difference between "constant" and "current" prices?
How is inflation accounted for in the official aid data?
How are exchange rates accounted for in the official aid data?
What's the difference between pledges, commitments, disbursements and expenditure?
How can I get more help on aid data and statistics?
What are the main sources of data on aid resources and development assistance?
The OECD DAC and CRS online databases cover bilateral and multilateral donor aid and other resource flows to developing countries.
From the DAC online database:
- Table 1 for all disbursements of ODA from 1960
- Table 2a for disbursements by recipient country and region
- Table 5 for all commitments by sector
- Table 7 for tying status of ODA
From the CRS database
- Table 1 for all commitments and all details from 1973
Both are available at: oecd.org/dac/stats/idsonline
While reporting to the CRS is voluntary, reporting to DAC online on official and private flows is mandatory for DAC member countries.
UN OCHA's Financial Tracking System (FTS) is a major source of project-level data on humanitarian aid flows. Reporting to the FTS is voluntary.
What is the DAC and why use its data?
The DAC is the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD. Its members are: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Sweden, the UK, the US and the European Commission.
The DAC, set up in 1960, has set an internationally agreed upon standard definition for what can and cannot be counted as official development assistance (ODA). ODA is made up of grants or concessional loans given by the official sector to a defined list of developing countries. The promotion of economic development and welfare must be the main objective. If a loan is given, the grant element must be at least 25% (this measures the concessionality of the loan based on its interest rate, maturity and grace period of a grant would be 100%). Loans or grants for military purposes cannot count as ODA.
All DAC members are required to report their ODA expenditure each year. What is reported as ODA is governed by strict rules, with which all members of the DAC must comply. This means that there are objective, internationally comparable figures for ODA going back to 1960, which are produced and validated by the OECD DAC each year. These provide an accepted benchmark for measuring performance.
Who supplies aid data and on what basis?
To the UN OCHA Financial Tracking System (FTS): Donors - governments that might or might not be members of the DAC and/or OECD plus multilateral agencies and NGOs - supply data on commitments on a voluntary basis by using a standard form called the ‘the 14 Point Format'. Donors can chose what they report to the FTS. Multilateral agencies voluntarily report on assistance received. Data can be recorded ‘inside' or ‘outside' the appeal; in other words, allocated to an agency and project/sector specified as part of the UN consolidated appeal process (CAP) or allocated to the country/situation but to agencies or projects/sectors which are not included in the appeal.
Commitments inside the appeal are reported as a 'contribution' once they have been confirmed by the recieving organisation.
Contributions made outside the appeal are not validated and so cannot be classed as guaranteed disbursements.
Information is added daily and available online as updates are made.
For more on FTS data and scope.
For more on FTS definitions.
To the OECD DAC: Reporting of official development assistance (ODA) expenditure is mandatory for all DAC members - Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Sweden, the UK, the US and the European Commission.
Reporting is based on common definitions and procedures, so the data is comparable over time and between donors and recipient countries. Final data is published in the December following the year of the expenditure.
How timely is data on aid and development resources?
The DAC releases preliminary ODA figures relating to the preceding calendar year each April. The preliminary data provides a basic breakdown (i.e. by region, but not by sector) and is subject to revision. The final data, which includes a full breakdown of the ODA figures by sector, is released in December.
Information is added daily and available online as updates are made. (Commitments reported (voluntarily) inside the appeal are reported as a 'contribution' once they have been confirmed by the recieving organisation. Contributions made outside the appeal are not validated and so cannot be classed as guaranteed disbursements.)
What is the Financial Tracking System (FTS)?
OCHA's FTS captures voluntary statements of contributions to humanitarian assistance from over 60 countries. FTS data primarily covers contributions for countries that are the subject of a consolidated appeal or in response to a natural disaster and which have been reported to the FTS either by the donor or by the recipient agency. This is known as the consolidated appeals process (CAP).
All DAC donors have reported contributions to the FTS since 1994 - though not all donors might report the totality of their official expenditure and, in some instances, expenditure to the FTS might include elements that are outside the strict official definiton of ODA.
Visit ReliefWeb for more information.
What do the terms "bilateral" and "multilateral" official development assistance (ODA) mean?
DAC data on ODA from donor countries measures the outflow of resources from donors and it splits this into two categories: bilateral and multilateral.
