Financing Global and Regional Public Goods Through ODA: Analysis and Evidence from the OECD Creditor Reporting System

Helmut Reisen, Marcelo Soto and Thomas Weithöner

No 232, OECD Development Centre Working Papers from OECD Publishing

Abstract: The present level of ODA falls short of the amount needed to finance the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The figure of additional $50 billion per year, roughly the present total of ODA spent by DAC donors, is often quoted (e.g. by the Zedillo Report); it results from the sum of the fight against communicable diseases ($ 7-10 billion), primary schooling ($10 billion), infant and maternal mortality ($12 billion) and halving world poverty ($20 billion). The scarcity of public resources raises the importance of investing in international public goods as the cost of lifting one person out of income poverty, for example through agricultural research and global trade expansion, is estimated to be much lower than the cost of the same impact through traditional aid to poor countries. This raises important issues for donor strategies, in particular principles of aid allocation, which this paper aims to address. First, should aid be partly earmarked towards international public goods? ... Le niveau actuel de l’APD est bien inférieur aux sommes nécessaires pour financer les Objectifs de développement du millénaire. Le chiffre de 50 milliards de dollars supplémentaires par an — soit à peu près le montant total de l’APD mobilisée par les donateurs du CAD — est souvent avancé (par ex. dans le rapport Zedillo). Il correspond à l’addition des besoins de financement évalués pour lutter contre les maladies transmissibles (7 à 10 milliards de dollars) et la mortalité maternelle et infantile (12 milliards), pour promouvoir l’école primaire (10 milliards) et pour réduire de moitié la pauvreté dans le monde (20 milliards). Du fait de cette rareté des financements publics, il apparaît encore plus important d’investir dans les biens publics mondiaux : en effet, on estime qu’il est moins coûteux de sortir une personne de la pauvreté via la recherché agronomique et l’expansion du commerce mondial que par les mécanismes traditionnels de l’aide aux pays pauvres. Cela soulève des ...

Date: 2004-01-01
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