Dear Mr Ryder

Freedom of Information Request F2009-167

Thank you for your Freedom of Information request dated 15 July. You asked for information on the amount of money spent on overseas aid since 1977.

Please note that I have interpreted your request as relating to the amount of money spent by the UK government on overseas aid and focussed on information held and published by DFID. If, however, you would like more general information on aid flows worldwide, you might be interested in checking the information published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) which collects and publishes information on aid spending for all donor countries, including the UK. You can find details on their website at http://stats.oecd.org/qwids/.

DFID is responsible for most of the UK Government's spending on international development and we also draw together information from other UK government departments. Statistical reporting on aid is very complex and has changed significantly over the years. DFID now reports aid spending under a variety of headings and I've set out a short description of a few of the main terms below, but you will find more detailed versions of these - and other aid terms - in our annual report called Statistics on International Development (SID) which is on our website www.dfid.gov.uk.

Official Development Assistance (ODA) is official financing or other forms of assistance given by governments to developing countries to promote and implement development. It only covers assistance given to countries and organisations on the DAC list of eligible recipients. ODA is based on calendar years and is the figure most commonly used to compare aid provided by other donors.

Gross Public Expenditure on Development (GPEX) covers all development aid flows from all official UK sources to all countries and organisations, including those that do not meet the DAC criteria. It is based on financial years.

Bilateral aid is aid from all official sources (i.e. government departments and public bodies), which is provided on a country to country basis. It is channelled though the overseas governments, civil society organisations, the private sector and others. As well as aid money, it includes humanitarian assistance (eg food aid, shelter, medical care in emergencies) and technical assistance (eg experts, training, and research).

Multilateral aid is aid which reaches people in overseas countries through international organisations such as the European Union, the World Bank and the United Nations.

I will take each of your questions in turn.

1. How much money has been given to countries overseas in aid from 1977 to date?

The annual SID report publishes a list of the amount of Official Development Assistance given by the UK government to overseas countries from 1970. For ease of reference I have set out the information from 1977 to 2008 in Annex 1 attached. Please note that the 2008 figure is still provisional and that we will publish the final figure in the 2009 SID report which will be available on our website in the autumn.

2. Which countries received the money and how much money was given to each one over the period 1977 to date?

We do not hold a complete breakdown of how much Official Development Assistance has been given to specific countries since 1977. However, you can still get some limited historical country information from back copies of SID (previously known as British Aid Statistics). Your local library might hold copies of these or you could contact the Office for National Statistics for more assistance. Contact details are on their website at www.ons.gov.uk. These reports contain a wide variety of historical information on aid spending available. This includes county breakdowns but given the time span, changes and complexity of aid reporting, the format and content of the information varies quite significantly.

DFID publishes a range of current information on how and where UK aid money is spent in the annual SID reports. The 2006, 2007 and 2008 reports are on our website and provide a variety of country breakdowns from 2001 to 2008. Please note that the figures given in each report may not always match as they may have been updated in subsequent reports.

2008 Report

http://www.dfid.gov.uk/About-DFID/Finance-and-performance/DFID-Expenditure-Statistics/Statistics-on-International-Development-2008/

Tables 14.1 to 14.5 give country breakdowns of the UK's bilateral and multilateral GPEX from 2003-04 to 2007-08. (Multilateral figures for 2007-08 will be published in the 2009 SID Report).

2007 Report

http://www.dfid.gov.uk/About-DFID/Finance-and-performance/DFID-Expenditure-Statistics/Statistics-on-International-Development-2007/

Tables 14.1 to 14.5 give country breakdowns of the UK's bilateral GPEX from 2002-03 to 2006-07. Tables 16.2 to 16.6 give a country breakdown of multilateral ODA from 2002 to 2005.

2006 Report

Tables 12.1 to 12.5 gives country breakdowns of bilateral GPEX from 2001-02 to 2005-06.

http://www.dfid.gov.uk/About-DFID/Finance-and-performance/DFID-Expenditure-Statistics/Statistics-on-International-Development-2006/

If you have any queries about this letter, please contact me quoting reference number F2009-167

If you are unhappy with the service we have provided and wish to make a complaint or request a review of our decision, you should write to Openness Unit at the above address or e-mail [email address]

If you do make a complaint and are not content with the outcome, you may apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. Generally, the Information Commissioner cannot make a decision unless you have exhausted DFID's complaints procedure. You can contact the Information Commissioner at:

The Information Commissioner's Office,

Wycliffe House,

Water Lane,

Wilmslow,

Cheshire SK9 5AF

Yours sincerely

Maureen McWhirter

Openness Unit

F2009-167: Annex 1

NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED

NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED