Overseas aid reached an all-time high last year as the wealthiest countries responded to the Covid pandemic, according to preliminary figures from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
But there were concerns that the war in Ukraine will impact aid spending by members of the OECD’s development assistance committee (DAC) in 2022, as they continue to help poor countries recover from the pandemic and handle the consequences of the conflict.
“While we can be proud of our efforts to date, new levels of support from aid and increased financing from all channels are urgently needed, because – for the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people – ODA [overseas development assistance] financing will continue to provide an incredibly important lifeline,” said OECD secretary general Mathias Cormann.
The OECD, which had previously projected global GDP growth at 4.5% in 2022 and 3.2% in 2023, said the conflict in Ukraine could lower this by more than 1 percentage point in the first year, and raise global inflation by 2.5 points.
Cormann said many poorer countries will be hit hard by higher food and commodity prices as a result of the war. “These are challenging times for the global economy, and particularly for developing countries. Collective efforts at a global level are more important and more necessary than ever.”
According to figures released on Tuesday, in 2021 DAC members gave around $179bn (£137bn) in official assistance, a 4.4% increase in real terms compared with 2020.
Around $18bn was spent on the response to the pandemic, including $6.3bn on 857m doses of Covid vaccines. Of that amount, $3.5bn was spent on doses “specifically purchased” for poorer countries.
Around $18bn was spent on humanitarian aid in 2021, a 3.5% increase in real terms compared with 2020.
Despite the overall increase in aid last year, donor states spent 0.33% of their combined gross national income (GNI) on aid, well below the 0.7% UN target. Only Denmark, Germany, Luxembourg, Norway and Sweden either met or exceeded the target.
The UK was the fourth largest DAC donor, giving $15.8bn, after the US, Germany and Japan, which respectively donated $42.3bn, $32bn and $17.6bn.
The UK’s donation was down 21.2% due to its decision in 2020 to cut aid to 0.5% of GNI. “These figures painfully illustrate the government’s gutting of UK aid and the devastating consequences. By cutting £4.6bn to meet the shrunken budget of 0.5% of GNI, we have turned our backs on marginalised people facing conflict, poverty, disease and climate change,” said Simon Starling, director of policy of UK NGO umbrella organisation Bond.
Concord, a European NGO for development, said counting vaccine donations as aid damaged credibility. “Concord has already joined civil society organisations in Europe and beyond in calling on OECD DAC members to abandon all plans to report vaccine donations as ODA,” the organisation said.
“Despite this, EU donors have slashed millions from ODA budgets – to the tune of $1.8bn as a whole. From this, only $3m were specifically purchased for partner countries. Rather than building fair and equal partnerships, this practice only increases aid-inflation and undermines ODA credibility by rewarding donor countries for hoarding life-saving vaccines and donating the leftovers.”
The European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad) said if the costs of vaccines were excluded, ODA only grew by 0.6% in real terms compared to 2020.
Nerea Craviotto, Eurodad’s senior policy and advocacy officer, said: “Today’s increase represents a very modest rise in terms of gross national income for all donor countries, from 0.32% of GNI in 2020 to 0.33%. This is a drop in the ocean in terms of what is needed to tackle the current wave of crises, and it falls far beneath the amount countries have committed to.”
