Abstract: The ReCom – Research and Communication on Foreign Aid – programme produced 247 original studies. More than 300 researchers from 59 countries came together and provided evidence on what does and could work in development, and what can be transferred and scaled up. ReCom’s five thematic areas are summarized in comprehensive Position Papers on: Aid, Growth and Employment, Aid and the Social Sectors; Aid and Gender Equality; Aid, Governance and Fragility; and Aid, Environment and Climate Change. ReCom research was communicated and tested in seven international Results Meetings, 83 seminar and conference presentations across the world, and an impressive series of academic outlets. The ReCom website http://recom.wider.unu.edu/ provides access to working papers, videos and research summaries. Together this material offers an unprecedented insight into what moves societies forward, what achieves change, and what aid can and does achieve.
Following the guidelines established at the outset, ReCom research was not meant to simply compile small ‘best practice’ projects, hoping that these might add up to systematic large scale impact. Instead the focus has been on synthesizing what aid has produced in terms of outputs and outcomes and on contributing to systematic thinking and reflection with a view to improving existing knowledge about development assistance. An old saying suggests that success is not doing extraordinary things – but doing ordinary things extraordinarily well. High impact aid is associated with doing many ordinary things, but also with doing the extraordinary, in less than ideal circumstances. In aid’s daily practice, context, political acumen and sequencing are indispensable to complement technical proficiency and expert identification of needs. As we approach 2015, the task of achieving and sustaining large-scale impact – ‘going to scale’ – stands out as aid’s greatest challenge.

The global economy is passing through a period of profound change. The immediate concern is with the financial crisis, originating in the North. The South is affected via reduced demand and lower prices for their exports, reduced private financial flows, and falling remittances. This is the first crisis. Simultaneously, climate change remains unchecked, with the growth in greenhouse gas emissions exceeding previous estimates. This is the second crisis. Finally, malnutrition and hunger are on the rise, propelled by the recent inflation in global food prices. This constitutes the third crisis. These three crises interact to undermine the prosperity of present and future generations. Each has implications for international aid and underline the need for concerted action.

1. We, Ministers of developed and developing countries responsible for promoting development and Heads of multilateral and bilateral development institutions, meeting in Paris on 2 March 2005, resolve to take far-reaching and monitorable actions to reform the ways we deliver and manage aid as we look ahead to the UN five-year review of the Millennium Declaration and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) later this year. As in Monterrey, we recognise that while the volumes of aid and other development resources must increase to achieve these goals, aid effectiveness must increase significantly as well to support partner country efforts to strengthen governance and improve development performance. This will be all the more important if existing and new bilateral and multilateral initiatives lead to significant further increases in aid.
2. At this High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, we followed up on the Declaration adopted at the High-Level Forum on Harmonisation in Rome (February 2003) and the core principles put forward at the Marrakech Roundtable on Managing for Development Results (February 2004) because we believe they will increase the impact aid has in reducing poverty and inequality, increasing growth, building capacity and accelerating achievement of the MDGs.

The world of international development assistance is undergoing three concomitant revolutions, which concur to the emergence of a truly global policy. First, it is living through a diversification of the goals it is asked to pursue: to its traditional objective of ushering convergence between less and more developed economies have progressively been adjoined those of financing access to essential services and protecting global public goods. Secondly, faced with this new array of challenges, the world of development aid has demonstrated an impressive capacity to increase the number and diversity of its players, generating a governance conundrum for this eminently fragmented global policy. Thirdly, the instruments used by this expanding array of actors to achieve a broader range of policy objectives have themselves mushroomed, in the wake of innovations in mainstream financial markets. Yet surprisingly, this triple revolution in goals, actors and tools has not yet impacted the way we measure both the financial volumes dedicated to this emerging global policy nor the concrete impacts it aims to achieve. This paper argues for the need to move from the conventional measure of Official Development Assistance to the construction of clearer benchmarks for what ultimately matters: resources and results that concur to 21st century international development.

On 1 March 2011, the Secretary of State for International Development, Andrew Mitchell outlined the findings of both the Multilateral and Bilateral Aid Reviews.

In the past several years, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has bolstered its diplomatic presence and garnered international goodwill through its financing of infrastructure and natural resource development projects, assistance in the carrying out of such projects, and large economic investments in many developing countries. This report examines China’s economic impact in three regions — Africa, Latin America (Western Hemisphere), and Southeast Asia — with an emphasis on bilateral foreign assistance.
China’s foreign aid is difficult to quantify. The PRC government does not release or explain Chinese foreign aid statistics and much of PRC foreign aid does not appear to be accounted for in the scholarly literature on foreign aid. Some Chinese foreign assistance partially resembles official development assistance (ODA) as defined by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), but in other aspects shares characteristics of foreign investment. In terms of development grants, the primary form of assistance provided by major OECD countries, China is a relatively small source of global aid. However, when China’s concessional loans and state-sponsored or subsidized overseas investments are included, the PRC becomes a major source of foreign aid .

Introduction
Measuring China’s Foreign Aid
China’s Foreign Aid Impact
Major Findings of the NYU Wagner School Study
Regional Highlights
Africa
Latin America
Southeast Asia

Figure 1. Reported PRC Aid by Year and Region, 2003-2007
Figure 2. Reported PRC Foreign Aid by Funding Source

Table 1. Similarities and Differences between OECD-Defined “ Official Development Assistance” (ODA) and “Chinese Aid ”
Table 2. Reported PRC Aid by Year, 2002-2007
Table 3. Reported PRC Aid by Funding Source and Region, 2002-2007
Table 4. Reported PRC Aid by Year and Region, 2002-2007
Table 5. Reported PRC Aid by Type and Region, 2002-2007
Table 6. Selected African Countries with Large Reported Aid and Investment Projects, 2002-2007
Table 7. Selected Major PRC Financing and Aid-Related Economic Projects in Africa
Table 8. Selected Latin American Countries with Large Reported Aid and Investment Projects, 2002-2007
Table 9. Selected Major PRC Financing and Aid-Related Economic Projects in Latin America
Table 10. Selected Southeast Asian Countries with Large Reported Aid and Investment Projects, 2002-2007
Table 11. Selected Major PRC Financing and Aid-Related Economic Projects in Southeast Asia
Table A-1. Selected PRC Aid and Investment Projects in 2008 (Announced or Begun): Africa
Table A-2. Selected PRC Aid and Investment Projects in 2008 (Announced or Begun): Latin America
Table A-3. Selected PRC Aid and Investment Projects in 2008 (Announced or Begun): Southeast Asia

Appendix. Recent PRC Foreign Assistance and Investment Projects (2008)
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