Picture This Aiding Development

• Author: Bilal Siddiqi
• Position: Research Assistant, Center for Global Development, Washington, D.C. Unless otherwise indicated, the source for all charts is the OECD Development Assistance Committee database

Official development assistance (ODA) to developing countries increased steadily during the 1970s and 1980s. The end of the Cold War led to a significant decline in global ODA over the first half of the 1990s, after which it returned to its pre-1991 upward trend. Recent Group of Eight commitments to double aid to Africa suggest that this upward trend will continue. While almost three-fourths of ODA during 1970-2003 was provided through bilateral programs, the proportion channeled through multilateral organizations has increased since the 1980s. Private aid has displayed a more steady trend, growing slowly over the past three decades to around 11 percent, although the official data are almost certainly understated.

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Nearly two-thirds of ODA goes to least developed and low-income countries (those with a 2004 gross national income (GNI) per capita of less than $825). Another third goes to lower middle-income countries such as Algeria, Brazil, China, and Thailand (those with a GNI per capita of less than $3,255), whose populations contain substantial numbers of poor people. About 3 percent is allocated to upper middle-income countries such as Argentina and Chile. Over a third of world aid goes to sub-Saharan Africa, but in per capita terms, this still amounted to less than $35 per African in 2003.

[ SEE THE GRAPHIC AT THE ATTACHED ]

Larger countries tend to receive more aid, but smaller amounts of aid per capita. India and China are among the top aid recipients, but are at the bottom in terms of per capita aid disbursements. Small island economies like São Tomé and Príncipe get relatively small amounts of aid, but this translates to around $225 per head, compared with less than $2 per head for India or Nigeria. This trend is not without exception, however: Mozambique receives high amounts of aid ($1.2 billion a year on average over 2000-03), as well as relatively high aid per capita ($67); while Turkmenistan gets little on both fronts ($43 million a year on average over the same period, or $9 per...