Lectures 1-2: Basic Concepts Flashcards

1
Q

Development definition

A

In general: Positive change in a society

(as understood in Development Assistance) = a process of accomplishing planned short and medium term goals

technocratic approach, easier to operationalize in practice

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2
Q

Why should we study development “industry”?

A
  • big “business”
  • it has an impact on many spheres (political,economical…)
  • it brings forth hugely differing opinions (e.g. Sachs x Easterly)
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3
Q

assistance/cooperation/aid: definition

A

concrete external interventions in the developing countries with the overall aim to bring about a positive social change, most often poverty reduction

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4
Q

Development Assistance

Different Understandings (limited/broad):

A

a) all the financial resources from private and public donors provided for development aims
b) only funds provided by the official donors => ODA

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5
Q

Forms of Development Assistance

A

humanitarian emergency assistance, budget support, country programmable aid, food aid, military assistance…

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6
Q

de-politicization of development

A

Dealing with immediate, urgent individual needs,

ignoring the broader context (political economy, power structures, global income inequalities etc.)

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7
Q

ODF

A

= used for measuring the inflow of public resources to recipient countries

OOF = transactions by the official sector with countries on the DAC List which do not meet the conditions for eligibility
as ODA

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8
Q

OOF

A

transactions by the official sector with countries on the DAC List which do not meet the conditions for eligibility
as ODA

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9
Q
A
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10
Q

Development Assistance: Public Sector

A
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11
Q

Development Assistance: Private Sector

A
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12
Q

OECD DAC

A
  • Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s
  • Development Assistance Committee
  • international forum for the major donor countries
  • seeking new ways of doing business to increase both the quantity and the quality of aid
  • 30 members + observers
  • Candidate country assessment based on criteria:The existence of appropriate strategies, policies and institutional frameworks that ensure capacity to deliver a development co-operation programme; an accepted measure of effort; and the existence of a system of performance monitoring and evaluation
  • established in 1960 as Development Assistance Group (1961 => DAC)
  • original aim: accurate and comparable data reporting
  • aid statistics, especially on ODA
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13
Q

ODA: Official Development Assistance

A
  • specific category of official financial flows from donor to recipient countries
  • created in 1969 to:

→separate some of the problematic forms of aid in 50s and 60

→unify the reporting of aid data

OECD DAC put limitations on what can be classified as official development assistance in terms of:

  • aim of the funding
  • which country receives the funding → e.g. military assistance (& DAC imposed geographical limitations on classified ODA)
  • 1970: target of providing 0.7% of GNI as ODA annually
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14
Q

ODA Flows (starting 2018)

A
  • flows to countries and territories ONLY on the DAC List of ODA recipients: LDCs, other low income countries, lower middle and upper middle income countries:
  • and to multilateral development institutions that promote and specifically target economic development and welfare

the resource flows which are:

a) provided by official agencies, including state and local governments, or by their executive agencies;
b) concessional in character (grants and soft loans)

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15
Q

ODA as grant equivalent (starting 2018)

A

before, grants and concessional loans valued in the same way &“concessional” was open to interpretation

only “grant equivalent” of loans is now recorded as ODA = the more generous the loan, the higher the ODA value

encouraging donors to prefer grants and highly concessional loans

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16
Q

grants

A

resources provided free of interest without repayment

17
Q

concessional/soft loans

A

= have to be repaid with interest, but with significantly lower interest rates than if borrowed from commercial banks

18
Q

limitations on classification of ODA imposed in several thematic sectors:

A
  • military aid: military equipment and services, anti-terrorism activities not eligible; using donors’ armed forces to deliver humanitarian aid eligible
  • peacekeeping: only developmentally relevant activities of peacekeeping operations eligible
  • nuclear energy: only for civilian purposes
  • cultural programmes: eligible if they build cultural capacities of recipient countries
  • in-donor refugee costs: assistance to asylum seekers and refugees eligible during the first 12 months
19
Q

Why track ODA?

