DEVELOPMENT AID (PRIMER)

DEFINITIONS/DISAMBIGUATIONS OF AID

According to the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the

Organization for Economic Development (OECD):
Official Development Assistance consists of flows to developing countries and
multilateral institutions provided by official agencies, including state and local
governments, or by their executive agencies, each transaction of which meets the
following test: a) it is administered with the promotion of the economic
development and welfare of developing countries as its main objective, and b) it is
concessional in character and contains a grant element of at least 25%

According to USAID:
a voluntary transfer of public resources, from a government to another
independent government, to an NGO, or to an international organization (such as
the World Bank or the UN Development Program) with at least a 25 percent grant
element, one goal of which is to better the human condition in the country
receiving the aid.

According to the World Health Organization:

The international transfer of public funds in the form of loans or grants, either
directly from one government to another (bilateral aid), or indirectly through
nongovernmental organizations or a multilateral agency (multilateral aid) such as
the World Bank or World Health Organization.

CHARACTERIZATIONS OF AID (think: major types, for references sake)

1. HUMANITARIAN AID
Elements:
o Rapid assistance
o Immediate distress (i.e.: war, natural calamities)
o Thrust is purely humanitarian quick response to suffering, emergency
measures, provision of vital commodities (food rations, water, hygiene
kits, medicine, etc)
o Major defining characteristic: is premised on the peremptory norms of
international conduct concerning conflict and natural disasters and as a
result, is very rarely tied to any conditionalities (think: no strings
attached).
o Example: the mandates of the Geneva Conventions and Additional
Protocols to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
2. DEVELOPMENT AID; OFFICIAL DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE (ODA)
Elements:
o Targeted towards particular factors of suffering, goes beyond responding
to the exigencies of the moment
o Long-term
o Thrust is geared towards the grass-roots: alleviating or eradicating the
root causes of vulnerability (i.e.: illiteracy, poverty, corruption)
o Examples: Livelihood programs, micro-financing, etc.
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HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Development aid has long been recognized as crucial to help poor developing nations
grow out of poverty.
In 1970, the worlds rich countries agreed to give 0.7% of their GNI (Gross National
Income) as official international development aid, annually:
In recognition of the special importance of the role which can be fulfilled
only by official development assistance, a major part of financial resource
transfers to the developing countries should be provided in the form of official
development assistance. Each economically advanced country will progressively
increase its official development assistance to the developing countries and will
exert its best efforts to reach a minimum net amount of 0.7 per cent of its gross
national product at market prices by the middle of the Decade.
[International Development Strategy for the Second United Nations
Development Decade, UN General Assembly Resolution 2626 (XXV),
October 24, 1970, paragraph 43]
And the form of that aid was agreed to in this manner:
Financial aid will, in principle, be untied. While it may not be possible
to untie assistance in all cases, developed countries will rapidly and
progressively take what measures they can to reduce the extent of tying of
assistance and to mitigate any harmful effects [and make loans tied to
particular sources] available for utilization by the recipient countries for the
purpose of buying goods and services from other developing countries.
Financial and technical assistance should be aimed exclusively at
promoting the economic and social progress of developing countries and should
not in any way be used by the developed countries to the detriment of the
national sovereignty of recipient countries.
Developed countries will provide, to the greatest extent possible, an
increased flow of aid on a long-term and continuing basis.
[International Development Strategy for the Second United Nations
Development Decade, UN General Assembly Resolution 2626 (XXV),
October 24, 1970, paragraphs 45-47]
At a news conference on December 27, 2004, UN Under Secretary General for
Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland called for a major international response to the
Asian tsunami disaster. Egeland lamented that donor countries, despite their
unprecedented wealth, generally provide so little in international aid. Calling rich
governments "stingy," Egeland expressed his astonishment over the fact that donors
used to be more generous when they were less rich.
Egeland's remarks provoked a strong reaction, particularly from the US. Andrew
Natsios, head of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), publicly
refuted the view that the US was being tightfisted when it comes to assisting poor
countries. "The notion that the United States is not generous is simply not true,
factually. We've had one of the largest increases [in aid] of any country in the world,"
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Natsios said. President George W. Bush in turn dismissed Egeland's comments by

