literacy for life; EFA global monitoring report, 2006 - Institut de ...

ANNEX AID DATA / 409
youth and adults, and early childhood education.
Education, level unspecified: the aid to
education reported in the DAC database includes
basic, secondary and post secondary education
and a subcategory called ‘education, level
unspecified’. This subcategory covers aid related
to education policy and research, as well as aid
for buildings and teacher training where the level
of education is unspecified. Sector budget
funding, the contribution of funds directly to
the budget of a ministry of education, is often
reported by donors in this subcategory. Although
this aid can in fact be used for specific levels of
education, such information is not available in
the DAC database. This lack has implications for
accurately assessing the resources made
available to a given level.
Technical cooperation (sometimes referred
to as technical assistance): according to the DAC
Directives, technical cooperation is the provision
of know-how in the form of personnel, training,
research and associated costs. It includes (a)
grants to nationals of aid recipient countries
receiving education or training at home or abroad;
and (b) payments to consultants, advisers and
similar personnel as well as teachers and
administrators serving in recipient countries
(including the cost of associated equipment).
Where such assistance is related specifically to a
capital project, it is included with project and
programme expenditure and not separately
reported as technical cooperation. The actual aid
activities reported in this category vary by donor,
as interpretations of the definition are broad.
Debt relief: this includes debt forgiveness, i.e.
the extinction of a loan by agreement between the
creditor (donor) and the debtor (aid recipient), and
other action on debt, including debt swaps, buybacks
and refinancing. In the DAC database, debt
forgiveness is reported as a grant. It raises gross
ODA but not necessarily net ODA.
Aid data
international transfer of financial resources
or of goods or services valued by the donor.
As the aid committed in a given year can be
disbursed later, sometimes over several years,
the annual aid figures based on commitments
and disbursements differ.
Gross and net disbursements: gross
disbursements are the total aid extended. Net
disbursements are the total aid extended minus
amounts of loan principal repaid by recipients or
cancelled through debt forgiveness.
Current and constant prices: aid figures in the
DAC database are expressed in US$. When other
currencies are converted into dollars at the
exchange rates prevailing at the time, the
resulting amounts are at current prices and
exchange rates. When comparing aid figures
between different years, adjustment is required to
compensate for inflation and changes in exchange
rates. Such adjustments allow amounts to be
expressed in constant dollars, i.e. in dollars fixed
at the value they held in a given reference year,
including their external value in terms of other
currencies. Thus, 2002 constant dollars expresses
amounts in terms of the purchasing power of
dollars in 2002. In this Report, most data are
presented in 2002 constant dollars. The indices
used for adjusting currencies and years (called
deflators) are derived from Table 36 of the
statistical annex of the 2004 DAC annual report
(OECD-DAC, 2005b). Figures in previous editions
of the EFA Global Monitoring Report were based
on the constant prices of different years (the 2005
Report was based on 2001 constant prices), so
figures for a given country in a given year differ
from those presented in this Report for the same
year.
For more detailed and precise definitions of
terms used in the DAC database, see the DAC
Directives, available at
www.oecd.org/dataoecd/36/32/31723929.htm#32,33
Source: OECD-DAC (2000, 2005a).
Commitments and disbursements: a commitment
is a firm obligation by a donor, expressed in
writing and backed by the necessary funds, to
provide specified assistance to a country or
multilateral organization. The amount specified is
recorded as a commitment. Disbursement is the
release of funds to, or purchase of goods or
services for, a recipient; in other words, the
amount spent. Disbursements record the actual