A golden opportunity to reform aid for the world's poorest

Official development assistance — the only external aid flow explicitly aimed at promoting development — will be vital in the post-2015 framework, particularly for people living in the world's poorest countries. But as a concept, ODA is in urgent need of reform, the ONE Campaign's Isabelle de Lichtervelde writes in an exclusive commentary.

By Isabelle De Lichtervelde // 14 October 2014

The development Ghana has enjoyed in recent years has been impressive, with the country on track to halve extreme poverty by 2015.

Development assistance played an important part in this. Through organizations such as the GAVI Alliance and The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the number of people receiving vaccines and anti-malarial bed nets has rocketed. Unfortunately, though, there is a cloud on the Ghanaian horizon. Public debt has recently spiked and the country’s risk of debt distress has worryingly increased over the past few years.

Despite this concerning trend, loans make up over one-third of what Ghana receives in official development assistance.

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About the author

Isabelle De Lichtervelde
Isabelle De Lichtervelde works on the policy team in The ONE Campaign's London office. In her current role, she focuses on development finance beyond 2015, and was a contributing writer of ONE's 2014 DATA Report. De Lichtervelde previously worked in the ONE Brussels office on development assistance in the EU budget, and before joining the organization was a researcher at the Brussels Institute of Contemporary China Studies and for the Europe China Research and Advice Network.