Examination of Witness (Question Numbers
26-39)
MS KAREN
JORGENSEN
24 FEBRUARY 2010
Q26 Chairman: Good morning and thank
you very much for coming. Again, just for the record, perhaps
you could introduce yourself.
Ms Jorgensen: I am Karen Jorgensen.
I am the Head of the Peer Review and Evaluation Division in the
Development Co-operation Directorate in the OECD.
Q27 Chairman: Thank you very much
for coming in to help us with this report. You will have heard
the discussion and the reference to your own organisation in the
first panel session. I suppose the starting point is definition,
and you have heard some of the cross-currents of discussion. Are
you satisfied that the OECD/DAC definition of ODA is appropriate?
I am sure it is not an absolutely rigid definition but is it appropriate
and does it, in fact, reflect all the activities that might be
defined as aid, or should it be narrowed or should it be broadened?
What is your fundamental take on definition, because you have
already heard how important it is that we know what we are talking
about when we are talking about official development assistance?
Ms Jorgensen: The definition of
ODA in fact was established in 1969 and it has only changed marginally
since in 1972. The definition is basically that official development
assistance has to come from official sources, government, obviously,
and it has to be for improving economic growth and welfare in
developing countries. There is a clause around concessionality
that refers to it being grants, or, if loans are given, a certain
amount of the loan also has to be in grant form. That is the basic
definition. The OECD then has established reporting guidelines
and those define what qualifies as reportable as ODA and what
does not. That is a very strict set of reporting directives against
which all our members report annually. When new activities come
up they are discussed in a committee of the OECD to decide whether
or not they meet the basic definition of official development
assistance and whether they should then be included in the reporting
directive, so the definition of ODA is there. Everyone who is
concerned with reporting it understands it. They know what they
can report as ODA and what they cannot. It has not changed, as
I say, and there has been very little movement also in reporting
directives over the years, so it is a pretty stable regime. I
think the definition that you refer to here is how is it viewed
in the UK, and that is what was set out by your Act in 2002, which
I think has given, from what we see, very clear guidance to your
administration in terms of programming the budget that has been
given to the department. I think we feel that compared to other
donors it has great strength in meeting the objectives of policy
that has been set and the objectives that have been laid out overall
in international commitments as far as the Millennium Development
Goals are concerned, as mentioned earlier.
Chairman: That is obviously helpful to
state, that it is clear and it has been well established over
a long period of time, but there are some pressures that you might
want to respond to questions about.
Q28 Andrew Stunell: You heard from
the previous panel, I am sure, that it was speculated that there
was going to be pressure at the international level to broaden
ODA definitions in order to make it easier for other countries
in general to reach preset targets. Is it your sense at OECD that
that pressure is there and that those discussions are likely in
the foreseeable future?
Ms Jorgensen: I understand that
there are continuous discussions in the network of statistical
reporters, and I think there are issues around what was mentioned
by Mr Maxwell around security and around climate change, continuous
discussions around what is reportable that would still meet the
basic ODA definition. We are not seeing any great appetite to
loosen those parameters at the moment. We think there are some
who might like to see it but there are equally others who resist
it, so I think there will be a continuous discussion but we are
certainly not seeing the definition widening or even taking on
board more than what is already being reported. When it comes
to climate change we have had for some years already what we call
a climate change mitigation marker in our reporting system and
that allows for the identification of activities that are undertaken
with development assistance that will have an impact on mitigating
climate change. In December the Development Assistance Committee
agreed a similar marker on climate change adaptation so it will
now allow identifying those activities that contribute to climate
change adaptation, but that does not change the overall reporting
structure. It does not change the definition of what is ODA. It
simply allows within the reported activities the identification
of those that also have a purpose to mitigate or adapt to climate
change.
Q29 Andrew Stunell: So it will not
be possible for a country to invest in a climate change project
and claim it is ODA unless there are clear poverty reduction or
economic growth elements to it? Is that what you are saying?
Ms Jorgensen: That is correct.
Q30 Chairman: Does that also apply
to peacekeeping operations and the like? You have got so many
countries engaged, for example, in Afghanistan who might feel
that they want to extend the definition. The same criteria would
apply and they would have to meet those?
Ms Jorgensen: That is correct.
There was a couple of years ago a debate about contributions to
the UN peacekeeping operations and, as happens with several international
organisations this is a coefficient that can be counted as ODA,
a proportion of donations or contributions to those organisations,
and there was a slight shift in the coefficient from 6% to 7%
when it came to the DPKO or the Department for Peacekeeping Operations
contributions, but that was as far as that reached and I do not
think there is much appetite to widen that out at the moment,
so, as you say, it has to contribute to economic growth and the
welfare of populations in developing countries.
Chairman: Okay; that is helpful.
Q31 Mr Lancaster: The 0.7% target
was set back in 1970 and very few countries have met that now,
some 40 years on, which some have interpreted as a lack of enthusiasm
for it, but do you think that target is still appropriate?
Ms Jorgensen: That is a really
difficult question to answer because I think it depends on how
you measure appropriateness for a particular target. I think it
is appropriate because even if we calculate what a 0.7% target
would give us in overall global aid flows, and I think the panel
before me would have been better placed to answer this, I think
that would still fall short of what we estimate are needs required
for development and bringing the billion people who are still
living in poverty above that level. The UN Secretary General recently
reconfirmed this as a target that the UN is very committed to
and so I think generally internationally it is regarded as still
being a relevant target.
