Aid levels inch upward but COVID-19 looms

CANBERRA/BRUSSELS — Aid spending from 30 of the world’s top donors increased 1.4% to $152.8 billion last year, according to preliminary figures released Thursday, as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development called for donors to maintain spending in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. Keep reading to explore insights from the 2019 ODA data with Devex's interactive visualization. “Everybody wants to know what is going to happen to ODA levels in 2020 and beyond, and I must be very, very honest with you, the answer is: We simply do not know,” Susanna Moorehead, chair of OECD’s Development Assistance Committee, told reporters and civil society representatives on a call Thursday. Moorehead said DAC members overwhelmingly are committed to trying to help lower-income countries deal with the crisis, but with many donors in a “domestic meltdown” themselves, “they are not in the position yet to be able to focus the attention of [finance, foreign and health ministers] on this issue.” In a communiqué last week, DAC donors said they would “strive to protect ODA budgets” amid the coronavirus crisis. “That was a closely negotiated sentence and it means exactly what it says,” Moorehead said. “We are really going to do our utmost to do this, but we are not un-cognizant of the pressure and the risks. For example, those members who calibrate the size of their ODA budgets to their GNI, if their GNI falls substantially … and initial OECD projections indicate that they will — then ODA will, by default, go down.” Despite the rise in overall ODA, the initial figures for 2019 show aid as a percentage of gross national income fell across all DAC members from 0.31% in 2018 to 0.30% last year. In terms of net aid — total ODA spent minus loan repayments by recipient countries — ODA fell from 0.30% of GNI in 2018 to 0.29%, or $147.4 billion, last year. Humanitarian aid fell by 2.9% to $15.4 billion. Still, Jorge Moreira da Silva, director of the OECD Development Co-operation Directorate, said donors were “going in the right direction, especially in least-developed countries” where bilateral aid increased by 2.6% to $33 billion. Moreira da Silva also saluted donors for relying less on controversial in-donor refugee costs, which fell 2% to $10.2 billion. NGOs were more critical. José María Vera, Oxfam International’s interim executive director, called the results “woefully inadequate to help developing countries face the coronavirus crisis, which could force 500 million more people into poverty, and cause up to 40 million deaths.” And Jan van de Poel, policy and advocacy manager at the European Network on Debt and Development, said that if donors are serious about tackling COVID-19 “now is the time to move beyond merely protecting current aid budgets.” The figures show that the United States remains the world’s biggest donor, committing $34.6 billion, followed by Germany ($23.8 billion) and the United Kingdom ($19.4 billion). But among these top three countries, only the U.K. increased its commitment from 2018. The U.S. and Germany were among 11 DAC member countries whose total net ODA commitment declined in 2019 compared to 2018. The drop in the U.S. was attributed to a reduction in bilateral aid, while Germany was due to a reduction of in-donor refugee costs. Total ODA from European Union institutions also fell 6.1% to $14.8 billion due to a lower volume of lending, although EU countries themselves accounted for 55% of DAC ODA. Jutta Urpilainen, EU commissioner for international partnerships, noted her concern that the EU and its member states’ collective assistance — which the EU calculates with all its members, not just those that sit within DAC — was 0.46% of GNI, dropping for the third year in a row. She called on states and development actors “to redouble their efforts.” Finland, Greece, Hungary, and South Korea, meanwhile, all raised their commitments by more than 10%. Éva Bördős from HAND, the Hungarian NGO platform, told Devex that the jump of 14.5% in Hungary was largely due to bilateral aid to persecuted Christians in countries such as Syria, DRC, and Nigeria. However, the Hungarian government announced Thursday that the Hungary Helps program would now receive less funding due to the COVID-19 response. Explore insights from the 2019 ODA data with Devex's interactive visualization. <div class='tableauPlaceholder' id='viz1587037216585' style='position: relative'><noscript><a href='#'><img alt=' ' src='https:&#47;&#47;public.tableau.com&#47;static&#47;images&#47;7Y&#47;7YX4XGSKJ&#47;1_rss.png' style='border: none' /></a></noscript><object class='tableauViz' style='display:none;'><param name='host_url' value='https%3A%2F%2Fpublic.tableau.com%2F' /> <param name='embed_code_version' value='3' /> <param name='path' value='shared&#47;7YX4XGSKJ' /> <param name='toolbar' value='no' /><param name='static_image' value='https:&#47;&#47;public.tableau.com&#47;static&#47;images&#47;7Y&#47;7YX4XGSKJ&#47;1.png' /> <param name='animate_transition' value='yes' /><param name='display_static_image' value='yes' /><param name='display_spinner' value='yes' /><param name='display_overlay' value='yes' /><param name='display_count' value='yes' /></object></div> <script type='text/javascript'> var divElement = document.getElementById('viz1587037216585'); var vizElement = divElement.getElementsByTagName('object')[0]; if ( divElement.offsetWidth > 800 ) { vizElement.style.width='650px';vizElement.style.height='1800px';} else if ( divElement.offsetWidth > 500 ) { vizElement.style.width='650px';vizElement.style.height='1800px';} else { vizElement.style.width='100%';vizElement.style.height='2750px';} var scriptElement = document.createElement('script'); scriptElement.src = 'https://public.tableau.com/javascripts/api/viz_v1.js'; vizElement.parentNode.insertBefore(scriptElement, vizElement); </script> For access to in-depth analysis, insights, and funding opportunities from over 850+ sources — combined with Devex Pro news content — sign up to a Pro Funding subscription online today or get in touch to learn about our Pro Funding group options.