calling him "very misguided and ill-informed."
In recent years, aid amounts have been on a constant rise. In 2004, official
development assistance to poor countries reached its highest level ever. The United
States alone provided almost $19 billion in aid more than ever before.
But the recent increases do not tell the whole truth about rich countries' generosity, or
the lack of it. Measured as a proportion of gross national income (GNI), aid lags far
behind the 0.7 percent target the United Nations set decades ago.
After years of promises, and several renewals of the 0.7% goal, only five of the 22
Development Assistance Committee (DAC) member countries Denmark, Luxembourg,
the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden have reached the goal.
Aid volumes remained virtually unchanged through the 1970s and 1980s, if measured
as a proportion of the donor countries' national incomes. While assistance measured
in dollars increased, aid budgets only just kept up with general economic growth.
Thus in 1990, rich countries contributed exactly the same proportion of their national
income 0.33 percent to development assistance they did twenty years earlier in
1970.
In the 1990s, aid volumes began falling not only measured in proportion to GNI but
also in dollar terms. The end of the Cold War played a crucial role in governments'
eagerness to cut aid budgets. During the Cold War, Western countries particularly the
US had used development aid to support geopolitical goals, and the Soviet Union had
similar systems in place to aid its own allies. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the
underlying Cold War rationale for development assistance disappeared, and
governments lost much of their interest in international aid. Many Western nations were
also struggling with fiscal problems in the early 1990s, and development assistance
was usually among the first targets when budget cuts were decided.
Following the United Nations Millennial Summit in 2000, the member-nations of the
UN adopted the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) wherein they agreed to
achieve eight important goals by 2015:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

To
To
To
To
To
To
To
To

eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

achieve universal primary education
promote gender equality and empowering women
reduce child mortality rates
improve maternal health
combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
ensure environmental sustainability
develop a global partnership for development

In all, the goal of alleviating and ultimately eradicating poverty has remained central to
the idea of development, but the criticisms on how donor countries go about this goal,
and the manner and methods they employ, as well the effects to the recipient
countries, have remained largely unresolved.
THE BIG PICTURE
Page 3 of 15

The problems:
1. The paradox: Amounts seem to be increasing on a yearly basis, but when
viewed proportionally to the donor countries GNI, the amounts fall short of the
overall target.
2. Aid has been criticized as being unduly burdensome to the recipient countries
and a vehicle for forwarding donor countries own agenda, at the expense of the
principled goal of alleviating developing countries hardships.
FIRST PRINCIPLES AND THEIR APPLICATIONS
PARADIGM 1:
EASING THE BURDEN
ON RECIPIENT NATIONS

PARADIGM 2:
ENSURING THE EFFECTIVENESS
OF AID

AID SYSTEMS BASED ON THE

INTERESTS OF DONORS

TRADE, NOT AID

Points out that developing countries
will be helped more by the opening up
of their mercantile borders and their
integration into mainstream trade.

Trade conditionalities to aid have

proven to be actively harmful to
recipients:
-

Recipients must use overpriced

goods and services from donor
countries
Trade benefits rarely trickle down
to the poorest who need it the
most
Aid amounts are dwarfed by rich
country protectionism that denies
market access for poor country
products, while donor countries
use aid as a lever to open recipient
markets to their products

Large market strategies often fail to

help the vulnerable

The benefits are even more grassroots because the growth is inherent
to the nation: the thrust is not to give
aid that will only tide them over,
much the same way as humanitarian
aid does, but rather to help them
develop on their own.
Proposes that aid be carefully
decreased and more attention be
given to trade talks and measures
directed at bringing developing
economies to the forefront. (These
measures will inevitably come as
conditionalities)

ODA is basically aid from

governments of the wealthy nations. It
does not include private contributions
or private capital flows and
investments. It is therefore a kind of
measure on the priorities that
governments themselves put on such
matters. And their priorities are not
as altruistic as they are made to
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appear.
In many cases, aid is primarily
designed to serve the strategic and
economic interests of the donor
countries or to benefit powerful
domestic interest groups.
DONOR RESPONSIBILITY

DONOR GNI IS NOT A PROPER

STANDARD

Given the size of donor countries

economies, they are not giving nearly
enough to help developing nations
out.

The 0.7 percent proportion of rich

countries' gross national income is a
very arbitrary target. There is no real
justification for choosing this particular
percentage. The goal was simply
adopted in the absence of better and
more concrete ways of measuring aid.

After the recent increases, global

development assistance accounted for
just 0.25 percent of rich countries'
GNI in 2004. In 1990, the figure had
been 0.33, and in 1960 as high as
0.54. This means that in relation to
their wealth, rich countries give less
than half the amount the aid they did
in the early 1960s when they were far
less affluent.
Growth in donor GNI should translate
to a proportional increase in ODA.

