Population assistance as a proportion of official development assistance

(d) Official development assistance

(b) Official development assistance

1. Official Development Assistance

In the OECD official flows to countries with economies in transition are considered as official aid rather than official development assistance.

Official development assistance (ODA) and debt

Furthermore, remittance levels are double those of official development assistance (ODA).

A. Official development assistance

An increase in ODA should be complemented by an increase in the absorption capacity of the recipient countries and international aid should include efforts to enhance capacity building to manage ODA.

At the same time, donors' administrative costs, which are counted as official development assistance, also rose to 5 per cent of total official development assistance in 2002.

7. Official development assistance, 1992 1997

In Africa, more than 20 countries received United Nations assistance in excess of 10 per cent of their total ODA receipts in 1996 six of those received assistance amounting to 20 per cent of ODA.

On the contrary, ODA has declined.

First, official development assistance (ODA) should be greatly increased.

C. Multilateral ODA

With respect to official development assistance (ODA), the trend has been towards an increase in the volume of ODA to Africa since 2002.

In addition, the sharp decline in official development assistance continued.

While ODA left donors some margin for manoeuvre, the rigidity of a global tax might produce a reduction in ODA rather than supplement it.

(a) Reversing the decline in global official development assistance for forest related activities and calling for the fulfilment of commitments to official development assistance

Furthermore, it is essential to implement the commitments regarding the increase in official development assistance, as well as to quickly deliver that assistance to those who are in need.

214. It is important to reverse the overall decline in official development assistance flows and to achieve internationally agreed official development assistance targets as soon as possible.

Deeply concerned by the low levels of official development assistance,

Increasing the amount and impact of official development assistance

Targets for official development assistance were far from being met.

Therefore, official development assistance remained crucial.

B. Managing bilateral ODA

The recent commitments on official development assistance (ODA) were widely welcomed, including the commitment to double ODA to Africa and the commitments by many donors to reach the target of 0.7 per cent in ODA.

The immediate result was a 5 per cent increase in ODA in 2002 and total ODA further increased to 68.6 billion in 2003.

Sources OECD, statistical annex to 2004 Development Cooperation Report (net ODA receipts, ODA GNI) UNCTAD, Handbook of Statistics, 2004 (exports of merchandise) World Bank, World Development Indicators 2005 (external debt, GDP).

Sixth is the need for more official development assistance (ODA).

Official development assistance is growing extremely slowly.

33. The importance of official development assistance (ODA) was also noted.

For developing countries, official development assistance (ODA) remains an important source of income.

The most direct way to increase ODA volumes is to allocate increasing shares of donor countries' national budgets to aid.

In addition, they recommended that a portion of official development assistance (ODA) be targeted to providing infrastructural support services for the processing sector.

35. We recognize the need to manage ODA effectively in donor and recipient countries.

In addition, increases in ODA must be accompanied by actions aimed at scaling up aid effectiveness.

We have also pledged 60 million to official and unofficial humanitarian assistance.

The decline in ODA is inconsistent with the policy pronouncements of the donor community.

As to official development assistance, we welcome the decision taken by the European Union to increase its allotment to 0.7 per cent of gross national income.

Despite recent signs of improvement in overall levels of ODA, not all the channels through which ODA is transmitted have performed equally well.

28. The shrinking flows of ODA are being reflected, quite naturally, in the concessional flows from multilateral institutions to developing countries.

7. The Agenda highlighted the importance of reversing the overall decline in flows of official development assistance (ODA) and of achieving internationally agreed ODA targets as soon as possible.

23. The decline in absolute amount in ODA to Africa and in Africa s share in total ODA does not augur well, with the new orientation of the aid policies of donor countries aimed at supporting the development efforts of strong performers.

Closely related to ODA is the issue of external debt.