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During the 2005 “year of development” donors promised a major expansion in official development assistance (ODA).

• At their summit in Gleneagles, G-8 leaders pledged to increase aid to Africa by $25 billion a year by 2010—more than doubling assistance to the region—and DAC members have agreed to expand aid to all developing countries by about $50 billion.
• ODA from Development Assistance Committee (DAC) countries was $106 billion in 2005, up from $80 billion in 2004 and $69 billion in 2003.
• Official development assistance from non-DAC donors rose by 9 percent (in nominal terms) to $3.7 billion in 2004. Saudi Arabia continued to account for the largest share of assistance by this group. Other donors are beginning to emerge in importance, including Korea, Kuwait, Taiwan (China) and Turkey, as well as new EU members that are not DAC members.
• Nearly half the increase in net ODA from 2001 to 2004 has been in the form of debt relief and technical cooperation, a quarter was for emergency assistance, and a tenth for flexible bilateral forms of financing.
• Aid allocation patterns suggest that donors are paying more attention to poverty and to quality of recipients’ policies and institutions—in 2004 over two-thirds of bilateral donors have a significant relationship between aid and poverty and that the poverty elasticity of aid has strengthened for most of these donors.
• Broad-based support for the Paris Agenda on aid effectiveness has translated into the adoption of global targets for the 12 indicators in the Paris Declaration. Some countries are beginning to implement the Paris Framework at the country level, customizing indicators and targets to the country context.

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