Each year in early April, the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) releases preliminary figures for what each large donor country spent on official development assistance the year before. This morning, the DAC released the figures for 2008. There is some good and bad news in there. Though we will post much more analysis later in the day, here is a quick summary of ODA for sub-Saharan Africa.

A few notes for accountants, seasoned advocates and others who follow the DAC and their processes. These are preliminary figures for 2008 ODA. They are net of debt relief, reported in 2008 US dollars, and do impute contributions through multilateral organizations to sub-Saharan Africa. SSA below means sub-Saharan Africa.

• OVERALL DAC donors: ODA to SSA was $36.661 billion, an increase of 11% over 2007
• G7: ODA to SSA was $25.165 billion, an increase of 14% over 2007
• Canada: Significant increases in bilateral ODA (47% over 2007) multilateral ODA (up by 63% over 2007) drove ODA to SSA up to $1.911 billion, up by 52% over 2007
• France: A decline in bilateral ODA to SSA drive decreases in ODA to SSA to $3.54 billion in 2008, down by 15% from 2007
• Germany: Germany’s ODA to SSA was $3.897 billion, up by 15% – $513 million – over 2007
• Italy: ODA to SSA in 2008 is $1.43 billion, down by 4% or $55 million largely due to falls in Italy’s multilateral contribution
• Japan: 2008 ODA to SSA is $2.6 billion, an increase of 56%, up by $938 million including large increases in multilateral (up 89% over 2007) and bilateral (up 31% over 2007) ODA
• United States: Large increases in bilateral ODA sent total ODA to SSA up by 26% over 2007 figures to $7.75 billion in 2008
• United Kingdom: ODA to SSA was $4.02 billion, a increase of 3% – or $100 million – over 2007 figures

More reactions to come shortly.

-Josh Lozman, Deputy Policy Director