Develop further an open, rule-based, predictable, nondiscriminatory trading and financial system
Address the special needs of the least developed countries
Address the special needs of landlocked developing countries and small island developing states
Deal comprehensively with the debt problems of developing countries through national and international measures in order to make debt sustainable in the long term
In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries
In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communications
Official development assistance (ODA) from Development Assistance Committee (DAC) countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has increased steadily in the last decade, with a large jump in 2005, mostly attributable to debt-relief initiatives. Aid today is more flexible and more aligned to national priorities. It is also more selective, that is, more responsive to needs, as well as to the quality of policies and institutions. Aid from DAC countries, as measured by per capita income levels, still falls short of the United Nations target of 0.7 percent of gross national income (GNI). Moreover, multilateral trade discussions have not yet delivered tangible results, even if market access for developing countries’ exports has slightly improved. With decreasing costs, information technologies are spreading very rapidly across the world, but the digital divide still remains a concerning reality.
One of the indicators for MDG 8 is the ratio of total net ODA to DAC donors’ GNI. The ODA-to-GNI ratio for DAC donors stood at 0.31 percent in 2006, below the level of the early 1990s. The level of programmable aid, which can be more rapidly and effectively aligned to national priorities, has increased since 1990, but the percentage of ODA considered programmable aid has fallen. Programmable aid is total ODA excluding bilateral humanitarian aid, debt relief, administration costs, in-donor country refugee costs, and imputed student costs. Non-DAC ODA, which is estimated to be growing rapidly, has not yet been monitored on a systematic basis.
The amount of ODA disbursed by DAC donors to low-income countries grew by 124 percent from 2000 to 2006. Owing to debt-relief initiatives, ODA to lower-middle-income countries rose by 175 percent from 2002 to 2005 but sharply decreased by 47 percent in 2006.
The Overall Trade Restrictiveness Index (OTRI) measures the overall restrictiveness (including non-tariff measures) faced by imports while the Market Access Overall Trade Restrictiveness Index (MA-OTRI) measures the overall restrictiveness (including non-tariff measures) faced by exports. Despite limited progress in the Doha round of multilateral trade negotiations, low- and middle-income countries benefited from a slight improvement between 2000 and 2006 in market access for their products. However, low-income countries, given their specialization in agriculture, still face the lowest levels of access to exports markets. Symmetrically, low-income countries still impose larger restrictions on imports than any other group of countries, despite significant progress between 2000 and 2006. Over the same period, trade liberalization in middle-income countries was more pronounced.
With the adoption of the MDGs and recent multilateral debt-relief initiatives, the international community is committed to monitoring more closely external (and domestic) debt-sustainability indicators, primarily in low-income and lower-middle-income countries. A country is said to experience debt-stress risk if its debt-burden indicator exceeds its indicative threshold over a 20-year projection period. Low risk indicates that all the debt-burden indicators are far below the baseline scenario threshold; moderate risk indicates that debt-burden indicators currently below the threshold could increase from external shocks or unexpected macroeconomic policy changes; high risk indicates that at least one debt-burden indicator has surpassed the threshold, and debt distress indicates that a country is already having repayment difficulties. For the 56 countries that have reliable data, eight low-income countries were in debt distress as of early 2008.
Internet costs are dropping rapidly but are still very expensive for users in developing countries, low-income countries in particular, where a one-year subscription cost was equivalent to 62 percent of GNI per capita in 2005. The proportion of users doubled in low-income countries between 2003 and 2005 but remains low, at 4 percent of the population. In contrast, the proportion of users in high-income countries increased from 46 to 56 percent over the same period.
.gif "MDG8 - Fig 1 - Evolution of global aid")
.gif "MDG8 - Fig 2 - Evolution of global DAC")
.gif "MDG8 - Fig 3 - Trade restrictiveness")
.gif "MDG8 - Fig 4 - Debt sustainability")
.gif "MDG8 - Fig 5 - Growth in Internet affordability")
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