There is a false meaningfulness in

measuring aid as a percentage of donor
countries incomes.
Targets for development assistance
should be determined by conditions in
the recipient countries, not by the size
of donor nations economies because
this has no bearing on the actual need
for aid

PARADIGM 3:
INCREASE PRIVATE DONATIONS

PARADIGM 4:
STATES SHOULD BE
THE PRIME ACTORS

NGOs PLAYING A BIGGER ROLE

NGOs ARE A WEAK THIRD SECTOR

*contextual definition:
NGOs: the term NGO can be applied to
any non-profit organization which is
independent from government. NGOs are
typically value-based organizations
which depend, in whole or in part, on
charitable donations and voluntary
service. (World Banks definition)

Governments must foot the bill,

because they actually do, in the
ultimate analysis.

Since the 1970s, it has been noted how

While NGOs are meant to be

politically independent, in reality it is
a difficult task, because they must
receive funding from their
government, from other institutions,
businesses and/or from private

Page 5 of 15

there are more non-governmental

organizations than ever before trying to
fill in the gaps that governments either
will not, or cannot.

sources. All or some of these can have

direct or indirect political weight on
decisions and actions that NGOs
make.

It is now estimated that over 15 percent

of total overseas development aid is
channeled through NGOs. That is,
roughly $8 billion dollars. The World
Bank adds that there are an estimated
6,000 to 30,000 national NGOs in
developing countries alone, while the
number of community-based
organizations in the developing world
number in the hundreds of thousands.

NGOs are typically weaker because

they are not as financially
independent as the other two actors
(i.e.: the state and corporations) and
are often dependent upon them. Or,
when independent, they typically do
not have the resources and political
power that the other two wield (for
example, both states and corporations
can own large influential media
organizations), and are not as well
and long established as the other two.

PARADIGM 5:
STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT
(IN DEFENSE OF THE
WB AND THE IMF)

PARADIGM 6:
STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT
PROGRAMS AS THE MAIN CAUSE
OF GLOBAL POVERTY

STRINGS ATTACHED
*contextual definition:
Structural Adjustments: policies
implemented by the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World
Bank in developing countries. These
policy changes are conditions for
receiving new loans from the IMF or
World Bank or for obtaining lower
interest rates on existing loans.
Conditions are implemented to ensure
that the money lent will be spent in
accordance with the overall goals of the
loan. Structural Adjustment Programs
(SAPs) are created with the goal of
reducing the borrowing country's fiscal
imbalances. The bank from which a
borrowing country receives its loan
depends upon the type of necessity.
SAPs are supposed to allow the
economies of the developing countries to
become more market oriented. This then
forces them to concentrate more on trade
and production so it can boost their

SAPs REQUIRE POOR COUNTRIES

TO LOWER THE STANDARDS OF
LIVING OF THEIR PEOPLE
The IMF and World Bank provide
financial assistance to countries
seeking it, but apply a neoliberal
economic ideology or agenda as a
precondition to receiving the money:
They prescribe cutbacks,
liberalization of the economy
and resource extraction/exportoriented open markets as part of
their structural adjustment.
The role of the state is minimized.
Privatization is encouraged as
well as reduced protection of
domestic industries.
Other adjustment policies also
include currency devaluation,
increased interest rates,
flexibility of the labor market,
and the elimination of subsidies
such as food subsidies.
To be attractive to foreign

Page 6 of 15

economy
The IMF mainly lends to countries that
have balance of payment problems (they
cannot pay their international debts),
while the World bank offers loans to
fund particular development projects.
These loans and various types of
funding are traditionally coupled with
strings attached conditionalities that
are inextricably linked with structural
adjustment programs (SAPs).
SAPs serve an important function: to
ensure compliance. To completely
remove conditionality would in effect be
a dole-out a handing of funds over to
usually corrupt and unstable
governments ill-motivated to do
something meaningful towards
rehabilitating their depressed
economies.
While some harms traditionally argued
by the critics of SAPs can and are in fact
conceded, a lifting of all conditionalities
is unrealistic.
Restructuring of SAPs is one of the
leading alternatives:
Longer maturity for loans
Lessening of conditionalities
considered too harsh (i.e.:
austerity measures)
Institutionalized debt write-offs
for countries that have
demonstrated substantial
compliance with conditionalities
Opening borders to trade, which is an
off-shoot of SAPs, is not inherently
wrong. The TYPE of trade is important,
and SAPs can help achieve the kind of
trade which contributes the most to
development: diversified trade. Just
as biodiversity is important to ensure
resilience to whatever nature can throw
at a given ecosystem, diverse economies
can help countries weather economic

