Exclusive: OECD Development Assistance Committee to begin reforms under new chair

The Development Assistance Committee — the body at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development tasked with setting and evaluating the organization’s rules for official development assistance — will begin large-scale reforms this summer, its new chair Charlotte Petri Gornitzka revealed in a conversation with Devex.

The DAC — whose membership includes 30 global north-based donors contributing about 80 percent of ODA worldwide — has drawn criticism in the past for failing to represent developing country interests in its work. That has included policies that appear to favor the interests of donors over recipients, most recently in reforming the ODA rules to allow spending for more security-related costs.

Petri Gornitzka, who took the helm of the DAC in October 2016, said the committee will undergo dramatic reform with a process ending around late October this year. The reforms will be made with an eye on improving its members’ use of the private sector in national aid policies, as well as becoming a more consistent complement and critic to the United Nations system, among other goals.