On 8 April, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) released the Official Development Assistance (ODA) official data for 2014. These statistics are important and re-confirmed that as the world's biggest development aid donor, the EU remains at the forefront of development aid. According to the DAC, "In the past 15 years, net ODA has been rising steadily and has increased by 66% since 2000. It has long been a stable source of financing for development. Despite the recession in several DAC member countries which has led to reductions in their aid budgets, it is encouraging that overall levels of ODA remain high and stable".

According to the current definition of ODA, established by the DAC in 1969, apart from consisting in aid which directly contributes towards the development and the welfare of the receiving country, it has to have "a grant element of at least 25% (using a fixed 10% rate of discount)". Moreover, ODA donors are required to work towards the United Nations (UN) target of ODA/Gross National Income (GNI) ratio of 0.7%.

Generally, in the EU, such data is collected by the European Commission from its member states, even though there are countries that are not DAC members (Estonia and Hungary) and others which are neither OECD nor DAC members (Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta and Romania).

The calculation of ODA by the EU is twofold because, apart from data presented by the DAC for the 28 member states, the European Commission also presents the EU's collective ODA, which is a sum of the ODA reported by the member states and the additional ODA provided by the EU institutions.

ODA as a share of the EU member states' GNI remained at 0.41% in 2014, however, total aid rose from €54bn in 2013 to €56.1bn in 2014. This amount increases to €58.2bn when one includes additional ODA from the European Investment Bank's own resources. According to the report, although Malta's ODA in 2014 was 0.20% of GNI,  Malta increased its ODA from €14m in 2013 to €16m in 2014.

Country-level aid to the poorest countries is expected to recover over the next few years after several years of declines, in line with a pledge by DAC members in December 2014 to reverse the fall in aid to countries most in need. This has been confirmed by the European Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development, Neven Mimica, who, in his comments on the 2014 ODA data, stated: "I am proud that the EU has upheld its place as the world's leading provider of ODA in recent years, despite the difficult economic situation." He did add, however, that "we are still some way from meeting our ambitious targets".

2015, designated by the EU as the European Year for Development (EYD2015), is the year when the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) should have been reached. The EU is currently intesifying its efforts to prepare for a more sustainable post-2015 agenda. As Commissioner Mimica stated: "I firmly believe that we should recommit to reaching the 0.7% target as a crucial contribution to securing an ambitious outcome to the post-2015 negotiations."

To stimulate discussion in Malta on the post-2015 agenda and financing for development, Meusac (which is also the EYD2015 National Coordinator) is organising a consultation session on the European Commission's Communication entitled, A Global Partnership for Poverty Eradication and Sustainable Development after 2015 (COM (2015) 44). The aim of this session, to be held on 29 April, is to gather the input and insights of local Non-Governmental Development Organisations (NGDOs) on how the global partnership should be shaped. The participation of academics and educators alike is strongly encouraged as such a session may help in increasing both awareness on developmental issues and familiarisation with what development aid entails.

For futher details on this Constualtion Session send an email on [email protected] or call on 2200 3300.

James Azzopardi

Executive, Information & Policy,