Goal 17
Partnerships for the goals
The dollar value of financial and technical assistance (including through North-South, South-South and triangular cooperation) committed to developing countries
has been selected by the Inter-agency Expert Group on Sustainable Development Goal Indicators (IAEG-SDG) as the indicator to measure progress towards this target. As noted in target 17.2, net disbursements of official development assistance (ODA) by the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) were valued at US$134 billion in 2014 (in constant 2013 dollar terms). But as also noted in target 17.3, ODA is only a subset of the multilateral development aid and cooperation afforded to developing countries. Finance may also be made available through a variety of other sources including South-South cooperationThe term signifies a broad framework for collaboration among countries of the South in the political, economic, social, cultural, environmental and technical domains.
more. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, robust valuations of South-South cooperation are not available, with estimates varying between US$16.1 billion and US$19 billion (United Nations, 2014). But owing to a variety of conceptual, definitional and measurement issues, many argue that even the higher end of this range is an underestimate (UNCTAD, 2015a).
DAC publishes estimates of total net ODA by recipient region and country17.33. Approximately three quarters of all ODA can be broken down by individual country (figure 17.17). The residual quarter is either allocated to pan-regionalA pan-region is a geographic region or State’s sphere of economic, political and cultural influence extending beyond that State’s borders.
more projects or the recipient country is unspecified. Of the data where recipients are clearly denoted, it is clear that sub-Saharan Africa has been the biggest recipient over the past five years, accounting for more than one quarter (28 per cent) of net ODA receipts in 2014. South and Central Asia has also been a large net recipient during the 2010-2014 period, accounting for 12 per cent in 2014.
The growth in ODA to the Middle East is striking - accounting for only 7 per cent of net ODA receipts in 2010 compared with 16 per cent in 2014. The level of ODA to Europe is also noteworthy, averaging 5-6 per cent over the five year period and higher than that given to Oceania, Far East Asia, South America, North and Central America or North Africa.
DAC notes that just over one third (35 per cent) of what it describes as multilateral official development finance goes towards administrative infrastructure17.34 and almost a half (44 per cent) to economic infrastructure17.35, with the residual being spent on productive capacity (14 per cent)17.36 and multisector programmes (4 per cent)17.37 (OECD, 2015c).