investors various regulations and

standards are reduced or
removed.
The impact of these preconditions on
poorer countries can be devastating.
Factors such as the following lead to
further misery for the developing
nations and keep them dependent on
developed nations:
Poor countries must export
more in order to raise enough
money to pay off their debts in a
timely manner.
Because there are so many
nations being asked or forced into
the global market placebefore
they are economically and
socially stable and readyand
told to concentrate on similar
cash crops and commodities as
others, the situation resembles a
large-scale price war.
Then, the resources from the
poorer regions become even
cheaper, which favors consumers
in the West.
Governments then need
to increase exports just to keep
their currencies stable(which may
not be sustainable, either) and
earn foreign exchange with which
to help pay off debts.
Governments therefore must:
spend less
reduce consumption
remove or decrease
financial regulations
and so on.
Over time then:
the value of
labor decreases
capital flows become
more volatile
a spiraling race to the
bottom then begins, which
generates social unrest,
which in turn leads to IMF
riots and protests around
the world

Page 7 of 15

storms.

SAPs can be restructured and made to

aim for diversification, as opposed to
simply being written off as oppressive.

A concession from the debt-cycle camp

must be made: that it is difficult to give
developing countries free rein in
handling untied aid.
A balance must be sought between
giving aid and making sure it gets where
it has to go, and benefits those it is
intended for.

These nations are then told to peg

their currencies to the dollar. But
keeping the exchange rate stable
is costly due to measures such as
increased interest rates.
Investors obviously concerned
about their assets and interests
can then pull out very easily if
things get tough
In the worst cases, capital
flight can lead to
economic collapse, such
as we saw in the
Asian/global financial
crises of 1997/98/99, or
in Mexico, Brazil, and
many other places. During
and after a crisis, the
mainstream media and
free trade economists lay
the blame on emerging
markets and their
governments restrictive or
inefficient policies, crony
capitalism, etc., which is a
cruel irony.
When IMF donors keep
the exchange rates in their
favor, it often means that the
poor nations remain poor, or
get even poorer. Even
the1997/98/99 global financial
crisis can be partly blamed on
structural adjustment and early,
overly aggressive deregulation for
emerging economies.

In a more cynical or harsher

description, structural adjustments
and other trade related policies could
also be seen as a weapon of mass
destruction.

Page 8 of 15

STRUCTURES
A. The World Bank Group
1. The International Bank for
Reconstruction and Development
(IBRD)

Lends to governments of middleincome and creditworthy low-income

countries.

2. The International Development

Association (IDA)

Provides interest-free loans

credits and grants to governments
of the poorest countries.

3. The International Finance

Corporation (IFC)

Focused exclusively on the private

sector - helps developing countries
achieve sustainable growth by
financing investment, mobilizing
capital in international financial
markets, and providing advisory
services to businesses and
governments.

4. The Multilateral Investment

Guaranty Agency (MIGA)

Offers political risk insurance

(guarantees) to investors and lenders

5. The International Center for

Settlement of Investment
Disputes (ICSID)

Provides international facilities for

conciliation
and
arbitration
of
investment disputes.

The World Bank Group is composed of five institutions: the IBRD, IDA, IFC,
MIGA, and ICSID.
The World Bank is composed of the first two institutions: the IBRD and the
IDA. The IBRD has 188 member countries, while the IDA has 172 members.
Each member state of IBRD should also be a member of the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) and only members of IBRD are allowed to join other
institutions within the Bank (such as IDA).
The World Bank is like a cooperative, made up of member countries. These
member countries, or shareholders, are represented by a Board of Governors,
who are the ultimate policymakers at the World Bank. Generally, the governors
are member countries' ministers of finance or ministers of development. They
meet once a year at the Annual Meetings of the Boards of Governors of the
World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund. The governors
Page 9 of 15

