Official Development Aid: Trends of the Last Decade

994
DOI: 10.20542/0131-2227-2019-63-9-86-92

A. Morozkina (a.k.morozkina@gmail.com),
Financial Research Institute, Economic Expert Group, 15/13, bld. 5, Petrovka Str., Moscow, 107031, Russian Federation 

Abstract. Active growth of development assistance during the last decade gave a birth to the concept of increasing concentration of donor’s attention on developing countries’ needs and fairer allocation of development aid. Based on the OECD DAC data from 2008 to 2017 the article analyzes the structure of official development aid by donors, geographical distribution, instruments, channels and forms of development aid after the crisis of 2008–2009 in order to test the soundness of this concept. First, analysis of structure of aid by donors shows increasing role of new donors, including Arab countries, and private donors. Giving unpredictability of Arab aid, this trend may not be sustainable. Second, examination of main recipient groups demonstrates reduction of share of Official Development Assistance (ODA) directed to the least developed countries, although concentration on the 8 largest recipients decreased. Third, study of the instruments shows decrease of grants’ share in ODA, and still large share of grants allocated to uppermiidle income recipients. Although DAC countries made efforts aimed at stimulation of disbursement of grants and softening of loan terms, current steps are not enough to change the trend. Fourth, analysis of forms of ODA demonstrates increasing share of in-donor ODA expenditures, mainly due to growing refugees costs. Also it shows that growing share of ODA allocated to the least developed countries, highlighted by the previous researches, is to a large extent associated with humanitarian aid and debt actions, and not with the aid aimed at financing development. Furthermore, expenditures on development measured by country programmable aid (CPA) decreases during the last decade. This is a clear indicator of decreasing donors’ attention to the needs of recipient countries. Thus, comparison of directions and structure of aid before and after financial crisis supports the hypothesis of donors’ selfishness. There is an urgent need to create additional incentives for distributing the development assistance in favor of the most needy countries

Keywords: official development assistance (ODA), bilateral aid, OECD, Development Assistance Committee 


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For citation:
Morozkina A. Official Development Aid: Trends of the Last Decade. World Eсonomy and International Relations, 2019, vol. 63, no. 9, pp. 86-92. https://doi.org/10.20542/0131-2227-2019-63-9-86-92



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