There is a possibility that the development ministers of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) will agree on a new definition of official development assistance (ODA) at the end of 2014. Ongoing discussions on this matter may appear purely "technical" at first glance....

The situation of the 49 countries of sub-Saharan Africa has become even more varied in the past few years. The changes are highly relevant to aid (official development assistance/ODA) and other forms of development financing. The question is what contribution aid can make in the future in an...

Against the background of a longstanding discussion of advantages of bilateral and multilateral aid approaches the paper discusses mainly two aspects: (i) The distinction between bilateral and multilateral development cooperation is in practice often not clear. In particular, the EU aid approach...

Although it is not possible to identify a specific, theoretical optimum level of aid coordination for the European Union, there is a broad consensus on the need for reduced transaction costs and greater impact through a stronger adherence to coordination standards. However, neither member states...

The need for more coordination in European development cooperation is acknowledged by most academics and practitioners. It emerges because there has been a strong increase in the level of fragmentation and proliferation of official development assistance (ODA) in recent years, despite the calls...

Since the 2000s, the international community has increasingly recognised two basic aspects of development cooperation. First, international development cooperation faces a systemic crisis. Because of the way it is organised and implemented, it is part of the problem it wants solve. As a...

Development cooperation is under pressure to change. The traditional aid model – a resource transfer from North to South – is outdated. There are only 36 low-income countries left in the world. Two-thirds of the poorest people live in middle-income countries. Eradicating poverty has become...

2014 will be an important milestone for shaping the policy field of development cooperation in a post-2015 context. Two central events are taking place. The Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC) will convene for its first High-Level Meeting in April 2014 in Mexico...

In the current development debate, so called results based approaches play an important part. There are two aspects to this debate: On the one hand, further improving the effectiveness of development cooperation (aid) is important to the specialists, whereas on the other hand many donors...