delegate specific duties to 25 Executive Directors, who work on-site at the

Bank. The five largest shareholders appoint an executive director, while other
member countries are represented by elected executive directors.
World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim chairs meetings of the
Boards of Directors and is responsible for overall management of the
Bank. The President is selected by the Board of Executive Directors for a
five-year, renewable term.
The Executive Directors make up the Boards of Directors of the World
Bank. They normally meet at least twice a week to oversee the Bank's
business, including approval of loans and guarantees, new policies, the
administrative budget, country assistance strategies and borrowing and
financial decisions.
The official goals of the WB:
1. End extreme poverty by decreasing the percentage of people living on less
than $1.25 a day to no more than 3%
2. Promote shared prosperity by fostering the income growth of the bottom
40% for every country
The WB provides low-interest loans, interest-free credits, and grants to
developing countries. These support a wide array of investments in areas such
as education, health, public administration, infrastructure, financial and
private sector development, agriculture, and environmental and natural
resource management. Some of its projects are co-financed with governments,
other multilateral institutions, commercial banks, export credit agencies, and
private sector investors. It also provides or facilitates financing through trust
fund partnerships with bilateral and multilateral donors.
The WB has been assigned temporary management responsibility of the Clean
Technology Fund and administers the International Health Partnership along
with the World Health Organization.
Criticisms of the WB include its continued investment in technology that is not
considered green or sustainable, the uneven voting power (determined by
shareholdings) within its ranks, and the requirement of sovereign immunity
from all legal liability in the countries it deals with. It is also criticized for
contributing to inflation and for the conditionalities of the aid it distributes to
poor nations, particularly sub-Saharan nations.
B. The International Monetary Fund (IMF)
The IMFs main goal is to ensure the stability of the international monetary and
financial system. The IMF provides policy advice and financing to members in
economic difficulties and also works with developing nations to help them
achieve macroeconomic stability and reduce poverty.
It has 188 member countries and is a specialized agency of the United Nations
but has its own charter, governing structure, and finances. Its members are
represented through a quota system broadly based on their relative size in the
global economy.
Page 10 of 15

Countries contribute funds to a pool through a quota system from which countries
with payment imbalances temporarily can borrow money and other resources.
*Balance of payment (BOP): a summation of country's current demand and
supply of the claims on foreign currencies and of foreign claims on its
currency. When all components of the BOP accounts are included they
must sum to zero with no overall surplus or deficit.
It has three main tools at its disposal to carry out its mandate:
1. Surveillance
Bilateral Surveillance - on a regular basisusually once each year
the IMF conducts in depth appraisals of each member countrys
economic situation. It discusses with the countrys authorities the
policies that are most conducive to a stable and prosperous
economy, drawing on experience across its membership. Member
countries may agree to publish the IMFs assessment of their
economies.
The IMF also carries out extensive analysis of global and regional
economic trends, known as multilateral surveillance
2. Technical assistance training
Technical assistance is offered in several areas, including fiscal
policy, monetary and exchange rate policies, banking and
financial system supervision and regulation, and statistics.
The IMF provides technical assistance and training mainly in
four areas:
monetary and financial policies (monetary policy
instruments, banking system supervision and
restructuring, foreign management and operations,
clearing settlement systems for payments, and structural
development of central banks);
fiscal policy and management (tax and customs policies
and administration, budget formulation, expenditure
management, design of social safety nets, and
management of domestic and foreign debt);
compilation, management, dissemination, and
improvement of statistical data; and
economic and financial legislation.
3. Lending
IMF financing provides member countries the breathing room they
need to correct balance of payments problems. A policy program
supported by financing is designed by the national authorities in
close cooperation with the IMF. Continued financial support is
conditional on the effective implementation of this program.
Criticisms of the IMF largely center on the conditionality of its loans. IMF
conditionality is a set of policies or conditions that the IMF requires in
Page 11 of 15

exchange for financial resources. The IMF does not require collateral from
countries for loans but rather requires the government seeking assistance to
correct its macroeconomic imbalances in the form of policy reform. If the
conditions are not met, the funds are withheld. Some of the the
conditionalities employed by the IMF include:

Cutting expenditures (i.e. austerity)

Focusing economic output on direct export and resource extraction,
Devaluation of currencies
Trade liberalization
Removing price controls and state subsidies,
Privatization
Enhancing the rights of foreign investors vis-a-vis national laws

C. The OECD
The OECD is composed of 34 member countries and its official mission is to
promote policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of people
around the world. Its main operational thrusts are to measure productivity and
global flows of trade and investment. It analyses and compares data to predict
future trends, and uses that data to set international standards for trade and
development.
Structure of the OECD:
1. General Membership (also known as the Council)
Current Membership:
Australia
Austria
Belgium
Canada
Chile
Czech Republic
Denmark
Estonia
Finland

