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Development aid

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Development aid

Development aid (or development cooperation) is a type of aid given by governments and other agencies to support the economic, environmental, social, and political development of developing countries, as well as least developed, low-income or poor countries. It is distinguished from humanitarian aid by aiming at a sustained improvement in the conditions in developing countries, as well as least-developed, poor of low-income countries, rather than short-term relief. The overarching term is foreign aid (or just aid). The amount of foreign aid is measured though official development assistance (ODA). This is a category used by the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to measure foreign aid.

Aid may be bilateral: given from one country directly to another; or it may be multilateral: given by the donor country to an international organisation such as the World Bank or the United Nations Agencies (UNDP, UNICEF, UNAIDS, etc.) which then distributes it among the developing countries. The proportion is currently about 70% bilateral 30% multilateral.

About 80% of the aid measured by the OECD comes from government sources as official development assistance (ODA). The remaining 20% or so comes from individuals, businesses, charitable foundations or NGOs (e.g., Oxfam). Most development aid comes from the Western industrialised countries but some poorer countries also contribute aid. Development aid is not usually understood as including remittances received from migrants working or living in diaspora—even though these form a significant amount of international transfer—as the recipients of remittances are usually individuals and families rather than formal projects and programmes.

Negative side effects of development aid can include an unbalanced appreciation of the recipient's currency, increasing corruption, and adverse political effects such as postponements of necessary economic and democratic reforms.

There are various terms that used interchangeably with development aid in some contexts but possess different meanings in others.

Analyses of development aid often focus on Official development assistance (ODA), as ODA is measured systematically and appears to cover most of what people regard as development aid. ODA may be bilateral: given from one country directly to another; or it may be multilateral: given by the donor country to pooled funds administered by an international organisation such as the World Bank or a UN Agency (UNDP, UNICEF, UNAIDS, etc.) which then uses its funds for work in developing countries. To qualify as multilateral, the funding must lose its identity as originating from a particular source. The proportion of multilateral aid in ODA was 28% in 2019.

Trilateral development cooperation (also called triangular development cooperation) is a type of development cooperation, wherein OECD DAC member states or multilateral institutions provide development assistance to emergent development actors, with the aim of assisting them in carrying out development projects in other developing countries.

The purpose of trilateral development cooperation is to combine the strengths of both OECD DAC member states and the new development actors in delivering more effective aid to recipient countries. The OECD DAC member states and multilateral institutions participate in trilateral development cooperation with the aimed goal of increasing aid effectiveness and efficiency, phasing out bilateral aid, transferring good practices, and capacity building.

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