A

to compare how generous individual donors are

  • keeping the internationally agreed-on target for ODA (0.7%of GNI)
  • soft-pressure on donors

to track where the money goes and what are the most targeted thematic areas

  • to harmonize activities of individual donors
  • “donor darlings” and “donor orphans”

Why to have strict rules for aid reporting?

  • comparability of data on aid
  • to exclude the flows that do not contribute to development in recipient countries (e.g. military assistance)
20
Q

ODA trends x other flows

A

1960-2018

More stable, less tied to market shifts

e.g. private flows affected by: oil price shocks, Mexican debt crisis, 1990 recession, 9/11, 2008 financial crisis, refugee crisis

21
Q

ODA trends

A

Although absolute volume of ODA has increased

ODA as a per cent of GNI has decreased until 2000s and since slowly increased but not to the level it was in 1960s

Biggest ODA flows:

  1. Bilateral ODA
  2. multilateral ODA
  3. Humanitarian Assistance
22
Q

ODA: Critique

A

numerous items eligible for ODA are controversial, e.g.:

  • scholarships provided in the donor countries
  • spending on the assistance to refugees
  • debt relief
  • programs to raise development awareness in donor countries
  • administrative costs of ODA programs

→ not spent directly in the recipient countries

some financial flows do not genuinely contribute to development

ODA does not reflect the quality of the development assistance, only the quantity

23
Q

Complementary aid indicators (TOSSD, CPA)

A

Total Official Support for Sustainable Development & Country Programmable Aid

24
Q

New ODA: Total Official Support for Sustainable Development (TOSSD)

A

tracks broad range of resources supporting developing countries in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals

new measure of broader international financing for sustainable development that will complement ODA

TOSSD covers the totality of international public finance extended to developing countries and multilateral institutions, and private resources mobilized through official means, regardless of the type of instrument used

to increase transparency and rigour in reporting on development finance beyond ODA

25
Q

TOSSD: Total Official Support for Sustainable Development

A
  • documents previously unreported activities (e.g. biodiversity, migration, peace & security, labor statistics)
  • TOSSD is the only international measure of funding for global public goods benefiting developing countries
26
Q

Country Programmable Aid (CPA)

A

category of aid developed by OECD DAC in 2007

= portion of aid that donors programme for individual countries or regions

defined through exclusion of activities which:

  • are unpredictable by nature (humanitarian aid, debt relief)
  • entail no cross-border flows (administrative costs, student costs, promotion of development awareness, costs related to research and refugees in donor countries)
  • are not a part of co-operation agreements between donor and recipient governments (food aid, core funding to NGOs, aid from local governments or aid not allocable by country or region)

proportion of ODA over which recipient countries have, or could have, a significant say

27
Q

Gross bilateral ODA: to recipients by Income group

A
  1. Largest share to Lower Middle Income countries
  2. Then LDCs
  3. Then Upper middle income countries
  4. then other low income countries
28
Q

Gross bilateral ODA: by region

A
  1. Sub-saharan africa
  2. South and Central Asia
  3. ME & NA
  4. Other Asia & Oceania
  5. Latin America & Caribbean
29
Q

Gross bilateral ODA: by sector (4 biggest)

A
  1. Education, health…
  2. Other social infrastructure
  3. Economic infrastructure
  4. Humanitarian aid
30
Q

Alternative ways of measuring aid

A

several alternative indicators to ODA

Inflated aid vs. Genuine aid:

Developed by CONCORD as part of their AidWatch initiative

31
Q

Alternative ways of measuring aid: Inflated aid vs. Genuine aid:

A
  • inflated aid =* items from net ODA flows that do not contribute to development or do not represent a genuine transfer of resources to developing countries
  • Spending on students and refugees in the donor country, repayments of interest rates on concessional loans, debt relief, tied aid

Most ODA is genuine BUT inflated aid increases aid gap (further from 0,7% target)

32
Q

Commitment to Development Index

A

Assessment of the affect the rich countries have on developing countries

by Centre for Global Development

8 policy areas:

  • Quantity and quality of foreign aid
  • Openness to trade
  • Policies that encourage investment & financial transparency
  • Openness to migration
  • Environmental policies
  • Promoting international security
  • Support for technology creation & transfer
  • Global health issues