In 2015, the 30 member states of the OECD's Development Assistance Committee (DAC) provided a total of $131.4 billion in official development assistance (ODA) – in other words, an average of 0.30% of their GNI and 6.6% more in real terms than in 2014. This increase is nevertheless mainly due to the doubling of spending for refugee asylum seekers in Europe. If this spending is excluded, net ODA rose by 1.3% in 2015.
The definitive figures on ODA flows were published by the OECD on Wednesday 4 January and revise slightly downwards the provisional figures published in April 2016, which gave a total of $131.6 billion – in other words, a 6.9% increase in real terms compared with the previous year (see EUROPE 11656, 11532). They nevertheless provide more detail, especially on ODA flows per donor country and recipient country, per region and per sector of assistance.
In 2015, the G7 countries totalled 72% of the DAC's net ODA and the EU countries 56%. The ODA spending of the EU institutions fell slightly to stand at $13.7 billion in 2015 (compared with $16.5 billion in 2014).
In 2015, Syria was the greatest ODA recipient ($4.9 billion), followed by Afghanistan ($4.3 billion), Pakistan ($3.8 billion), Ethiopia and India ($3.2 billion each). Assistance to the least developed countries stood at $43 billion – in other words, 8.8% more than in 2014. Assistance to sub-Saharan African countries totalled $42.8 billion (6.3% more than in 2014).
The biggest donors in volume were the USA ($31.08 billion, 0.17% of its GNI), the UK ($18.70 billion, 0.71% of its GNI), Germany ($17,78 billion, 0.52% of its GNI), Japan ($9.3 billion, 0.22% of its GNI) and France ($9.23 billion, in other words 0.37% of its GNI).
Only six countries, five of which are members of the EU, reached or exceeded the UN objective of allocating 0.7% of their GNI to ODA: Sweden (1.40% with $7.09 billion), Luxembourg (0.93% with $0.36 billion), Denmark (0.85% with $2.57 billion), the Netherlands (0.76% with $5.81 billion), the UK (0.71% with $18.70 billion), as well as Norway (1.05%).
Only Luxembourg, Australia and South Korea do not count the cost of refugees in their ODA. In Greece and Italy, but also in Austria, the Netherlands and Sweden, spending dedicated to refugees absorbed over 20% of ODA in 2015.
Finland (0.56% of its GNI), Germany (0.52%), Belgium (0.42%), France (0.37%), Ireland (0.36%) and Austria (0.32%) are above the DAC average.
Italy (0.21%), Portugal (0.16%), Spain (0.13%), Slovenia (0.15%), Greece (0.14%), the Czech Republic (0.12%), Slovakia (0.10%) and Poland (0.10%) are below the DAC average, as are Canada (0.28%), New Zealand (0.27%), Australia (0.27%), Iceland (0.24%), Japan (0.22%) and the USA (0.17%).
The figures can be consulted at: http://www.oecd.org/dac/financing-sustainable-development/ (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)