Development Assistance

The Challenge

In 2000, 189 nations adopted the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), eight goals designed to reduce global poverty and disease by 2015. If achieved, the MDGs could transform the lives of millions in the world's poorest countries, but many impoverished nations can't reach these ambitious targets alone. In signing on to the MDGs, world leaders acknowledged that progress towards the first seven goals (an end to extreme poverty and hunger, universal primary education, gender equality, reduced child mortality, improved maternal health, progress in the fight against HIV/AIDS and other diseases, and environmental sustainability) would largely depend on leadership in developing countries. But by committing to goal eight-a global partnership for development-wealthy nations around the globe clearly affirmed the importance of donor support in the fight against extreme poverty and disease. 

The spirit of this commitment has been captured in several agreements since the 2000 Summit. In 2002 at the International Conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey, Mexico, wealthy countries committed to spending 0.7% of their gross national product on development. At the Gleneagles Summit in 2005, the G8 agreed to deliver an additional $50 billion in global development assistance by 2010, half of which (an additional $25 billion) would be designated to sub-Saharan Africa. 

In its annually published DATA Report, ONE monitors the extent to which donors are on track to deliver their 2005 Gleneagles commitments to sub-Saharan Africa. In the 2009 Report, ONE found that the G8 had delivered only 33% of its promised increases to Africa by 2010. If this pace continues, the G8 will collectively fall far short of their target. Some countries are more to blame for this than others. Canada, Japan and the United States will meet or beat relatively modest commitments; Germany and the United Kingdom are striving to reach much more ambitious targets (and the UK will likely do so); France is far off-track to meets its commitment; and Italy's performance is an utter failure.

Fulfilling these commitments is more important than ever, as poor countries struggle to cope with the effects of the food, climate and global financial crises. The success and progress in Africa-supported by donor assistance-is at risk.

The Opportunity

In the past, some donors have used "aid" for geopolitical purposes, rather than allocating it for economic growth and progress towards achieving the MDGs. This has led some to believe that "aid" or development assistance is ineffective. But recent successes have shown that high quality development assistance does work; across the globe, development investments are producing lifesaving results (Please see aid effectiveness page). There are currently an estimated 3.2 million HIV-positive Africans on antiretroviral treatment and 88 million bed nets have been delivered by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria alone to help protect families from malaria, substantially reducing malaria deaths in Ethiopia, Rwanda and Kenya. Targeted development assistance and savings from debt relief has also allowed 34 million African children to enroll in primary school for the first time between 1999 and 2006. These results were achieved with only a portion of the assistance promised to poor countries, suggesting that fulfilled commitments delivered effectively could have an enormous impact. Final estimates published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) indicated that in 2008, wealthy countries provided $111.4 billion in development assistance for poor countries around the world. $36.8 billion of this was specifically for sub-Saharan Africa, representing an increase of $9.3 billion since 2004.

Donors are also developing inventive new tools to provide sustained development funding, including through innovative financing mechanisms. UNITAD, for example, an international drug purchasing facility, implemented an "airline ticket tax" to departing flights purchased in eight participating countries. Revenues from this levy have then been used to ensure affordable access to lifesaving medicines in developing countries. The German government now auctions off carbon emission certificates to industries. A portion of the profits are then used to finance climate adaptation and mitigation in developing countries. Beginning in 2013, the option will become an obligation for all of the European Union.