DAC statistics provide comprehensive data on the volume, origin and types of aid and resource flows to over 150 developing countries and territories.
There are two main data collections, one on annual aggregates (DAC aggregate statistics) which covers official development assistance (ODA), other official flows (OOF) and private funding (foreign direct investment, bank and non-bank flows) from members of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC), multilateral organisations and other donors. For a more detailed description of the data and definitions, please refer to the DAC Statistical Reporting Directives.
The other database is the Creditor Reporting System (CRS) on aid activities. The objectives of this database are to provide a set of readily available basic data that enables more detailed analysis on where aid goes, what purposes it serves and what policies it aims to implement, on a comparable basis for all DAC members. Most commonly, Aid Activity data are used to analyse the geographical breakdown by sector of aid for selected years and donors or groups of donors. But the database also enables consideration of specific policy issues (e.g. tying status of aid) and monitoring donors’ compliance with various international recommendations in the field of development co-operation.
The data are drawn from replies from the 23 members of the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC), international organisations, and countries that are not part of the DAC. It should be noted that the coverage of non-DAC donors’ aid varies over the years.
The data are part of DAC members’ official statistical reporting to the OECD. (Non-DAC donors' reporting takes place on a voluntary basis.) A network of statistical correspondents collects data from aid agencies and government departments (central, state and local)on an ongoing basis. Their task is also to ensure that reporting conforms to the Directives (definitions and classifications) agreed by the DAC.
The DAC Secretariat is responsible for data processing, quality control and dissemination. It responds to questions about the data and can also give users advice on data analysis. Contact: dac.contact@oecd.org).
Current USD and Constant USD: aid data are expressed in United States dollars at the exchange rate prevailing in the year of the flow, i.e. in current USD. Analyses of trends in aid over longer periods should be based on constant USD so as to take account of inflation and exchange rate variations. The data series in IDS/o are presented both in current and constant dollars. Switch from one to another by changing the “variable” when presenting the results of your query. The deflators in the “variable” box will always convert data to dollars of the value they held in the previous year of the latest data available. For example, if 2007 data are the latest in the database, the deflators will be for 2006 dollars. You can also convert series “manually” using the DAC deflators. For example, to convert a flow from country X expressed in current dollars in year Y into 1996 dollars, divide it by the 1996-base deflator for country X and year Y. Deflators convert dollar-denominated data for any year to dollars with the purchasing power they had in a specified base year.
Imputed Multilateral Flows: imputes aid outflows by multilateral bodies back to the funders of these bodies so that a geographical breakdown by recipient country can be assigned to a donor country’s multilateral ODA. For further details on the OECD’s methodology to calculate these flows, click here.
The coverage of CRS data compared to DAC annual aggregates varies over time and indicates the extent to which the data can be exploited in analytical work. High coverage permits an in-depth analysis. Low coverage means that the data, though descriptive, may not present a balanced picture of DAC members’ aid.
The coverage of the data for a specific recipient or sector varies depending on the donors and types of assistance involved. When analysing data for the last two decades, the main issue to take into consideration is the progressive improvement in donors’ reporting, and in general, CRS data on a commitment basis is of a better quality than those based on a disbursement basis.
The completeness of CRS commitments for DAC members has improved from 70% in 1995 to over 90% in 2000 and reached nearly 100% starting from 2003 flows.
Analysis on CRS disbursements is not recommended for flows before 2002, because the annual coverage is below 60%, while it is around and over 90% since 2002 and is continuously improving.
The data accessible through QWIDS show commitment data as of 1995 and disbursement data as of 2002. Please note that individual CRS transactions are made available since 1973 when using the Search function in the See All Datasets section of QWIDS.
The following links provide reference to core information available on the DAC web site:
- CRS Directives of which Purpose codes
- CRS++ guidelines of which Channel codes