Multilateral ODA is comprised of the contributions made to multilateral organisations that are completely unearmarked that can be used anywhere (with the exception of some regional banks). Therefore, by definition, the multilateral contributions from each donor are not disaggregated by country.
Bilateral ODA includes all other activities that are eligible to be counted as ODA, including earmarked funding which is given to a multilateral organisation. Donors report to the DAC on how much bilateral ODA goes to each region. Therefore DAC data tell us how much of each donor's bilateral ODA has gone to a specific country or region each year.
Multilateral agencies are both recipients of ODA from bilateral donors and donors of funds to recipient countries and sectors (multilateral expenditure). The DAC reports how much has been contributed to each multilateral from each donor, but, as noted above, it does not break this down by sector or country. However, it also reports how much has been spent by each multilateral agency by country and sector. (These two sets of information can be combined in order to work out the contribution from each donor to a sector or a country.)
Why are there sometimes differences between the DAC's data and a country's own data?
A country's own data may follow a different financial year or a country may report in categories that are different from the DAC-defined ODA category. Management of development assistance is often split between several ministries and, while activities by all of these collectively should be reported in the DAC ODA figures, the domestic reporting may only cover the activities of the main aid ministry. Government reporting is often based on budgets; DAC reporting deals with annual disbursements. In addition, a number of countries use multiple coding, where an activity will be coded for several sectors (for instance 20% to water, 50% to health, 30% to infrastructure) but DAC coding allows for only one sector per project.
What is debt relief and how is it reported?
Debt relief may take the form of cancellation, rescheduling, refinancing or reorganisation of debt. Relief is relief from the burden of repaying both the principal and interest on past loans. Debt rescheduling is a form of relief where principal or interest payments are delayed or rearranged. Debt refinancing is where a new loan or grant is arranged to enable the debtor country to meet the service payments on an earlier loan.
Donors account for multilateral debt cancellation in their ODA through their contributions to the institutions that cancel debts. For bilateral debt, under current rules, once debt has been cancelled, donors can report the whole face value of the debt as ODA. This means that the principal, interest and penalties on arrears for the whole period that the debt has remained unpaid are counted in the ODA figures at the point of cancellation, and are included in the DAC reports on progress towards the 0.7% and other aid targets.
This amount does not reflect either the value to the developing country or the cost to the donor country of cancelling the debt.
Debt relief is immensely valuable and as a result of it governments are now able to spend resources on health, education and stronger economies instead of debt servicing. However, as noted above, the rules on counting debt cancellation as development assistance, which are set by the donors themselves, overstate both the value of the debt relief and what the donor has to pay to provide it. Exactly how much should be counted is unclear due to lack of transparency by donors in terms of what budget provisions they must make to provide debt cancellation.
What's the difference between "constant" and "current" prices?
Constant (or 'real') prices are expressed using a fixed reference point or base year, allowing you to show how expenditure has changed over a period of time after removing the effects of exchange rates and inflation. (In 2008, the base year being used in the OECD DAC statistics is 2006.)
Current (or 'nominal') prices are expressed in terms of their value in the year in which the expenditure actually took place.
How is inflation accounted for in official aid data?
The DAC uses deflators to remove the effects of both inflation and exchange rate changes on nominal figures, allowing comparison in a fixed and readily understood unit of measurement of aid given at different times and in different currencies.
Deflators for resource flows from DAC donors are available from the following OECD DAC page.
How are exchange rates accounted for in official aid data?
The DAC uses deflators to remove the effects of both inflation and exchange rate changes on nominal figures, allowing comparison in a fixed and readily understood unit of measurement of aid given at different times and in different currencies.
Deflators for resource flows from DAC donors are available from the following OECD DAC page.
What's the difference between pledges, commitments, disbursements and expenditure?
A pledge is generally understood to mean a non-binding announcement of an intended
contribution or allocation by the donor.
A commitment is a firm obligation expressed in writing and backed by the availability of the necessary funds for a particular project, programme, sector, trust fund or to support the domestic budget. The commitment date is the date of that written
agreement. Commitments are usually multi-year – i.e., they are designed to fund expenditures for several years.
A disbursement is the placement of resources at the disposal of the government or implementing agency. The disbursement date is the date at which those funds are made available.
Expenditure is the actual spending of funds.
How can I get more help on aid data and statistics?
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