APPENDIX 3: CALL FOR EVIDENCE
The Economic Impact and Effectiveness of Development
Aid
The Economic Affairs Committee has decided to conduct
an inquiry on The Economic Impact and Effectiveness of Development
Aid. The Committee welcomes written evidence on any or all
of the issues set out below by June 30.
The inquiry will seek to assess the impact of official
development assistance (ODA) on the economic growth and development
of recipient countries and in particular the impact of the UK's
ODA.
Net aid flows from traditional donors—the members
of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC)—totalled
US$129 billion in 2010, the highest ever recorded in real terms
and equivalent to approximately 0.36% of donors' Gross National
Income.[204] The UK's
contribution of US$13.7bn, equivalent to 11% of the total, represented
0.56% of UK's Gross National Income. Non-DAC members contributed
a further US$7bn.[205]
The Inquiry, which will not examine the role of
humanitarian aid, will seek to answer questions such as:
- (1) How far and in what ways
does official development assistance (ODA) affect the economic
growth of recipient countries? Where possible to identify, what
has been the impact of British ODA? How robust are results from
studies in this area?
- (2) How does economic growth in countries
which experience large surges in ODA compare to similar
countries which do not?
- (3) What lessons, if any, can be learnt from
the experience of former aid-receiving countries that have graduated
from reliance on ODA?
- (4) What factors determine the effectiveness
of ODA in recipient countries? Are they dependent on the scale
and form of aid flows? How is aid effectiveness monitored?
- (5) Do conditions imposed by government donors
on recipient countries improve the effectiveness of ODA? What
has been the British government's experience?
- (6) How should ODA be allocated? How far
do (and should) the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) shape
aid allocations?
- (7) How useful is the UN target of rich countries
giving 0.7% of GNP in ODA? If the target was reached would it
lead to more official development aid than developing countries
could efficiently absorb?
- (8) Does ODA complement or inhibit private
investment in developing countries?
- (9) How does ODA, and British aid in particular,
interact with financial flows from other sources including new
donors, such as China, India and Brazil, private capital flows,
and philanthropic sources?
- (10)How does and how should development assistance
engage with security concerns, at a global level and at the level
of individual (fragile) states?
- (11)What are the prospects for using aid to support
market-based initiatives, for example in providing insurance against
earthquake damage?
- (12)In what ways, if any, can the British government
improve the effectiveness of its development aid?
17 May 2011
204 See OECD-DAC www.oecd.org/dac/stats/data Back
205
Figures for 2009 only.They take no account of aid flows from China,
India, Brazil and Russia. Back
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