By Sarah Garcia
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) was developed in 1961 with the goal of improving the well-being of individuals worldwide both socially and economically. OECD is currently made up of 35 member countries, a majority of which are highly developed countries such as the United States. OECD is funded by these 35 member countries as well as other donor organizations. OECD uses this funding in order to work alongside developing countries in order to improve the well-being of the individuals living in these countries. The most recent data shows that the amount of money provided by OECD has been increasing fairly steadily since 1962. The most current data set made public by OECD tracks funding and spending for the years 2007-2015. This data shows that OECD provided 1.51 Trillion US Dollars in the year 2015 compared to 1.01 Trillion US Dollars in 2007.
Despite the difference in the total amount of money donated, DAC countries and multilateral donations made up the largest proportion of donations in both 2007 and 2015. In 2007, DAC countries (countries belonging to OECD’s Development Assistance Committee) donated 699 Billion US Dollars, approximately 69% of all donations. Similarly, in 2015 DAC countries donated 900 Billion US Dollars, accounting for only approximately 59% of all donations. Following DAC countries, multilateral donations accounted for 31% of donations in 2007 and 36% of donations in 2015. In both 2007 and 2015 the third highest donor and highest single donor country remained the United States, providing 21% of all donations in 2007 but dropping to 15% of all donations in 2015.
OECD tracks spending through main sectors that are broken down further into specific subsectors. The major sectors outlined by OECD include Action Relating to Debt, Commodity Aid/General Program Assistance, Economic Infrastructure and Services, Humanitarian Aid, Multi-Sector/Cross Cutting, Production Sectors, Social Infrastructure and Services, and Unallocated/Unspecified. In 2007, OECD donated the highest amount to projects related to Social Infrastructure and Services and the least amount to projects related to Commodity Aid/General Program Assistance. In 2015, projects related to Social Infrastructure and Services remained the highest funded and projects related to Action Relating to Debt received the least funding. Projects related to Social Infrastructure and Services include government and civil society, health, water supply and sanitation, education, and conflict, peace, and security. Government and civil society projects receive the most funding and secondary education receives the least funding.
As such a large organization that receives and distributes a major amount of funding throughout the world, it is important to know how this money is being spent. Collecting data on who is providing funding and how much as well as where this funding is being distributed is a relatively new concept for OECD, but making this data available to the public will likely increase future accountability for OECD as well as allow both funding and spending to be tracked and compared over time.
Source: OECD (2017), "Detailed aid statistics: Official bilateral commitments by sector", OECD International Development Statistics (database).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/data-00073-en
(Accessed on 14 August 2017)