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Revisions statement

Updated 20 July 2021

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On 20 July 2021, Statistics on International Development (SID): Final Aid Spend 2019 publication was updated to take account of a set of revisions for 2017-2019 Official Development Assistance (ODA). As announced in the Provisional SID 2020 (published April 2021), these revisions are minor, and the trends reported in the SID: Final Aid Spend 2019 publication are unaffected.

The effect of these revisions has reduced UK ODA by 拢13 million in 2019 and by 拢7 million in 2017 and 2018. The revised figure for total UK ODA in 2019 is 拢15,184 million; the ODA:GNI ratio continues to be 0.70 per cent for all 3 years. All accompanying tables and have been updated (revised years in the tables have been marked with an R). Please note that the Final SID 2019 narrative has not been adjusted. However, it is important to note that the trends remain the same. A list of all revisions affecting 2017-2019 are given below.

Summary of total UK ODA changes for 2017-2019

拢 million

- Original ODA figure Revised ODA figure Adjusted by
2017 拢14,059 拢14,052 -拢7
2018 拢14,552 拢14,545 -拢7
2019 拢15,197 拢15,184 -拢13

Revisions

  • the first revision is to account for double counting of a small amount of overseas platform costs[footnote 1] between government departments. Former-Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) implemented a new methodology for capturing ODA eligible administrative costs in 2017. The methodology document published at the time, specified that the UK Government platform would be captured as ODA by FCO and Department for International Development (DFID). However, the statistics team recently discovered that small amounts of these costs have also been included in government departments鈥� ODA figures

  • there have also been 2 revisions to the recipient country field following the discovery of data coding errors:

    • there has been a minor revision (+拢0.5m) to former-FCO bilateral ODA total for China. This is due to the recipient country of one programme (GB-China Centre) changing from 鈥淒eveloping country, unspecified鈥� to 鈥淐hina鈥�. This means the revised total UK bilateral ODA to China figure for 2019 is 拢68,380 thousand. UK ODA to China to the nearest million remains at 拢68 million for 2019

    • there has been a revision to BBC World Service total for Central African Republic. This is due to the recipient country of one programme in 2018 and 2019 changing from 鈥淐entral African Republic鈥� to 鈥淢iddle Africa, regional鈥�. This means the revised UK bilateral ODA to Central African Republic for 2018 is 拢25,967 thousand and 2019 is 拢24,781 thousand

  • there have been a couple of minor changes to the types of aid in 2019 to C01 (project-type interventions) for the following programmes: RALON1 (Home Office), 113183-104 and 300668-101 (former-DFID); ECTIMH and HPSR_HSR (Department for Health & Social Care). This means the revised UK ODA total for 2019 project-type interventions is 拢4,764,151 thousand

These changes are in line with our .

Please do contact us on [email protected] if you have any questions regarding these revisions.

  1. Overseas platform are costs that the FCDO incur to provide office and residential properties overseas to Government partners (for example rents, utilities and maintenance). The government partners reimburse the FCDO for those costs.聽鈫�

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