Australia's Overseas Aid Program Statistical Summary 1997-98
Advancing Australia's national interest by assisting developing countries to reduce poverty and achieve sustainable development is the objective of the Australian Government's aid program. Economic growth and stability, particularly in the Asia Pacific region, are essential to the prosperity and security of all Australians. The aid program assists poor people in developing countries, and is also clearly in Australia's interests.
Australia's Overseas Aid Program Statistical Summary (commonly known as the "Green Book") provides a comprehensive summary of Australian government aid expenditure.
It is produced to allow the Commonwealth Government of Australia, other agencies, academics, researchers and the broader community access to detailed statistical information on the aid program and its performance.
All Australian aid statistics included in this publication refer to the financial year July 1997 to June 1998.
Changes from previous publications
The content of this publication has been changed substantially from that of previous years. A number of new tables have been included, and changes made to others in order to improve the consistency of figures published throughout the publication.
In addition to the content, readers should be aware that historical figures for 1995-96 and 1996-97 have been revised in this publication. Significant work has gone into improving the quality of the data on which this publication is based and as a result of this the following changes will be observed:
- the total aid flow figures for previous financial years are now slightly different. This is a result of some corrections to historical data, and to the methodology used to calculate total aid flows;
- the sectoral breakdown of figures has changed. In 1998, a major exercise within AusAID to check and where necessary change the sectoral coding of projects has resulted in changes to the overall sectoral breakdown; and
- the calculation of the country breakdown of aid flows has also changed. This is as a result of a revised methodology being applied to the allocation of regional expenditure to recipient countries.
For more information about any of the above changes please contact the Statistical Services Section of AusAID.
Contact details are provided at the end of this Section.
Sources of data
The aid flow statistics in the Statistical Summary are primarily sourced from AusAID databases. The AusAID aid flow statistics were based on data extracted in January 1999. As a result, any revisions made to historical data after January will not be reflected in this publication.
Additional sources of information include other Commonwealth Government departments, State Governments and voluntary agencies (non-government organisations).
Some supplementary data on other donor countries has been included in the publication. This data is compiled by the Development Assistance Committee (
DAC) of the
OECD, and the data in the publication have been sourced from the
OECD DAC's statistics which can be accessed through the DAC's web site at
www.oecd.org/dac/stats/. [external website]
Concepts
The concepts referred to throughout this publication are defined in the glossary in
Appendix 1 [PDF 32kb].
The main focus of the publication is to provide a range of statistics on aid flows. The definition of 'aid flow' is consistent with that of the DAC of the OECD. While the underlying definition is also used in AusAID's budget paper, the methodology that has been applied in the budget paper is slightly different, resulting in a different figure for total aid flows.
Appendix 3 provides some information on the different measures used in this publication and the budget paper.
In some tables the distinction is made between Official Development Assistance (ODA) and Official Assistance (OA). The distinction between ODA and OA is based on the recipient country - the country income groupings used in the definition are given in
Appendix 2 [PDF 30kb].
The publication includes information on the
ODA/
GNP ratio. This figure is actually calculated using the GNI (Gross National Income) figure rather than the
GNP (Gross National Product) figure. In late 1998, the Australian Bureau of Statistics changed its method of calculating
GNI, resulting in all historical measures of
GNI,
GNP and
GDP being revised upwards and consequently
ODA/
GNP ratios revised downwards.
Much information in the publication is classified by program element. Program element is a fairly detailed classification that reflects AusAID's program structure, as outlined in
Appendix 4 [PDF 30kb].
Other tables give the sectoral breakdown of the aid flow. The
DAC sector code is an indication of the primary sector benefiting from a particular project. All projects, both AusAID and other Government Department, have been classified according to their primary DAC code.
A list of abbreviations used throughout the publication is included in
Appendix 5 [PDF 30kb].
Publication Layout
The tables in the
Statistical Summary are divided into four sections, and this is followed by the set of explanatory and technical notes in Appendix 1 to 6.
The first section provides a series of time series tables (covering the financial years 1995-96, 1996-97 and 1997-98) which include details of aid flow by program element, recipient country and sector.
The second section provides more detailed information on aid flows in the 1997-98 financial year.
The third section provides some supplementary information on various aspects of the aid program, including aid through Non-Government Organisations (NGOs), food and emergency aid.
Section four provides some data on all DAC donor country aid flows.
Further Information
Data from this publication will also be available on AusAID's Internet site:
http://www.ausaid.gov.au and for AusAID readers is available on AusAID's Intranet.
More detailed information can be requested of the Statistical Services Section in AusAID.
The statistics contained in this work may be freely used and reproduced provided acknowledgment is given in any publication of the source of the statistics.
The Commonwealth of Australia accepts no responsibility for any loss, damage or injury resulting from the use and interpretation of the statistics.
Requests and inquiries concerning these statistical tables should be addressed to the Director, Statistical Services Section, AusAID, GPO Box 887, Canberra ACT 2601 (telephone 02 6206 4580, fax 02 6206 4036)
