Actual Australian aid data is obtained from Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) statistical summaries and estimated aid values are from DFAT budget documents. Whenever actual values become available, we replace estimated values with actual values. In some years, DFAT would announce aid targets, allowing longer-term forecasts to be made.
”Note: You can find the specific data sources for each graph below the chart.
Historical GNI and CPI data are from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). To calculate projected GNI, we assume GNI growth equals to nominal GDP growth. Estimated CPI and nominal GDP growth rates for the next four years are provided in the Australian Federal Budget (also updated when Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook becomes available). We calculate nominal GDP growth rates for long-term projections after the next four years, assuming real GDP growth and inflation stay at the last estimated level.
Population data (used to calculate aid per capita and donations per capita) come from OECD Data Explorer. Note the OECD reports on the calendar year (January to December) while Australian aid data reports on the fiscal years (July to June). We use calendar year population data as a proxy for fiscal year values.
Government spending and defence spending are from Australian Federal Budget and Defence Budget respectively.
Data on donations to Australian NGOs come from ACFID annual reports, augmented by additional older data provided to the Development Policy Centre.
All data on this page come from come from the OECD’s Data Explorer. Aid data come from Flows by donor (ODA+OOF+Private)[DAC1]Table 1. Rankings were calculated based on the data available.
Although the OECD provides aid data back to the 1960s, in the earlier years there are some large discrepancies between this data and Australian government data. That is why we only show the comparisons back to 1995. There might still be some small discrepancies in the remaining years between the data for Australia shown in this section (from the OECD) and the data shown in the Trends section which is from the Australian government (see above). Small discrepancies might also arise due to the fact that this section uses calendar years (January to December) whereas the section on trends uses the fiscal year (July to June).
The OECD used to only publish net ODA figures but since 2018, it has provided ODA grant equivalent figures too, as part of its initiative to introduce a new system to measure donor effort. For comparability across time, the ODA time series continues to display ODA net disbursement numbers.
Under the net disbursement methodology, ODA included flows of cash that were granted, and the face value of loans that were lent to developing countries, deducting any repayments on the loans. More details on net ODA can be found here. Under the grant equivalent system, loans with more generous terms are accorded a higher ODA value. For a more in-depth explanation of the grant equivalent methodology, you may refer to this page.
Data on aid allocation by region and budgeted aid allocation by country comes from DFAT statistical summaries and budget document. Data on actual aid allocation by country comes from the OECD’s Data Explorer. Note that DFAT also reports country data in its statistical summaries, but as DFAT consolidates some country data in reporting, we choose data from the OECD which covers a broader list of aid recipient countries.
Gavi funding data can be found on this page of the Gavi website (look for the ‘Annual contributions and proceeds’ spreadsheets).
CEPI funding data comes from this page.
Global Fund replenishment data can be found on this page of the Global Fund’s website.
ADB replenishment data for the various replenishment rounds came from Asian Development Fund Reports
World Bank IDA replenishment data can be found in PDFs linked to from this page.
GPE data for 2007-2010 and 2011-2014 were pulled together from this DFAT webpage and this Devpolicy Blog. Since 2016, GPE has improved its information on funding on its website. Hence funding information for periods of 2015-2018 and onwards comes directly from GPE website.
Data come from WHO ACT Accelerator Funding Tracker; Vaccine Access for the Indo-Pacific; and UNICEF COVID-19 Vaccine Market Dashboard.
Data on aid allocations by sectors and partners come from DFAT statistical summaries, budget documents, and Development Assistance (ODA) Standard Time Series (see table 4) which is derived from statistical summaries.
Gender and climate aid data are from the OECD Data Explorer. We use data from 2014 onwards as DFAT’s reporting to the OECD on whether its projects have a genuine gender and climate focus is believed to be more reliable in recent periods.
Actual figures on humanitarian aid spending are taken from DFAT statistical summaries.
*If you have any questions, please email us (devpolicy.anu.edu.au).