NEW DEVELOPMENT FINANCE MEASURE SHOULD BE TOSSD OUT THE WINDOW!

This policy brief by the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) criticizes the development of the Total Official Support for Sustainable Development (TOSSD) statistic. The author argues that the measure, driven by the OECD, lacks transparency, excludes the perspectives of developing countries, and risks undermining existing Official Development Assistance (ODA) commitments by allowing donors to inflate their contributions through the inclusion of non-concessional loans and in-donor costs.

• The Total Official Support for Sustainable Development (TOSSD) is a new statistic designed to measure financial flows from traditional and emerging donors toward global public goods and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), but it has been developed without consulting the developing countries that are its primary beneficiaries.
• There is a concern that TOSSD lacks the accountability mechanisms associated with Official Development Assistance (ODA), specifically the historical commitment by industrialised countries to provide 0.7% of their gross national income (GNI) to fight poverty.
• The author argues that TOSSD may be used to inflate donor figures by including in-donor costs—such as support for refugees beyond the first year—and domestic expenditures that only indirectly contribute to global development.
• TOSSD is criticized for blurring the line between public and private funding by including non-concessional loans and 'publically-mobilized private financing', which may allow governments to claim credit for profit-making private sector investments.
• The use of 'mutual benefit' rhetoric in TOSSD is viewed as an inappropriate misappropriation of South-South cooperation discourse when applied to North-South relations, where developed countries have different historical responsibilities.
• The framework's heavy emphasis on financial inputs overlooks critical non-financial contributions such as technology transfer and knowledge exchange, and relies on donor self-reporting which is prone to inflation.
• The author suggests that the OECD should prioritize improving Country Programmable Aid (CPA) and ensuring DAC countries meet the 0.7% GNI ODA target rather than pursuing TOSSD, which is described by one scholar as a 'survival strategy for the DAC'.

APA

Besharati, N. (2017). NEW DEVELOPMENT FINANCE MEASURE SHOULD BE TOSSD OUT THE WINDOW! South African Institute of International Affairs. https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Policy-Insights-45.pdf

Chicago

Besharati, Neissan. NEW DEVELOPMENT FINANCE MEASURE SHOULD BE TOSSD OUT THE WINDOW! South African Institute of International Affairs, 2017. https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Policy-Insights-45.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Besharati |first1=Neissan |title=NEW DEVELOPMENT FINANCE MEASURE SHOULD BE TOSSD OUT THE WINDOW! |publisher=South African Institute of International Affairs |date=May 2017 |url=https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Policy-Insights-45.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{besharati2017new, author = {Besharati, Neissan}, title = {{NEW DEVELOPMENT FINANCE MEASURE SHOULD BE TOSSD OUT THE WINDOW!}}, institution = {South African Institute of International Affairs}, year = {2017}, month = may, url = {https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Policy-Insights-45.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }