Dear Mr Wright

Freedom of Information Request F2008-243

Thank you for your Freedom of Information request dated 16 October 2008. You asked where you could find information showing how much money was given in aid to countries last year and the type of aid given (money for education, or emergency aid etc). You mentioned that you had looked on the DFID website and found reports on total expenditure on aid given to continents, but you were really looking for a table showing exactly how much was given to each individual country.

There is a breakdown of aid given to individual countries in the annual report published by DFID called `Statistics on International Development' (SID). This shows how all official UK financial resources for international development are spent. Expenditure is broken down by destination country, type of assistance and purpose. It also gives details of UK funding channelled through multilateral agencies such as the United Nations and the European Commission. The latest issue covers the years 2003/04-2007/08, and is available online at:

http://www.dfid.gov.uk/pubs/files/exp-stats/contents.asp.

Tables 14.1 to 14.5 give a breakdown of spending in each country. As you will see, these include details on humanitarian assistance, technical co-operation and DFID debt relief: http://www.dfid.gov.uk/pubs/files/sid2008/tables-index.asp.

Table 21 http://www.dfid.gov.uk/pubs/files/exp-stats/table6.xls shows expenditure by broad sector (including humanitarian assistance and health) and region.

We do not, however, hold a complete breakdown of spending by sector (education, health etc) for each country and we estimate that the cost of compiling this would significantly exceed the FOI cost ceiling. This cost ceiling is currently set at £600 and represents the estimated cost of one person spending 3½ working days establishing whether we hold the information and then locating, retrieving and extracting it. Under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 we are not obliged to comply with this part of your request and we will not, therefore, be processing it any further. However if you would like to narrow your request to a specific country in a particular year, we may be able to provide a sectoral breakdown within the cost limit.

You can also find information about DFID assistance to specific countries on our website www.dfid.gov.uk (click on “country profiles”). These pages contain more detailed information on DFID country programmes and the specific sectors we focus on in individual countries.

If you have any queries about this letter, please contact me, quoting reference F2008-243.

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 Stephen Latham, Head of Knowledge and Information Management at the address shown above or email him at [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

Stephen Cassidy

Openness Unit

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