Q32 Mr Lancaster: But do you think
the criteria for coming up with 0.7% should be changed? Do you
think we should be looking at it from a different angle?
Ms Jorgensen: I am not sure I
understand what you mean by the criteria for looking at it.
Q33 Mr Lancaster: Back in 1970 the
figure was set at 0.7%. Do you think that the world has changed
significantly now and that perhaps the criteria that were used
back then should be reviewed as to how we come to 0.7%?
Ms Jorgensen: I am not sure that
it is my place to speculate because it would be speculation.
Q34 John Battle: I think some feel
that the EU is not actually on track to meet its interim 2010
target of providing 0.56% GNI. Do you concur with that? Do your
figures support that analysis to say the EU is well behind?
Ms Jorgensen: That is correct.
The EU collectively is not set to meet the target in 2010 based
on the projections that we have received for aid in 2010. There
are some countries that will not meet the target.
Q35 John Battle: So what do you think
the UK can realistically do to bring people into line and to push
for the target to be met?
Ms Jorgensen: I think the UK is
recognised as being a leader on a number of dimensions that have
to do with development, certainly not just on the quantity of
aid but also on the quality of aid. I think the UK sets the bar
for what other donors should achieve and I think a lot of donors
look to what the UK is doing both on the quality and the quantity
of the aid, and I think it is really important to keep in view
both. I think the UK has taken its leadership from Gleneagles
and going forward, really promoting aid commitments and sticking
to those commitments, and the fact that the UK was able to put
forward projections into the spending for three to four years,
which was something that I am aware that only one other donor
actually could do and it is a much smaller donor, really sent
a signal to others that this was a commitment that we should take
and we can take, and so some of them have tried to follow that.
Others have not, but I think the leadership position that the
UK has played out gives it weight to really keep pushing other
donors to follow suit and honour their commitments. You ask will
the legislation make other donors enact similar legislation. I
think it will help us in our work in DAC, particularly when we
conduct peer reviews, to hold this up as an example for other
donors and we can recommend that they take similar action if we
feel that this is helpful. However, I think one should also look
to the opposite and that is what would happen if the UK did not
meet its commitments, and there is, of course the issue: will
the legislation help the UK Government in this or not, but I think
if the UK did not meet its commitments then large donors would
be saying, "The leader in this business was not able to meet
its commitments, so how are we supposed to do it?" You really
should be thinking of what would be the backlash of the UK not
meeting its commitment.
Q36 Chairman: Professor Haddad was
picking up the danger that it might have an effect on the British
population saying, "Why on earth are we struggling to achieve
0.7% when Italy is tearing up its targets and everybody else is
falling behind?"
Ms Jorgensen: It would have been
interesting if you had sat in on a recent peer review that we
did on Italy which was, I have to say, the toughest that I have
delivered, and I have delivered about 18 now, because I have never
heard the committee be so critical of a government's lack of performance.
It is in the report and it was clear in the committee room that
the committee felt that Italy's performance needs to improve significantly
and that there was little excuse for not having done that.
Q37 Chairman: Just as a digression,
and I know it is early days, to what extent do you think that
the committee's view will affect the Italian government because
that is another point, how effective is OECD in punishing its
members.
Ms Jorgensen: That remains to
be seen. Of course, that all plays into local politics in Italy.
I think the administration certainly heard the messages very clearly.
Whether they can carry political weight, of course, is a different
story, but this is where I think the UK at political level can
weigh in with moral authority because you are realising your commitments.
That would be much harder to do if you were not doing that.
Q38 John Battle: Does the Belgian
legislation on the 0.7% target provide any lessons for our draft
Bill that we are proposing to put through Parliament?
Ms Jorgensen: The Belgian legislation
is a little bit different because it is a clause in an administrative
law that requires that a solidarity note, as it is called, accompanies
the annual budget to explain how the government is moving forward
on achieving the target. What we hear anecdotally is that that
note has in fact been quite instrumental in keeping attention
on moving forward on the commitment, so I would say, talking to
our Belgian colleagues, that they feel it has been quite helpful.
Q39 John Battle: If I were to push
you on your previous answer, in a sense the difference that the
Government made in 1997 was that we introduced a three-year Comprehensive
Spending Review of all budgets. The big problem for administrations
everywhere is annual, if not sub-annual, budgets—budgets
going from 1 April to 31 March every year and you not knowing
whether you are getting the money next year, so no real running-on
commitments, and within a narrow span of four to five years of
a Parliament. So the three-year Comprehensive Spending Review
to give commitments over two or three years across all government
departments was one thing but passing into law to meet that particular
commitment is another order of magnitude altogether, is it not?
It makes it a law to say that money has to be spent regardless
of who is in government. Do you see any other government in Europe
going down that road?
Ms Jorgensen: I am not aware of
anyone else proposing—I have to be careful because there
are some bills that are being introduced at the moment of which
we do not know the exact contents so it is possible that targets
will be there. These are for some of the smaller EU donors so
in any case the impact on ODA would not be as significant as yours.
However, I think we can look to agreements that have been reached
in other countries cross-party in parliaments on setting minimum
aid targets, and so they have not been enshrined in legislation
but they have been cross-party and they have been agreements that
have actually stuck, and I think you can look to Denmark and the
Netherlands as very good examples of that. In Denmark, for example,
aid came under significant threat some years ago and because there
had been this cross-party understanding over a number of years
they managed to keep the baseline of what they had agreed earlier.
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