Apr 11th, 2012 11:13 AM UTC
By Sara Messer
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For the first time in more than a decade (excluding years of exceptional debt relief), global levels of development assistance decreased in 2011. Preliminary figures released by the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) last week show that global official development assistance (ODA) dropped by $3.5 billion between 2010 and 2011, representing a 2.7 percent decrease. ONE’s analysis (which is in constant prices and excludes debt relief) shows that G7 members accounted for 55 percent of this decrease—particularly Japan and the US, which both cut their ODA by more than $1 billion. Only Germany and Italy reported increases in ODA from 2010 to 2011.
Boxes of food from USAID sent to the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya during the Horn of Africa famine.
The effects of the financial crisis and ongoing recession in Europe are starting to show, as the majority of the EU 15 countries decreased ODA in 2011. Spain reported the largest decrease in terms of volume at $1.7 billion. Belgium and Sweden were the only non-G7 EU countries to increase development assistance.
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Jan 11th, 2012 3:54 PM UTC
By Sara Messer
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Sliding in just before the holidays, the OECD-DAC released its final update to the 2010 data on official development assistance (ODA) flows. The DAC — or, Development Assistance Committee — is a grouping of the world’s wealthiest donor countries. It tracks donor spending on development finance and helps coordinate development policy globally to improve spending practices.
The adjusted numbers released in December 2011 reflect final spending by countries in 2010, updating the preliminary figures released in April, and what ONE used in the 2011 DATA Report monitoring the G7’s commitments to Africa. As such, we can look at these numbers as the final report for how the G7 countries met their 2005 Gleneagles commitments to increase development assistance to Africa.
Based on the preliminary figures, ONE’s DATA Report found that the G7 delivered 61 percent of the Gleneagles commitments for sub-Saharan Africa. The final figures show that in fact the G7 delivered 60 percent of their total promises. The difference was mostly due to Japan, Italy, the UK and the US all delivering lower amounts of ODA than they originally reported in April. However, despite the revised figures, there were no changes in whether or not a country met its Gleneagles commitments. Net of bilateral debt relief, the G7 delivered a total of $28.5 billion of ODA to sub-Saharan Africa in 2010.
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Dec 2nd, 2011 12:13 PM UTC
By Sara Messer
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Ahead of the High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in South Korea this week, we asked you to send messages of support to Secretary Clinton to make bold commitments on transparent and accountable aid. And as part of the ONE Act a Week, almost 100 of you responded! In this PDF you can read the messages that ONE members submitted.
In addition to sending your messages in a tweet to the State Department, I also personally delivered your messages to an official member of the US delegation in Busan, South Korea for the Forum.
Robin Matthewman, director of the Bureau for Economic, Energy and Business Affairs at the State Department thanked ONE members for their support and encouragement.
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Dec 1st, 2011 9:03 AM UTC
By Sara Messer
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Sara Messer reports live from Busan, South Korea
The Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness isn’t even finished yet, but we can already log big wins for transparent and accountable aid. In Secretary Clinton’s keynote address at the forum in South Korea, she officially announced that the United States would be signing the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI), something that ONE has been pushing hard on in advance of Busan. As ONE’s Executive Director, Sheila Nix said:
“Secretary Clinton’s announcement that the United States will join the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) reinforces America’s leadership in making foreign assistance more transparent and accountable. Being open and clear about how the U.S. is spending foreign aid—where and on what—will help make aid more efficient and accountable to US taxpayers and will maximize resources to help those living on less than $1.25 lift themselves out of poverty.”
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Nov 22nd, 2011 3:09 PM UTC
By Sara Messer
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The International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) is both a global voluntary initiative and a common standard for publishing aid information that aims to make it “easier to access, use and understand.” It was formed following the 2008 Accra Agenda for Action as a way to implement those commitments made by donors in Accra on aid transparency. Twenty-one donors covering more than 50 percent of overseas development assistance flows have signed on to IATI, and 22 partner countries have endorsed it. In order to achieve its goals — like helping governments in developing countries manage aid resources more effectively or allowing citizens in both donor and partner countries to better monitor aid spending and reduce corruption — it needs to encompass a much broader range of donors and aid flows, and be fully implemented.
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Nov 18th, 2011 11:54 AM UTC
By Sara Messer
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Action: 21. Time: 5 minutes. Level of difficulty: Easy.
In less than two weeks, government leaders, NGOs heads and even private sector representatives will be meeting in Busan, South Korea to discuss how to make aid and other development resources more effective. Why should you care? Because better aid means better accountability to recipients and taxpayers, and more money to those who fight poverty and disease.
Unfortunately, some countries are pushing back against making firm commitments and time lines to implement better aid standards. That’s where you come in. We need you to tell them that ONE members are paying attention. When US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attends the Forum on November 30th, she will be making a big speech on the future of development effectiveness. But before she delivers her remarks, let’s encourage her to make bold commitments on aid effectiveness for the US and urge other countries to follow suit.
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Nov 8th, 2011 11:22 AM UTC
By Sara Messer
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 At ONE we spend a lot of time and effort making sure that citizens in developing countries get the resources they need to fight extreme poverty and preventable disease. We hold wealthy governments to account for commitments they made to increase development assistance, and we fight cuts to foreign aid—like in the US where it is less than 1% of the budget! But we’re not just about the money.
Greater financial investments are crucial to helping countries increase momentum and boost progress in the four years left to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)—but without mechanisms in place to make sure that those resources are properly targeted, delivered, and tracked, we cannot ensure that the investments are reaching those that need it most and are actually achieving development outcomes. So we have to be just as concerned with the quality of investments made as we are with the quantity of investments made, even more so in a time of constrained budgets and scrutiny.
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