OECD: Development aid could sink dramatically

First, the good news: some $161 billion (€134 billion) was spent on development aid worldwide last year, a new high.

The funding, contributed by Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development member states in 2020, is quite impressive considering that it represents a 3.5% increase over the previous year, when adjusted for inflation. A large portion of those funds went toward the fight against COVID-19 in the world's poorer countries.

These figures appear less impressive, however, when compared with the money industrialized countries have spent shoring up their own economies. "Governments globally have provided 16 trillion dollars' worth of COVID stimulus measures yet we have only mobilized 1% of this amount to help developing countries cope with a crisis that is unprecedented in our lifetimes," said OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria.

The share of development aid as it relates to gross national income rose only slightly in 2020, from 0.3% to 0.32%. This is far from the United Nations' goal of 0.7%, and this increase is only due to a special circumstance of fate: Since the figure represents only a percentage of gross national income, and income plummeted in almost all OECD countries last year, the share remains the same even if development spending is cut.

Germany reaches UN goal for second time

OECD member states spent very different amounts when it comes to development aid. Only six countries reached the UN goal of 0.7% last year: Denmark, Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom and, for the second time since 2016, Germany.

According to preliminary figures, Germany spent 0.73% of its economic output in 2020 on development aid. This figure, however, does include funding for asylum-seekers currently in Germany. If that amount is factored out, the total amount would drop to 0.66%. Nevertheless, Germany did spend some €25 billion on development aid last year, second only to the United States.

'A major test for multilateralism'

And now for the bad news: Development funding for 2021 and the coming years is expected to take a serious hit, with most donor countries saying they'll have their hands full absorbing the economic consequences of the pandemic.

Development Minister Gerd Müller issued a stern warning on Tuesday, pointing out that Germany's financial planning for the next few years would cut development aid by about a quarter. "We cannot cope with the global consequences of the pandemic in this way," he said. "COVID will not be over next year."

"This crisis is a major test for multilateralism and for the very concept of foreign aid," said the OECD's Gurria. He called for more to be done to get vaccines to developing countries, adding that the UN-backed COVAX initiative that helps get vaccines to the world's poor continued to face massive financial difficulties.

Lockdown worse than the virus?

The pandemic has triggered a massive economic and hunger crisis, not to mention the 300 million people who have also lost their livelihoods. Müller sees in this crisis more than just a danger to world health.

"With the medicine that's necessary to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria not getting to the people who need them in Africa, it is feared that more people will die because of the consequences of the lockdown than from the virus itself," he said. "Many counties will be set back years as a result of the crisis."

This article has been translated from German