Five things we learned about development finance while building Aid Atlas

This policy brief by the Stockholm Environment Institute describes the development and utility of Aid Atlas, an interactive platform designed to simplify the analysis of global development finance data from the OECD's Creditor Reporting System (CRS). Using the tool, the authors identify several trends and data gaps in development aid between 2013 and 2017, including the low proportion of funding for general environment protection, the impact of the European refugee crisis on donor budgets, and significant disbursement challenges specifically associated with climate finance.

• Between 2013 and 2017, funding for general environment protection was very low, representing approximately 2% of total development finance disbursements, which averaged just under US$ 6 billion per year. This amount is less than what donors spent on their own administrative costs.
• The refugee crisis in Europe led to a surge in spending on refugees in donor countries, peaking at US$ 16 billion in 2016. For donors like Germany and Sweden, this spending was an addition to their existing aid budgets. However, for the US, where total development aid remained flat since 2010, increased spending on refugees resulted in declines in other aid sectors.
• Turkey acted as both a recipient and a donor of development finance during the Syrian refugee crisis. Between 2015 and 2016, aid disbursed to Turkey for material relief assistance and services rose from US$ 146 million to US$ 646 million, while Turkey itself reported providing US$ 10.7 billion in disbursements, with US$ 8.5 billion going to Syria.
• Tracking finance for specific global agendas, such as sustainable oceans or 'zero hunger' (SDG 2), is difficult because the OECD CRS does not have dedicated sectors for these goals. Instead, relevant funding is fragmented across multiple sector and purpose codes, making the data distorted and incomplete.
• Some donors provide opaque data by failing to disaggregate financial flows to specific recipients or sectors. For example, Germany reported roughly a third of its 2013–17 development finance as targeting 'Developing countries, unspecified'. Globally, this unspecified category is the largest recipient category, totaling US$ 404 billion since 2002.
• Climate change mitigation and adaptation finance has a significantly lower disbursement ratio (the ratio of funds actually paid out versus those committed) compared to the global average for all development finance, which is 86%. This suggests unique implementation or process-related challenges for climate projects.
• Multilateral climate funds show particularly low disbursement ratios. The Green Climate Fund reported no disbursements by the end of 2017 despite US$ 2.4 billion in commitments. The Global Environment Facility reported ratios of 7% for mitigation and 16% for adaptation, while the World Bank’s Climate Investment Funds had a ratio of 32%.

APA

Atteridge, A., & Savvidou, G. (2020). Five things we learned about development finance while building Aid Atlas. Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/sei-pb-200602-aid-atlas-atteridge.pdf

Chicago

Atteridge, Aaron, and Georgia Savvidou. Five things we learned about development finance while building Aid Atlas. Stockholm Environment Institute, 2020. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/sei-pb-200602-aid-atlas-atteridge.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Atteridge |first1=Aaron |last2=Savvidou |first2=Georgia |title=Five things we learned about development finance while building Aid Atlas |publisher=Stockholm Environment Institute |date=June 2020 |url=https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/sei-pb-200602-aid-atlas-atteridge.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{atteridge2020five, author = {Atteridge, Aaron and Savvidou, Georgia}, title = {{Five things we learned about development finance while building Aid Atlas}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2020}, month = jun, url = {https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/sei-pb-200602-aid-atlas-atteridge.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }