UK ODA Increase Of 2% On 2011

The Department for International Development recently published its annual overview of the official UK contribution to international development. It contains the finalised estimates for 2012 and updates the provisional estimates of March 2013. It focuses on Official Development Assistance (ODA), the key international aid measure. The UK is committed to investing 0.7% of gross national income (GNI) on official development assistance, the target originally set in 1970 by the UN General Assembly.

The key statistics concerning Official Development Assistance (ODA) in this publication include the UK’s ODA/GNI ratio for 2012 was 0.56 per cent, which is the same level as 2011. This estimate is unchanged from the provisional release published in March 2013.

In 2012 the UK reported £8,766m as Official Development Assistance (ODA), an increase of £137m (2 per cent) on 2011 levels making it the 2nd largest OECD-DAC Donor in terms of volume. The UK reported £5,496m of ODA as Net Bilateral in 2012, an increase of £210m (4 per cent) on 2011 levels and £3,270m of ODA as Net Multilateral, a decrease of £73m (2 per cent) on 2011 levels.

The publication also covers regional and sectoral breakdowns of ODA. The African region received the largest amount of UK Net Bilateral ODA, £2,174m in 2012, an increase of 2 per cent on 2011 levels. The top three recipients of UK Net Bilateral ODA in 2012 were India (£292m) Afghanistan (£274m), and Ethiopia (£266m). The health sector received the largest amount of UK Net Bilateral ODA, £1,076m in 2012.

The Department for International Development’s (DFID) ODA spend was £7,593m, 87 per cent of total UK ODA in 2012. Other UK Government Departments and Sources of UK ODA spend was £1,173m, accounting for the remaining 13 per cent of total UK ODA in 2012.

ODA Donations Second Largest In OECD

Gross public expenditure on development (GPEX) in the UK in 2010-11 amounted to £9,007m of which the DFID aid programme accounted for £7,689m. In 2009-10 the GPEX was £7,767m, an increase of 1,240m or 16%. If debt relief is excluded GPEX totalled £8,829m, an increase of £1,161m or 15% over 2009-10 total of £7,668m.

Official Development Assistance (ODA) in 2010 was reported to have been £8,452m. The donation makes Britain the 2nd largest OECD-DAC donor in this category of international aid. Britain's donations amounted to an ODA/Gross National Income (GNI) ratio of 0.57%.

The largest amounts of DFID bilateral aid went to India (£279m), Ethiopia (£251m) and Pakistan (£203m). Bilateral assistance was provided to 78 countries, 36 of which received direct financial aid. The total DFID bilateral assistance to these countries amounted to £2,265m, 85% of DFID country specific bilateral aid if humanitarian aid is excluded. The countries receiving the largest amounts of bilateral aid excluding humanitarian assistance were India (£279m), Ethiopia (£245m) and Bangladesh (£171m).

DFID bilateral humanitarian assistance total for 2010-11 was £351m, a decrease of £84m from 2009-10. The countries receiving the most humanitarian assistance were Sudan (£84m), Pakistan (£83m) and the Democtratic Republic of Congo (£47m). Bilateral assistance to sub-Saharan Africa increased to £1,760m from £1,539m or 14%.

The largest share of DFID bilateral assistance went to the health sector (£830m) follwed by the government and civil society sector (£782m) and the economic sector (£750m).

DFIDs multilateral programme amounted to £3,222m in 2010-11 from £2,436m in 2009-10 an increase of 32%. The largest share of the multilateral expenditure went to the European Commission's development programme (£1,269m) follwed by the World Bank (£927m) and the United Nations (£355m).