Why this page for discussion?

In the context of the ongoing debates on financing for development, reference is often made to the absolute values or relative importance of one or another financing source. At the same time,the underlying data are not always comparable, which may result in a bias in such assessments. To strengthen the understanding of the data and its shortcomings, we have put together the figures from public sources. These are not perfect, and a discussion between interested parties could contribute to the international debate.

What data?

The files in the Library contain calculations of the financing available for all countries. It develops further the methodology used in the 2013 EU Accountability Report and shows the time series for all countries and for different country groups for the decade 2002-2011. As such, it is an illustration of the spectrum of country situations. 

It shows that since 2002, for developing countries as a group, the public domestic finance has more than doubled and both domestic and international private finance more than tripled, with public international finance increasing by a comparatively low 1/5^th, though increasing significantly for LICs while slightly declining in MICs. This validates the earlier partial information that the main finance sources in most countries are domestic, while in LICs the international finance (especially the private sector) has a much more important position.

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Please see the file “Summary of FfD aggregates” for the headline data and more graphs, and the Data - General issues page to access the detailed datasets.

At the same time, not all series are complete due to lack of comparable data for some countries, and particularly public and private domestic finance suffer from under-reporting. These and other shortfalls are the main focus of this site. Please note that the discussions and papers provided are strictly informal and do not represent the official views of the EU institutions or participants, unless explicitly stated otherwise.

How to contribute here?

This platform is proposed for interested parties for discussing the methodology and data issues for such quantification, hopefully contributing to creating a stronger basis for international policy discussions. The site is set up to create a space for free exchange, and the comments provided here do not represent official positions. After registering on the site, please use the comment boxes under different pages to share your ideas on specific issues.