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Amazing work on your part. Thank you for increasing awareness of the issue.

While less impressive, the International Organisation for Migration has a <a href="http://www.iom.int/cms/en/sites/iom/home/about-migration/world-migration.html" rel="nofollow">visualisation</a> that tracks people movements. Perhaps it's obvious, but it's interesting to see how the remittance flows compare to the movement of people.

I have just discovered that the Guardian put together a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/interactive/2013/jan/31/remittances-money-migrants-home-interactive" rel="nofollow">similar visualisation</a> earlier this year. While it doesn't provide time-series information like the visualisation discussed above, I think it does a better job mapping where exactly money flows between countries. The way it visualises migration patterns is also very interesting!

The relationship between Gulf Politicians and Administrators over the years was a mixed one. Service delivery machanism was affected and in the end the people suffered the most. The current MPs now have the crucial task to sort this out and make the system work...Maybe I'm barking the wrong tree here. But thank God for missionaries.

It seems true. And it is a shame. AusAID could play a much more interesting role than the one it plays at present. Its <a href="http://wp.me/pYCOD-1aO" rel="nofollow">Knowledge Sector Initiative in Indonesia</a> is quite an innovation. Something DFID has not dared to do -not at that scale at least. More interestingly, AusAID's <a href="http://ausaid.govspace.gov.au/2012/08/02/ausaid’s-approach-to-revitalising-the-knowledge-sector-in-indonesia/" rel="nofollow">willingness to engage with the public</a> during the procurement process constitutes yet another innovation in the industry. In this sector (of knowledge and the role of research in policy), at least, we need new voices and ideas. Too few actors are quickly capturing the attention of the same funders. AusAID has the opportunity to be the innovative partner in the partnership it has with DFID. It has access to great researchers (quite literally around the corner from its HQ), to a 'new' class of foreign policy/development workers without the hang-up of British history, it is undoubtedly seen as more equal (more 'southerner') across the developing world, etc.

It seems everyone has lost their integrity to self preservations and greed. Sam you are truly a man of integrity with enormous courage and we salute you with great honour for showing us the true meaning of upholding an integrity. You have the peoples heart and our heavenly father is always with you for that for! God Bless.

Cool, thanks Jonathan, Robin. And whatever the actual figures, given that unofficial flows would boost the total remittance total to around three quarters of a trillion dollars, the main point they are making still stands, that: People are paying a lot more than countries. Impressive level of detail too - I was even able to get a result for Samoa!

If they were using data on Official Development Finance (ODF), as their reference indicates, that would have delivered a too-low total ($US151 billion in 2011) and also would have included some non-concessional flows, since ODF is broader than ODA. However, even if they're being a bit sloppy with the term ODA, they're in the right ball park. If you look at the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) <a href="http://www.oecd.org/dac/stats/statisticsonresourceflowstodevelopingcountries.htm" rel="nofollow">reporting tables</a> for 2011, while net ODA was only $US134 billion, you can see that gross ODA disbursements were $US149 billion (table 13), grants by NGOs were $US31 billion (table 2), and ODA from non-DAC donors was at least $US13 billion (tables 33 and 33a) and probably much more. So gross concessional flows to developing countries from all sources were probably at about the level they estimated -- i.e. a bit above $200 billion.

A good question Jason. The authors of the visualisation must have been incorporating more than just ODA in their calculations of development flows (notice they call it 'development aid' not ODA). Still, when looking at <a href="http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=REF_TOTAL_ODF#" rel="nofollow">their source</a> of development aid the numbers still don't quite add up. I would have to do some more digging into it but overall I still think the visualisation does a great job in showing how remarkable remittance and migration patterns are. Regards.

Correction: Garth Luke has pointed out to me an error in these calculations. In fact, the estimate for the aid increase in 2016-17 should be $547 million (not $380 million), giving an average increase for the three years in the forward estimates of $577 million (not $520 million), and leaving a required increase of $1.9 billion in the final year (not $2.1 billion). Thanks Garth.

I am quite sure the answer is yes. However, the answer doesn’t matter greatly because it is estimated that only $13 million of the $236 million will be spent in 2013-14. At this point we don't know what, if any, further funding might be allocated from the aid budget to meet in-Australia asylum-seeker costs in 2014-15 and beyond. Stephen Howes and I included a question about this in an <a href="https://devpolicy.org/a-whole-new-set-of-questions-asylum-seekers-in-png-communities-20130805/" rel="nofollow">earlier post</a> about the $236 million allocation in the August Budget Statement. We noted that the government’s more thoroughgoing offshore processing policy will, in theory, eliminate all costs associated with asylum seekers living in the Australian community and awaiting determination of their claims, other than those associated with people who arrived before the regional ‘solution’ was announced. Thus one would assume that at least some of the $375 million appropriated to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) in the May budget is no longer required to meet domestic costs and could have been reallocated for spending in PNG to cover the estimated $13 million expenditure requirement in 2013-14. However, there is no indication in the August Budget Statement that the $236 million allocation for community-based arrangements in PNG includes any funding from the $375 million previously allocated. In fact the statement says that the $236 million ‘has been offset from a reduction in AusAID’s budget’, whereas the $375 million, while reportable as ODA, forms part of DIAC’s budget. There’s a separate and much larger question about the fate of the two amounts of $375 million transferred from AusAID’s budget to DIAC’s in December 2012 and May 2013. As I have commented in the past, no policy basis for determining these amounts was ever made public and the amounts seemed larger than might have been expected if the relevant expenditures were to meet the requirements of ODA eligibility. DIAC’s Secretary admitted in early May, during Senate Estimates hearings, that DIAC was likely to underspend against the 2012-13 allocation. We don’t know whether and to what extend they did underspend, or what the consequences might have been for the 2012-13 final ODA outcome. If DIAC is going to fall short against the 2013-14 target, and can estimate how far short, the appropriate course of action would obviously be to return the excess funds to AusAID in sufficient time to allow them to be programmed in 2013-14.

Great visualisation. Good detail. But are those ODA figures accurate? $250 billion sounds way too high, see <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2012/sep/20/drop-aid-declining-will-global-partnership" rel="nofollow">this story</a> from The Guardian, which mentions a figure of $133 billion, nearly half of the figures above.