Official development assistance (ODA) has been the standard measure of foreign aid for 45 years, but its creation was largely accidental, and followed no plan. Its origins lie with efforts by the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) in the early 60s to soften and harmonise the terms...

The definition of Official Development Assistance (ODA) has for 40 years been the global standard for measuring donor efforts in supporting development co-operation objectives. It has provided the yardstick for documenting the volume and the terms of the concessional resources provided,...