• Debt relief for Iraq and Nigeria. The Paris Club of creditors has agreed large debt relief operations for Iraq and Nigeria. In 2005 Development Assistance Committee (DAC) members provided debt forgiveness grants of nearly USD 14 billion to Iraq and a little over USD 5 billion to Nigeria. Further debt relief to Nigeria will be included in official development assistance (ODA) figures in 2006 and to Iraq for the next three years as members implement further stages of the Paris Club agreements. Given the exceptional scale of debt relief in 2005, The attached Table  provides a breakdown of debt relief grants in this year’s ODA figures.
• Tsunami aid. DAC members provided about USD 2.2 billion in official assistance to countries affected by the devastating December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
  

ODA is expected to fall back slightly over 2006 and 2007 as debt relief declines. But other forms of aid are likely to continue their recent steady increase as donors fulfill their ODA volume pledges for later years (see the following OECD Chart ).

The largest donor in 2005 was the United States, followed by Japan, the United Kingdom, France and Germany. The only countries to exceed the United Nations target for ODA of 0.7% of GNI were, as for some years now, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden (see the following OECD Table  and Chart ).

The United States’ net ODA in 2005 was USD 27.5 billion, a rise of 35.6% in real terms. Its ODA/GNI ratio rose from 0.17% to 0.22%, its highest level since 1986. Apart from debt relief, most of the increase was due to reconstruction aid in Iraq (which totalled USD 3.5 billion), reconstruction and anti-narcotics programmes in Afghanistan (USD 1.5 billion) and aid to Sub-Saharan Africa (USD 4.1 billion).

Japan’s net ODA rose to USD 13.1 billion and its ODA/GNI ratio to 0.28%, an increase in real terms of 51.2%. This included some USD 3.2 billion to Iraq. Japan also provided over USD 540 million in aid to tsunami-affected countries. On a gross basis Japan’s ODA was USD 18.6 billion, up 18.3% in real terms.

The combined ODA of the fifteen members of the DAC that are EU members rose 27.9% in real terms to USD 55.7 billion, equivalent to 0.44% of their combined GNI. The bulk of this increase was for debt relief grants. In 2002, the DAC/EU members committed to reach an ODA level of 0.39% of their combined GNI by 2006, with a minimum country target of 0.33%. Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain still need to increase their ODA in order to reach this target.

Statistical Annex of the OECD 2005 Development Co-operation Report All Tables from the 2005 Development Co-operation Report. See the latest OECD statistics that show how much aid donor country governments are giving, and to whom. How much goes to the poorest countries? How much to multilateral organisations like the United Nations? Which sectors get the most aid - economic infrastructure or social programmes? These statistics show the first evidence of scaling up aid as promised by donors recently.

Trends in Donor Flows
Trends in Donor Flows These charts (2003-2004) show for each of the following DAC Members and Total DAC: Net ODA/OA, Breakdown of bilateral ODA by income group and by region, Top ten recipients of bilateral ODA/OA, and Bilateral ODA by sector. One can view the contribution of Irish AID and the breakdown by sector.

2006 Edition of the Geographical Distribution of Financial Flows This new publication provides comprehensive data from 2000 to 2004 on the volume, origin and types of aid and other resource flows to over 180 recipient countries, including countries in transition in Eastern Europe.

Local Government Aid
Aid Extended by Local and State Governments This report examines aid extended by local and state governments (hereafter referred to as local governments). It attempts to give a clear picture of the coverage of DAC statistics in relation to aid provided by local governments.

Analysis of Aid Flows

An independent NGO report EU aid: Genuine leadership or misleading figures? An independent analysis of European aid figures’ shows that nearly one third, of reported European aid in 2005 did not provide any new aid resources for developing countries. This vast amount of apparent aid spending was in fact money for debt cancellation and for refugees and students costs in donor countries. This report calls for better aid reporting, since high quality aid is vital for the fight against poverty and enables millions of people to get access to health, education and productive opportunities.