France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Iceland
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Japan

Korea
Luxembourg
Mexico
Netherlands
New Zealand
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Slovak Republic

Slovenia
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Turkey
United Kingdom
United States

2. Substantive Committees - there are about 200 committees focusing on

different areas like economics and trade. These committees work closely
with the following Special Bodies:
a. Africa Partnership Forum
b. Business and Industry Advisory Committee (BIAC)
c. Development Assistance Committee
d. OECD Development Centre
e. Institutional Management in Higher Education (IMHE)
f. International Transport Forum (ITF) (formally known as the European
Conference of Ministers of Transport)
g. International Energy Agency
h. Nuclear Energy Agency
Page 12 of 15

i. Partnership for Democratic Governance (PDG)

j. Sahel and West Africa Club
k. Trade Union Advisory Committee (TUAC)
3. Secretariat
The secretariat collects data, monitors trends, and analyses and forecasts
economic developments. Under the direction and guidance of member
governments, it also researches social changes or evolving patterns in trade,
environment, education, agriculture, technology, taxation, and other areas.
The
o
o
o

OECDs WORK PROCESS:

Data Collection
Analysis
Discussion
Discussions at OECD committee-level sometimes evolve into
negotiations where OECD countries agree on rules of the game for
international cooperation. They can culminate in formal agreements
by countries, for example on combating bribery, on arrangements
for export credits, or on the treatment of capital movements. They
may produce standards and models, for example in the application
of bilateral treaties on taxation, or recommendations, for example
on cross-border cooperation in enforcing laws against spam. They
may also result in guidelines, for example on corporate governance
or environmental practices.
o Decisions
o Implementation
o Peer Reviews, Multilateral Surveillance
Mutual examination by governments, multilateral surveillance and
a peer review process through which the performance of individual
countries is monitored by their peers, all carried out at committeelevel. An example of the peer review process at work is to be found
in the Working Group on Bribery, which monitors the
implementation by signatory countries of the OECD Convention on
Combating Bribery of Foreign Officials in International Business
Transactions.

OECD's work is based on continued monitoring of events in member countries

as well as outside OECD area, and includes regular projections of short and
medium-term economic developments. The OECD Secretariat collects and
analyses data, after which committees discuss policy regarding this
information, the Council makes decisions, and then governments
implement recommendations.
OECD FUNDING
OECD is funded by its member countries. National contributions are
based on a formula which takes account of the size of each member's economy.
The largest contributor is the United States, which provides nearly 22% of the
budget, followed by Japan. Countries may also make voluntary contributions to
financially support outputs in the OECD programme of work.
Page 13 of 15

The primary criticisms against the OECD focus on the composition of the
organization. Civil society groups and developing non-member nations have
maintained that the exclusivity of the organizations composition keeps it
unable to fully grasp the situations on the ground in these developing
countries. Its proposals and recommendations have been criticized as being
handed down from a third-person, rich-country perspective.
DEMOGRAPHICS AND STATISTICS
o
o
o
o
o

o
o
o

Recently, there was an EU pledge to spend 0.56% of GNI on poverty reduction

by 2010, and 0.7% by 2015.
Despite the 0.7% target set by the UN in 1970, the amount of aid has been
around 0.2 to 0.4%, some $150 billion short each year.
The current IMF fund is estimated at US$755.7bn
OECD Stats: PLEASE SEE APPENDED OECD EXCEL TABS
Graph, Official Development Assistance Shortfall

More than 80 percent of the worlds population lives in countries where income
differentials are widening
The poorest 40 percent of the worlds population accounts for 5 percent of
global income. The richest 20 percent accounts for three-quarters of world
income.
According to UNICEF, 22,000 children die each day due to poverty. And they
die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the
scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes
these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.
Some 1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to
water, and 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation.
1.6 billion people a quarter of humanity live without electricity:
Page 14 of 15

Region

Millions without electricity

South Asia

706

Sub-Saharan Africa

547

East Asia

224

Other

101
Number of people living without electricity

Sources
Global Issues
http://www.globalissues.org/article/35/foreign-aid-development-assistance
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
http://www.oecd.org/dac/developmentassistancecommitteedac.htm
Global Policy Forum
http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/240/45056.html
The United Nations Millennium Development Goals
http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/bkgd.shtml
The World Bank (Official Site)
http://www.worldbank.org/
The International Monetary Fund (Official Site)
http://www.imf.org/

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