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The year 2011 is a landmark for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and its Development Assistance Committee (DAC), marking their 50th anniversary. The DAC is indeed one of the first committees to have been established at the OECD, attesting to the importance that our member countries have always attached to supporting development.
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After World War II, far-sighted leaders like George Marshall and Harry Truman realised that building a more peaceful and prosperous Europe would take more than laying down railroad tracks and putting up factories – it would take fashioning a community of shared economic values that fostered open, free, transparent and fair competition. Along with their international partners, they helped lay the foundations for what became the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
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The world of development has changed radically since the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) was established in 1961. At that time, most of the world’s providers of development assistance were represented in this committee. Today, there is an ever-growing number of financing instruments and entities, contributing to an increasingly complex architecture of development co-operation. At the same time, the complexity of issues that impinge upon – and are influenced by – patterns of development across the globe is more evident than ever before. As J. Brian Atwood, Chair of the DAC, states in his introduction, “More than ever, national political leaders are fully aware that many of our pressing global challenges can only be solved with enhanced development solutions and therefore with better development co-operation.”
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Fifty years of experience in any field bring with them an array of knowledge, often learned through trial and error in adapting to change. Development cooperation is no different. Over the 50 years since the creation of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), our members and partners – donor governments, developing nations, multilateral organisations, philanthropic institutions and civil society organisations – have learned from their individual experiences and, above all, from their interaction with one another.
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The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have become the high-profile framework for world debates around development. What’s less known is the story behind the goals and their origins in the work of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and its Development Assistance Committee (DAC). The MDGs are only one example of how the DAC has helped shape development thinking and practices since the 1960s. As the OECD celebrates its 50th anniversary, this special article reviews five decades of development co-operation and assistance, examines the role played by the OECD and the DAC, and looks at the challenges that lie ahead as the OECD enters its second half-century.
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This section provides information on the volumes and key features of the development co-operation programmes of 16 countries that are not members of the OECD. Eleven officially report their ODA flows to the DAC: Chinese Taipei, Cyprus,12 Kuwait, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Malta, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) do not report their data but have been making important contributions to international development co-operation for many years.
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