How did the G8 do for Africa? The Final Report Card

Jan 9th, 2009 5:21 PM UTC
By Josh Lozman

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ll remember back in June that ONE released the 2008 DATA Report (and blog posts). The DATA report is ONE’s chance each year to publish progress on keeping the promises that the G8 countries made to Africa back in 2005. Promises are great, but when they don’t lead to action, we can’t let this go unnoticed.

The DATA Report is published in June each year to make the data available before the G8 Summit which usually happens in early July. Though this can help us achieve maximum impact with the report, there is a disadvantage to this. The OECD’s DAC (Development Assistance Committee), who collects the data from governments, publishes only preliminary figures in April; we don’t get the final, and more thoroughly reviewed data, until December. This year’s final review uncovered some significant differences in country progress so ONE has released an update to the 2008 DATA Report.

Before I get into the numbers, a quick note about what these numbers are and what they are not. For those of you in the United States, we often write about authorizations, budgets and appropriations – we come to you often to use your voice to impact these things. What the DAC measures is disbursement, or how much money actually left the US government’s treasury in a given year. This is true for other donor nations as well – this is not the budget or the CSR (in the UK), this is how much was actually spent. Though primarily we do need to get a big enough appropriation/budget to enable disbursements, we also need to make sure that it is being sent to promote African development and not just sitting in a bank account in the donor country. Using the DAC’s figures gives advocates a universal measure across OECD donor nations and is the way the Gleneagles commitments are monitored.

So, what are the final numbers?

The final figures reveal that in total, donors provided $83.05 billion in development assistance in 2007 of which $27.5 billion (33.1%) was directed to sub-Saharan Africa. The preliminary data released in April revealed a collective increase of $837 million for sub-Saharan Africa from G8 donors between 2006 and 2007. When totaled with previous annual increases, this resulted in a total G8 increase in ODA for sub-Saharan Africa of $3.04 billion since 2004 meaning that the G8 had thus delivered 13.7% of the total increase committed. The finalized data reveal that the 2006-2007 increase was slightly higher at $1.04 billion and thus the three year cumulative total increase was $3.16 billion. This total represents 14.5% of the total increase committed, slightly better than preliminary estimates showed, but still far off track to deliver the full amount by 2010.

The net change between the preliminary and final figures of $200 million is largely comprised of a reduction in the final figures for Japan and the UK tempered by higher final figures for France and the US. The 2008 DATA Report, using the preliminary data available at the time it was written, reported that Japan had met its rather weak commitment to double bilateral ODA by 2007. However, Japan’s 2007 final figures for ODA to Africa were $495 million less than preliminary estimates. Final figures for the UK declined $70 million from preliminary figures. Despite this, the UK has still delivered a higher percentage of its commitment than has any other G7 donor (except Japan whose commitment was just on bilateral ODA) and ONE’s pipeline projections continue to predict that the UK will meet its commitment to Africa.

Final figures for France showed ODA to Africa was in fact $441 million more than the preliminary figures reported with substantial increases in both bilateral and multilateral assistance. The 2008 DATA Report reported that France had delivered 6.7% of its Gleneagles commitment. The new figures raise that significantly to 15.6%, but still leaves France far off track to reach its commitment in full by 2010. The United States’ ODA increased to Africa by $120 million more than preliminary numbers showed, bringing the overall increase between 2006 and 2007 to $556 million.

The other G8 donors (Canada, Germany, and Italy) posted changes in ODA to Africa of less than $100 million between preliminary and final figures. Assuming the timeline remains similar to past years, the DAC will release preliminary figures for 2008 ODA in late March or early April. ONE will publish its 2009 DATA Report in June 2009 to report on progress towards the G8 commitments using this preliminary information.

If you want to read more background on the G8 commitments, the methodology behind the calculation of these numbers and the sectoral commitments (health, education, water, trade, and debt), check out the full 2008 DATA Report here.

-Josh Lozman

TAGS: DATA Report, DATA Report 2008, Development Assistance, ONE, Policy News