Arab-Related Bilateral and Multilateral Sources of Development Finance: Issues, Trends, and the Way Forward

aid, official development assistance, Arab agencies, Development Assistance Committee

Making development co-operation fit for the future: a survey of partner countries

This paper provides insights into what partner country governments anticipate will be their main development challenges within five to ten years, and into how they expect their relationships with Development Assistance Committee development assistance providers to evolve in order to meet these challenges Abstract Based on results from an OECD-commissioned survey of 40 developing country governments, the paper finds that demand for development co-operation will remain strong given the economic and environmental challenges that lie ahead. However, the countries surveyed expect Development Assistance Committee (DAC) providers to shift to a more enabling role in the coming years: providing vital finance, but in support of government-led sector programmes; delivering more and better technical and policy support; and leveraging more private finance. This paper will inform the OECD Development Co-operation Directorate’s ‘Agency of the Future’ project, which seeks to identify how DAC members’ development administrations will need to adapt in order to be fit for purpose in a rapidly changing world

United in diversity? Analysing behaviour expectations of the European Union as a non-state member of the OECD’s development assistance committee

The European Union (EU) frequently accentuates its position as the largest provider of Official Development Assistance (ODA). Together with the EU institutions, EU Member States represent 21 of the 30 members of the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) that sets out rules and standards for what can be reported as ODA. Following the EU Treaty’s requirement for the EU to work together in international organisations, research has detected a tentative yet positive trend to this end in different international organisations (IOs). This article’s empirical analysis shows no such trend can be detected in the EU’s engagement in the DAC. Explanatory factors include divergent development cooperation approaches inside the EU, discrepancies between the established image of and everyday practice in the DAC, and the EU’s full DAC membership. The findings add to the literature on international organisation governance by exploring different behaviour expectations of non-state membership vis-à-vis that of states

Ignoring the elephant in the room? Assessing the impact of the European Union on the Development Assistance Committee's role in international development

This article studies the impact of the European Union (EU) on the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). While the literature thus far has focused on the external challenges for the DAC's role in international development, this study argues that the EU should be taken into account as well. By focusing on the cases of policy coherence for development and the concessionality of official development assistance (ODA) loans, we show that the EU poses a structural challenge for the DAC's role in international development given the strong overlap in membership between both institutions and the Union's changing nature as a development actor

The OECD's Development Assistance Committee and German Development Cooperation: A Relationship under Scrutiny

"The OECD's Development Assistance Committee (DAC) is a coordinating body of the major bilateral donors which seeks to improve the effectiveness of development cooperation. The DAC’s work focuses on three areas: (1) the setting of quality standards for development cooperation and the uniform recording of resource flows and aid performance, (2) policy coordination through the establishment of guidelines for important areas of development cooperation and (3) periodic reviews of the members' aid policies and programmes in the light of the common standards and guidelines (aid reviews). Some criticism of the DAC emerged from the German development cooperation community in the past. The two most important criticisms were that (1) the DAC was exceeding its mandate by claiming to implement a strategy of its own, which was formulated in the 1996 document 'Shaping the 21st Century: The Contribution of Development Cooperation' ('S 21'); (2) the DAC had expanded its work programme too far and was neglecting its core tasks." (excerpt

The Turning Point in International Development Cooperation of South Korea

Clarifying how South Korean aid had been changed during the procedures to join Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Development Assistance Committee (DAC), and the background why South Korea made a decision to become a DAC member are the main purposes of this study. Prior researches have identified a few reasons that clarifying emerging donor’s DAC entering mainly focused on external factors. This study describes South Korea’s decision to join DAC had been decided through domestic debates, unlike previous studies. The policy documents and qualitative interviews used to analyze the changes of aid and background in South Korea, especially during the 2000s. In 2005, the South Korean government announced a plan for aid policy reforms by 2010. The establishment of the Committee for International Development Cooperation for comprehensive aid policy‐making expansion of aid volume, and the increase in grant ratio were the major changes in this process. The members involved in Official Development Assistance policy reforms were not only officials but professionals who pursued a career in civil society as well. The Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami in 2004 worked as one of the catastrophic events that pushed Korea to shift to real policy reform, but more than that, there was a social consensus on South Korea’s obligation to become an international donor. Keywords: ODA, Korea, DAC, Emerging donor DOI: 10.7176/JLPG/98-30 Publication date:June 30th 202

The Fragile Definition of State Fragility

We investigates the link between fragility and economic development in sub-Saharan Africa over a yearly panel including 28 countries for the 1999-2004 period. Beside the conventional definition of fragility adopted by the OECD Development Assistance Committee, we introduce the more severe definition of extreme fragility. We show that only the latter exerts a significantly negative impact on economic development, once standard economic, demographic, and institutional regressors are accounted for. As a by-product of this investigation we produce up-to-date evidence on the growth performance of the area. We find a tendency to convergence and no influence of geographic and historical factors.State fragility; growth; Africa; aid.

South Korea as a global actor: international contributions to development and security

South Korea recently hosted two major international events: the High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in December 2011 and the Nuclear Security Summit in March 2012. Both meetings underscore South Korea's ambitions to increase its involvement in global development assistance and security. The Korean president Lee Myung-bak is pursuing a policy of international contributions with his "Global Korea" national security strategy. Foreign deployments of the South Korean military and an increase in development assistance are expressions of this policy. However, not only humanitarian reasons, but also the desire for global visibility, recognition and influence play a role in this context. South Korea joined the OECD's Development Assistance Committee at the end of 2009; ten years previously this committee had still classified the country as a recipient state. When deploying its military to foreign countries, South Korea's priorities are non-military assignments such as civil reconstruction, political consulting or medical support. The activities in the field of development assistance and security constitute core elements in the expansion of the country's role in international relations. Considering South Korea’s economic and political development since the state's inception in 1945, its further ascent in global politics cannot be ruled out

Tracking sectoral allocation of official development assistance: a comparative study of the 29 Development Assistance Committee countries, 2011–2018

Background: Official development assistance (ODA) is one of the most important means for donor countries to foster diplomatic relations with low- and middle-income countries and contribute to the welfare of the international community. Objective: This study estimated the sectoral allocation of gross disbursements of ODA of the 29 Development Assistance Committee (DAC) member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for the duration of 2011 to 2018, by aid type (bilateral, multilateral, and both aids). Methods: Data from the OECD iLibrary were used. The sector definition was based on the OECD sector classification. For core funding to multilateral agencies that do not specialize in each aid sector, we estimated ODA and its flows based on the OECD methodology for calculating imputed multilateral ODA. Results: For all 29 countries, during the period of 2014–2018 where data were available for all the countries, the sector with the highest average annual ODA contribution was health at 20.34 billion USD (13.21%), followed by humanitarian aid at 18.04 billion (11.72%). Humanitarian aid has increased in the sectoral share rankings in both bilateral and multilateral aid, and the sectoral share for refugees in donor countries has increased in bilateral aid. While the 29 countries show relatively similar trends for sectoral shares, some countries and sectors display unique trends. For instance, infrastructure and energy sectors in bilateral aid of Japan are particularly high accounts for 48.48% of the total bilateral ODA of the country in 2018. Conclusions: This paper evaluated ODA trends by major donors of DAC countries in the pre-COVID-19 pandemic periods. We hope that our estimates will contribute to the review of the strategic decision-making and the effective implementation of future ODA policy discussions in the DAC countries while ensuring transparency