OECD's Gurría welcomes Stern Review into consequences of climate change

OECD - Paris, 15 December 2006

OECD Review of United States Development Assistance Programmes

The OECD’s Development Assistance Committee review of U.S. aid, including humanitarian assistance, noted many changes following the events of 11 September 2001. Development is now part of the foundation of the U.S. National Security Strategy. The DAC urged that there should be more explicit focus within the Strategy on poverty reduction.

With a record high USD 27.6 billion of official development assistance in 2005, the United States ranked first among DAC members in terms of aid volume. This represented 0.22% of its Gross National Income, twice the percentage registered in 2002; the DAC average is 0.33%. More than a third of this amount went to Iraq reconstruction and debt relief. Reflecting this, the Department of Defense accounted for 21.7% of ODA in 2005.

The review makes several recommendations to assist the U.S. in making its national programme of development co-operation more effective. It particularly encouraged the United States to use the current spirit of reform to better co-ordinate the multiple U.S. actors and programmes around a coherent national development strategy, based upon the new Framework for Foreign Assistance. Similarly, in the spirit of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, the United States is invited to use this opportunity to work more closely with donors and other partners in recipient countries.

The Development Assistance Committee, which brings together the major aid donors that are members of the OECD, has issued itsMain Findings and Recommendations(www.oecd.org/dac/peerreviews/us).

The Peer Review, led by Canada and the United Kingdom, took place on 07 December 2006. The US Delegation attending the review meeting was headed by Mr. James Kunder, Acting Deputy Administrator, United States Agency for International Development.

For further information, journalists are invited to contactHelen Fisherat the OECD's Media Division (tel. [33] 1 45 24 80 97).